King of The Hill’s Legacy as THE Animated Sitcom

Earlier last year my boss gave me the first six seasons of King of the Hill as a gift, but I’ve had a longstanding admiration for the show and had seen most, if not all, of the episodes. Re-watching the show uncovered old memories and reflections that compelled me to write what you are about to read. I was exposed to the show both when I was a young kid and an adult, first watching the episodes on Fox during the celebrated Sunday night lineup, and catching re-runs on Cartoon Network’s adult programming block, Adult Swim. For those not familiar with the premise (heaven forbid it), the story is centered around the Hills, a family living in a Texan small town called Arlen, based off of other cities found in the DFW Metroplex. Even though the population is around 140,000 people, local tradition is defiantly proud, with many people out on their doorsteps supporting parades, high school football games, and patronizing local business, all centered close to the town. Outside the city limits, other small towns with their own traditions and cultures staunchly enforced, rival that of Arlen, the chief being the town of McMaynerberry. The entire show focuses on the rural life of Middle America with a comedic, astute level of detail. The show’s creator, Mike Judge, who grew up in Texas in a town very much like Arlen is privy and intimately familiar with the regional attitudes and customs.

                Of course, the show’s titular character, Hank Hill, is the star of the show, depicted as an idealistic, naive, suburbanite with unapologetic moral character. And though the first season depicted Hank as coarse and stereotypically conservative, the depth of his character comes to light in subsequent seasons, as writers of the show created the portrait of a man that is principled yet capable of easily misunderstanding the changing world around him. Hank is exposed to modern elements of the world (cosmopolitan, postmodern ideals, “liberal” ideologies, unique subcultures, and various ethnicities) throughout the show’s duration, often following a plot like the one below:

1. ·         Hank encounters a subculture
2. ·         Hank struggles with the values of that subculture.
3. ·         Hank ultimately accepts or rejects the subculture (by reasoned or arbitrary means).

The tension between tradition and new thought is constant, ultimately striking a perplexingly palatable middle ground. In this regard, Hank truly is the archetypical American male acting as an ecumenical bridge between liberalism and conservatism. 

                The supporting characters in the show are varied across different socioeconomic backgrounds and ideas. Hank is supported by his wife Peggy and his son Bobby. (Their relationship I will elaborate on later.) Hank’s neighbors, all of whom are developed throughout the series, are colorfully nuanced. Dale Gribbel, Boomhauer, and Bill Dauterive serve to contrast Hank’s ideals. Dale is a conspiracy theorist, paranoid and unsettled. Opposite of Dale is Bill, a hopelessly naïve and sad individual, willing to believe anything if the result is his own gratification. Boomhauer is the least developed in the series, but strikes a moderate balance between Dale and Bill while still retaining faults and complexity.

                Dale and Bill are easily my favorite characters in the show due to their co-dependency featured throughout the show’s run. Despite being characterized as a conspiracy theorist and always suspicious of the world he occupies, Dale often makes inaccurate assessments of his surroundings. And despite the trouble he gets into, Hank sees him as a friend that he can confide in, even though Hank’s father, Cotton Hill (an embittered war hero), continually presses Dale to antagonize Hank. A prominent plot point featured in the show is Dale being cuckolded by John Redcorn, an Anasazi descendent that drives an open top Jeep blasting 80s metal. Dale is entirely unaware that his son Joseph, with dark, rust colored skin, is not his biological son. Yet, despite being completely unaware of this, Dale continues to be a good father, immersed in his own male fantasy of charisma and sexual bravado.

                Dale’s opposite, Bill, I believe acts a foil. Where Dale initiates conflict, Bill participates willingly because he is so morosely depressed. Bill’s background is that of a well-to-do football athlete of rising acclaim. Once possessing the bravado and popularity as a record-holding high school senior, Bill’s strength is reduced by a manipulative woman (Lenore) who utterly ruins his life. Bill makes me laugh the hardest, as I watch this picturesque, sad individual constantly undercut himself. Bill’s character is a catharsis to his friends who have, for better or worse, moved on from their high school legacies and embraced domesticity. Bill’s talent as a barber, however, unites him with Hank, as he is the only one capable of giving Hank his signature haircut. But even before this, there is a resounding love Hank feels for his friend Bill, and he is always willing to cheer him up, if only to distract Bill from how depressing his life is.

                Cotton Hill, Hank’s father is a WWII veteran who was crippled by enemy fire in the Pacific Theater. Often prone to exaggerating his stories, Cotton hangs his suffering over the heads of all he meets, his son Hank foremost, and Peggy as well (who Cotton only refers to as “Hank’s Wife” in a chauvinistic and demeaning tone).The conflict between Hank and his father dominates the show throughout its run, ultimately ending with Cotton’s death. Mostly this is by contrasting vitality. Hank, who is getting older and struggled to conceive his son Bobby with Peggy, observes his own father (easily in his mid-seventies) impregnate a trophy wife and who then gives birth to Hank’s uncle. Hank’s insistence on “manly” activities and hobbies does not compensate for the deep unreciprocated love he feels for his father. Cotton essentially serves as Hank’s bully in the many flashbacks to Hank’s youth. Still, Cotton is outrageous and principled, nearly making up for his deficiencies as a husband and father. In one episode, Cotton is forced out of a home that he can no longer afford. After a failed attempt at rejoining society, Cotton contemplates suicide, so that his wife and newborn can benefit from a large life insurance policy. And as Hank realizes what his father is about to do, he discovers his father teaching his newborn how to shoot in the attic of the VFW. And Hank, relieved, is able to convince his father to accept financial assistance, which Cotton begrudgingly accepts. Like the entire cast of King of the Hill, Cotton is portrayed as a flawed individual with little to like about him as a person, but can be endearing for his severe independence, as appears in the following recounting of his war exploits against Imperial Japanese soldiers:

“I was fourteen, just a little older than Bobby. But I knew Uncle Sam needed me, so I lied and signed up. We had beat the Nazzys in Italy, and they shipped me to the Pacific Theater. A Tojo torpedo sent our troop ship to the bottom. I could only save three of my buddies: Fatty, Stinky, and Brooklyn. They were kind of like you fellas [to Bill, Dale, and Boomhauer], only one of them was from Brooklyn. Out of the sun came a Tojo Zero and put fitty bullets in my back. The blood attracted sharks. I had to give 'em Fatty. Then things took a turn for the worse. I made it to an island, but it was full of Tojos! They were spitting on the U.S. flag! So I rushed 'em, but it was a trap. They opened fire and blew my shins off. Last thing I remember, I beat 'em all to death with a big piece of Fatty. I woke up in a field hospital, and they were sewing my feet to my knees."

                Without any hesitation, I can say definitively that Hank and his son Bobby’s relationship is a definitive study in character development in the medium of television. What I find so charming about Bobby is how different he is from his father. While Hank is very aware of who he is and what he wants to be, Bobby continuously vacillates between hobbies, others characterized as bizarre and unconventional. Bobby’s tenure includes stand-up comedy, professional dog dancing, being a magician and ventriloquist, playing soccer, and adopting a feral raccoon. Each of these bizarre hobbies, of course, irritates Hank, yet the ultimate result is Hanks’s acceptance of his son. This constitutes a dynamic relationship underscoring Hank’s prejudice, but also his willingness to challenge his beliefs because of the love he has for his son. Oftentimes the end result is Hank “winning Bobby over” with his conservative values, but the progressive attitude of Bobby opens Hank’s mind to new experiences and beliefs, chiefly with his relationship with his neighbor Kahn Souphanousinphone’s daughter Kahn Jr. (alluding to Kahn’s own disappointment that he had a girl, instead of a boy).

                I hope I still have you with me. (I love this show!) Suffice to say, I will leave you with this final picture of how King of the Hill masterfully completed its arc in the concluding season of the show. In the final episode it is revealed that Bobby is very adept at grading butchered meat, and he takes his talent to a national competition where he ultimately wins. The closing shot of the show is Bobby and Hank grilling together (as Hank is an enthusiast of “propane and propane accessories”), finally united by a complimentary hobby. It’s a beautiful moment of unification, where opposites attract and Hank is truly, without pause, proud of his son. 

On Conspiracy Theories

“Yes, there is a conspiracy, in fact there are a great number of conspiracies that are all tripping each other up. And all of those conspiracies are run by paranoid fantasists and ham fisted clowns.” 

“The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy or the grey aliens or the 12 foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control. The truth is more frightening, nobody is in control. The world is rudderless.” —Alan Moore

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the effects of fake news, howit spreads, and why we should know better than to believe it. The two above quotes by Alan Moore speak to the detrimental effects of conspiracy theories. And while fake news and conspiracy theories are two different things individually, together they supplement each other. Fake News supports conspiracies and conspiracy theories beget Fake News.

                The two quotes, read in the order presented, could very well be one statement, but I believe that they were uttered on two different occasions. The latter idea is more credible because Alan Moore, while believing in wild and esoteric things, is also strangely rooted in the traditions of Modern Skepticism. He’ll satirize power structures and lampoon the uptight, puritanical sensibilities of Jacobean England and be just as willing to promote, at length, hermetic traditions which, just like any political party or established religions authority, have their own standards and practices, orthodoxy and orthopraxy. He’s an odd bird, but very pragmatic in presenting his schismatic ideas.

                The first quote presents conspiracy theorists, very plainly, as idiots. One may only need to read the twitter feed for the Flat Earth Society to gain an appreciation for their dedication to believing lies and fables as old as recorded human history. The idea also that there are competing theories, that there are many in the running is interesting. How we see the world (aka, our worldview) defines every detail and contour of our experiences, from tactile to emotional. They mean a lot to us, and we have defended them historically, even killing other human beings to preserve the purity of our worldview. A conspiracy theory is like a worldview, except that the phrase “conspiracy theory,” without any additional context, is typically pejorative. “Conspiracy theory” could also be interpreted with a slight bias invoking edginess such as books like “The Divine Conspiracy,” by Dallas Willard which is a title that invokes how Christianity has been under-appreciated / misunderstood, and that traditional viewpoints on Orthopraxy and Orthodoxy are not what they seem. Still, Willard wants to spread the gospel and be a good servant for Jesus, which leads me to believe that he wants the exact opposite what a conspiracy theorist wants, which is mainstream acceptance. Part of what makes conspiracy theories so great (to the adherent) is that they enjoy the taboo aspects of conspiracy theories. It is the hidden knowledge that is only privy to a select few. It is the weightiness of the knowledge that, if accepted, would invert society and cause chaos. It is almost power over someone else that doesn’t know. Which brings me to my next point…

                “The world is rudderless,” in Moore’s words is the dissembling assessment for a conspiracy theorist. People desire, innately, to control others through knowledge. (I feel the same way sometimes.) But what people also desire are explanations for the things in their lives that aren’t capable of being understood. It is a psychosis that infects the mind and allows a conspiracy theorist to look into every minute detail of the world and link it to an underlying cause, sinister or otherwise. Alex Jones is a popular example of this. His positions and beliefs on certain issues are dumbfounding. And whether or not he truly believes what he says, the content he presents consistently malevolent. His opinions and positions become the salve of those who are already afraid, who now have their explanations for their inexplicable fears. That I have met people who think that JFK was ordered to be killed by the CIA (or Deep State, or whatever), that reality is a comfort to them, more so than the reality: that he was shot by a disturbed individual, or a spy for the Russian Government. That there are people who believe Barack Obama is a Muslim and from Africa, that is a better explanation to them of reality than the real one: that it is possible for an African American to rise the ranks of society to a plateau of great intellectual capacity and statesmanship. The key ingredient in conspiracy theories is fear. Everything else follows after: anger, hatred for the Other, confusion, desperation, and self-alienation.

                Now the irony is not lost on me that, after saying all these things, I would assert, still, that I am a Christian, despite that many Christians around the world are the chief offenders at succumbing to conspiracy theories, or the fears that predicate them. The best I can say is that the orthopraxy and orthodoxy of Christianity is firmly laid out in the example of Jesus, and to differ is folly. And those that would twist His words to satisfy their unjustified fears and prejudices are more willing to fabricate an accommodating false reality than adhere to the very things they claim to believe. We believe that the world is directed by the sovereignty of God and not “rudderless” as Moore asserts. However, if I’m wrong and there is no god, then the world is indeed without direction. Hopefully, however, that direction is toward progress instead of toward the erosion of everything we've achieved.

***PS,

That this is coming out on  September 11th, a day that will live in infamy, is coincidental. I'm aware of dozens of conspiracies asserting the twin towers attack was a work of mischief. All of them are bullshit. And anyone who believes them should be revoked of their citizenship. 

               

Why I Don’t Do Regular, Scheduled Content

Just a brief aside, something that I should really just pin somewhere, but I wanted to clarify it. I’m sure by now it’s obvious. Just looking at my previous posts, and the time that they are posted, should indicate what I’m about to admit.

I don’t practice the art of regularly scheduled content.

In 2012, I was encouraged to start a posting regimen for this blog, which used to have a long complicated name and bears not repeating. The motivation in doing so was so that I could start making a name for myself as an author, because at that time I was finishing up Spirit of Orn and getting ready to submit it to BookBaby. Between 2012 and 2014, I maintained a regular posting schedule until I had a nervous breakdown and wasn’t able to continue. (Don’t overwork yourselves kiddos’!) Being over worked isn’t my primary rationale for not posting a strict Monday-Wednesday-Friday blog at 10AM, but the stress of having to produce that much did weigh on me constantly

                Regularly scheduled content is great for illustrators and photographers, not so much for writers, that is unless their work relies/focuses on current events. This is at least what I discovered. And though the regimen of producing content at that frequency for so long actually taught me the invaluable skill of writing on command, the content was not always great. Worse, it was not always inspired, a lot of times featuring filler and redundant, petty topics.

                Most authors only have one or two good things to say. The rest is just repetitious intersection with these previous, core ideas. (ie. Stephen King with his english teachers and librarians) I’m no different, and I think that the greatest challenge when writing is to keep up the artifice of originality.

                All this to consider, I wanted to let you all know that, even though I’m not regular, I write when I feel inspired. I never like phoning it in. Typically you can expect from me a piece of content about twice per month and a book every two years. Obviously, I could—and would—love

 to write more often (1-2 books per year), and produce an income able to support myself and my family, but I also work 45-50 hours per week and have a daughter to raise. I no longer have the luxury of casting all things to the wind and writing full-time, though I wish it so. Despite all odds even, I am able to still produce content without having to be independently wealthy. Bottom line: I love what I do. My time is limited. And I love to use whatever time I have available to continue my stories. My Saturday morning writing stints at Starbucks are always productive and my books come along quickly despite everything in my life.What more could I ask for?

                Someday, maybe in 20 years I’ll make it. By then I could probably produce a book every 6-10 months (assuming I have 40 hours a week to write a good story and if I have improved). Either way, the work life balance continues. I’m sure you all can relate.

Until Next Time Folks!

Another Book Finished: The Prague Cemetery

Finishing The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco was not nearly as satisfying as The Name of the Rose and Foucault’sPendulum. I don’t mean to say that it wasn’t good. It was fantastic! But the end result of finishing the book was gaining a keener understanding of Antisemitism in the 19^th century, specifically in Italy and France.

                Eco intentionally wrote into the story a truly despicable protagonist. Captain Simonini engages in all kinds of espionage, dealing with terrorists and pedophile priests, not unlike the intelligence services continue to do today. The main difference seems to be that organized religion no longer has the sting it once did. The pope is no longer a temporal figure, but a spiritual one, and has no sway in political matters like predecessors did in the medieval period. So maybe an equivalent story today would involve the ubiquitous corporate presence of a popular brand, instigating a civil war in a developing nation because the cost of bananas went from fives cents to six cents apiece? Who knows…

                The most disturbing aspect of the book, which is billed as a “thriller,” is that it is told from the first person point of view of Simonini (as well as a morally conflicted split persona and an unnamed narrator). The false narrative of anti-Semitism, the descriptions of the Jews from the mouths of racist newspaper editors, the internal investigations of the state into the finances of citizens, culminates into a believable lie. That the story is a cohesive conspiracy theory, there is a degree of credibility throughout, despite the fact that this story is actually a satire and deconstruction of the paranoia that gripped Europe at the time. Traditional ideas like the Divine Right of Kings and the supremacy of the Catholic Church were eroding exponentially, and in the vacuum a new middle class was rising to take back control of the state. In an effort to foil this new class and restore faith in the despotic European nations, anti-Semitism is leveraged to turn a sequestered community into the scapegoat for all of Europe’s woes.

The crux of the book is the development of The Protocols of TheElders of Zion, a supposed recording of the minutes of a Jewish council gathered in a cemetery at the turn of the 19^th century, where leaders representing the twelve tribes of Israel conspire to corrupt gentiles through entertainment and proliferation of liberalism. Even though the document itself was debunked a century ago by a British newspaper, pointing out that several sections were extensively (and poorly) plagiarized from an existing polemical work pointing out the injustices of Napoleon the III (I think it was Napoleon the III…), it became the source text for the Nazi Regime and a tool for implementing what would be known as the “Final Solution,” that is the extermination of the Jews in Europe.

It sounds so fantastic that it can’t be true, but all the characters in the story except for Simonini are real people. Eco is just weaving together a plausible explanation for the underlying force that moved the racial tensions forward. The book is an application of Eco’s philosophy of creating enemies and the paradoxical relationship between intangible words and demonstrable change in the hearts and minds of people. And this is why the work is so persuasive.

The Characters in Our Lives

Characters, according to lectures I’ve observed on creative writing, are evocative yet simple. Real human beings however demonstrate a complexity that is impossible to record in the written word. Writing can approximate this level of detail through techniques like “stream-of-consciousness,” but what is presented is, ultimately, supplemented by our own imaginations. That’s why two people can read something and have disparate takeaways.

                So, occasionally, I daydream and try to come up with stock characters. Typically, a good stock character is modular. I can take a shell (scoundrel, hero, novice, adept, anti-hero, tyrant, outcast, etc) and fill it out with contextual details that fit with whatever I am writing. For instance, I can use the scoundrel character and add to the framework characteristics like “auto mechanic,” “drunkard,” “self-conscious,” “experienced,” and “socially flawed,” letting the reader fill in the gaps and create a mental picture in their mind of a complete individual beyond anything that I could have designed. Life experiences will affect this visualization, creating this tangible person that wasn’t there before. So even though the character I created has no history or extant context at the beginning of the story, their totality is fleshed out before they even speak their first word of dialogue.

                This can be applied to life in general. People everywhere are strangers to us. Just imagine when, driving on the freeway, there are at least a thousand people driving along at the same time, yet we know nothing about them. The truth is that each driver has a lifetime of experiences and stories, but we, and they, are pushed back by the fear of unfamiliarity. Technology, didn’t promote dissociative tendencies in people. The truth is that we must attenuate our communities deliberately, otherwise the world would be too much for us to handle. So, we identify shells, then apply details to create a narrative that suits our perspectives; also known as stereotyping, identifying the Other, and, by proximity, casual racism.

                I enjoy reading partly because I like to take pause and wonder how derivative the character is based on the experiences of the writer. There are details to be extracted and beliefs to be mined from the stories we read, and how obvious/obscured they are demonstrates the talent of the writer. My personal pet peeve is writing that is utilitarian, specifically in shows like Family Guy where each episode is a thinly veiled treatment of the writer’s personal opinions. I think this violates the autonomy of the characters in the story. Good fiction ought to organically prompt discourse and debate, but what you see in Family Guy and similar programs, like Futurama and the Simpsons, are one sided debates with no countering equivalent. On the other hand, South Park once had an episode about Mormonism where Stan is dumbfounded why his father is taken by a religion conceivably founded on fabricated beliefs. Ultimately the clash occurs at the end of the episode when Stan is confronted by Gary, his Mormon counterpart, where the alternative perspective is offered: that despite believing in something incredulous, Gary lives a happy life with a loving family and is surrounded by a community of people that support each other. Tit for tat, an argument is made, a counter is offered, and it’s not cynical. The interaction preserves the autonomy of the character and the topical discourse is received by the viewer as genuine.

                Something to consider, then?

***

Per usual, work on my third book continues. Life continues. I'm studying for an exam on IT Network+, an introductory course on IT management techniques. #DayJobThings... My daughter has been walking for a little while now and loves to listen to progressive metal.

Sorry, I realized that I hadn't given anyone an update in a while. I hope your lives continue swimmingly!

Best,

Stuart

                 

Fake News in the Wild

With all the hyperbolic whining about “Fake News” from both conservative and liberal alike, I had the opportunity to witness a real-world example of Fake News and see just how pervasive it’s effect had on witless people.

               There was a post going around on twitter advocating pedophilia and the inclusion of pedophilia as a part of the protected status of the LGBTQ community that had gained the attention of a "Christian" personality on facebook. The later shared this post, therefore making it viral. Though it was not the post that I have below, it was something similar to it, or at least in the same spirit.

 

               When you do some digging on the original twitter poster however, the user had less than 5 followers, and only two or three posts. It was the solitary post that was picked up by this Christian blogger to be “exposed.” Subsequently the Christian poster garners the attention of the most dank memes on the internet, gaining thousands of shares and likes for this call to action.

               Now I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that the initial twitter post and the poster’s account were fabricated. For one it seems odd that there would be an advocate for pedophilia on twitter with little notoriety or following suddenly being discovered. (Search engines use algorithms to find content based on relevancy, which includes the amount of times someone’s page has been accessed. This is why my twitter account of 150+ follower fame will be passed up when someone google searches “Author” when there are hundreds more with 10,000+ followers.). Also, the fact that the post was engineered to spark moral outrage was made so transparently clear, seems fitting for Christian advocacy groups everywhere, which constantly are mining information for the link between being gay and committing acts of sexual deviancy. And, lastly, Facebook can only share links and pictures. Facebook, as of yet, does not allow the embedding of twitter posts that you can interact with. So anyone can produce a screen shot of something like Twitter and have people take it as the genuine article, despite going through all the effort in my case to make the poster seem legitimate.

               The use of moral outrage to polarize and divide has become so commonplace that seeing this in action was almost banal. The fact of the matter is, however, that this “Christian Advocate” (who could be a fake account as well) successfully polarized both Christians and non-Christians, did not advance the gospel of Jesus Christ, and advanced a precedent that is not true of any LGBTQ community. While there is a historical period of Hellenism (a zeitgeist of Greek thought advanced by Alexander the Great prior to the rule of the Roman Empire) that practiced and advocated pedophilia and homosexuality as a virtue, advances in common sense across all cultures and countries have uniformly decried it and outlawed it, despite Roy Moore’s most recent attempts to make “Underage Sex Great Again.”

               What I think made my nose curl at this stench so intensely I can reiterate here. While I am a Christian, and while I think that Homosexuality is a sin (just like watching porn and being straight is a sin), I also believe that members of the LGBTQ community are human beings deserving of respect and dignity. And while I do not accept what they preach, their narratives should not be persecuted, if not singled out, simply because they conform to values different than ours. (I don’t ever recall a time when Hindus couldn’t be married because their values and ideals strayed from the Judeo-Christian norms.)

               Lastly, I think that it’s silly that we (especially Christians) are not more equipped to discern what is useful for building up and what is not. Given to how much we read, cite, and source, yet cannot do this outside of the bible with accuracy or conviction is confounding. Fake News is a real threat, and there is so much opportunity to be kind and loving to everyone affected by it. 

Happy Saturday Everyone!

The Memes of Racism

I was talking to my wife the other day about memes, which, if you’ve been living under a rock for the last 15 or so years, are captioned pictures of viral content that have taken on almost organic consciousness on the internet. Typically they are funny, or they comment on current events specifically. I mostly know them as pictures of “puppers” and “doggos” eating “chimkin nuggets.”

In human history we have recognized symbols either tangibly or abstractly. For instance Moses from the Old Testament is a symbol of Christ (of Type) as a mediator between God and Man. A cross represents, and points to, the specific time in history when Christ was crucified. The invisible hand imagines an intangible force based on the movement of wealth in a free economy, as put forth by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. Or, the statue of the Shinto god Hachiman could represent either war, or the essence of the god himself when present in a shrine. Personally, I believe that memes today are the avatars of pessimism and cynicism, products of the mutable post-modern age. And at the risk of misusing “post-modern,” because even the word means nothing now, post-modern typically is a junk drawer term for any deconstructed position that critiques reigning epistemological authorities or traditions of thought / belief.

One of the original instances of Pepe.

What got me thinking about memes yesterday was the hijacking of one such meme, “Pepe the frog” and its use by neo-Nazis and white nationalists (AKA the Alt-Right). 

Iterations of the Swastica used in Eastern cultures.

A famous example of a neutral symbol being commandeered for hate is the Swastika, which originated in a host of Eurasian religious traditions. In Hinduism, the symbol was associated with luck and general wellbeing. While the origins of why the Nazis took this symbol escape me, I want to say that it had something to do with the belief that India was once known as a seat of a powerfully advanced race of Caucasians, but don’t quote me on that. Anyways, regardless of the origin of the Nazi belief, the symbol was taken and used as a hate symbol. Also, the image of the cross of Christ’s crucifixion has also been co-opted by White supremacists and the KKK by using it to intimidate African Americans by burning them on their lawns, or public places. I think it’s interesting then that people have taken Pepe, something so ephemeral in the grand scheme of things, and created a hate symbol out of him.

A cross burning, carried out by the KKK.

 

While the swastika was a symbol of fascism, memes are self-assigned their meaning. People view them and ascribe meaning to them. In marketing language, viewing an ad (image or otherwise) is called an impression. So when we view memes they are impressions that we encounter. Fascist symbols are ubiquitous and are widespread. They are typically put in public places, or on medals of service, but they are not however inside a person’s living area, unless the symbol was put there. In that respect the symbol can be avoided. I think what makes viral media so impactful is that you can’t avoid it now that the internet is integrated with nearly every aspect of our lives. Not only that, memes already are an expression of the cynical and apathetic zeitgeist we currently find ourselves in. That a meme places the viewer at a disadvantage by making opposition to the image seem petty or disproportionate in use context, the power of hate symbols spreading on the internet as memes are amplified. Furthermore, the impressions are personal, inside the four walls of home. They have penetrated the inner space of our lives, and we cannot escape.

As a creator of content, the reality that someone can insert meaning into something I’ve created is extremely compelling. My heart goes out to Matt Furie, the creator of Pepe, because his symbol has been effectively stolen from him. His resulting anguish is depicted in his response to the hijacking of his creation: