Sorry
Right. Let me just get something straight, like many people I decided to procrastinate a bit too much over Christmas regarding this. A tad too much mulled wine and now I’m here suddenly thinking – damn. I’ve left you all hanging.
“What am I going to do without all that amazing writing from dan” I can hear you scream.
Nevertheless! I’m a changed man… for a bit. We shall see how long this lasts.
Here goes nothing.
Please. Keep the memes
Real talk. Spain. What are you doing? Trying to ban memes?! That is definitely an absurd form of censorship. Much of today’s internet is based around memes. According to lifewire An Internet meme can be almost any idea or concept expressed in some form of content on the web, which is why it can be so completely difficult to drill down to a real definition. They definitely aren’t kidding either. As a younger user of the internet, my Facebook is full of these “ideas”. I see a clip from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas ( which is from around 2005 mind you) fill my news feed as well as the presenter of pawn shop on the discovery channel. It’s as if there just isn’t a limit with memes.
I guess in a sense Spains reason is ‘fine’. Stopping the unauthorised sharing of images that may or may not slander an individual. There has been evidence of memeing changing lives in both ways. Angry Cat had a book released thanks to his pictures that were shared. Christopher Hermelin on the other hand was criticised heavily for being a “hipster with a typewriter” receiving death threats from people on a Reddit thread as they believed it was just a bit of fun. swings and roundabouts eh?
So yes, Mariano Rajoy MAY be on to something (and I use the term may very loosely) If we were going to be honest about it though, I have a feeling that it’s his own best interests at heart. Not the protection of individuals. Naturally however, as soon as he mentioned the ban, memes were made of him. Like this one:
Credit:http://demigranteblog.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/memes-rajoy.html
On the more sophisticated side to memes, They let us poke fun and satirically view serious things in life. In most cases, they present the public with a medium to communicate an opinion without being too confrontational. When Rajoy went forward with this idea, naturally he the one thing he was trying to stop happened. He got, ‘memed’. That’s pretty catchy, I’m going to stick with that in my day to day I think.
Here is a video clip of just how much of an effect memes can have on people. The positive side anyway
This is a guy just laughing at a simple picture repeated over and over. You shouldn’t really censor happiness, if you do then one should definitely look at the wider picture.
Spains problems
As Emma Anderson points out in her blog – Spain was ranked the sixth worst developed country for childhood income inequality, according to a “report card” by Unicef. More than one-third of Spanish children (36 percent) live at risk of poverty or social exclusion and inequality there has grown more in Spain than in most other developed countries, with the income gap exceeding 60 percent, according to the report.
Only Romania – at the very bottom – Bulgaria, Mexico, Greece and Israel were ranked worse than Spain.
GREECE IS RANKED HIGHER. A COUNTRY CRIPPLED WITH DEBT. They had public riots as they had to borrow money from other members of the EU to escape issues within their state. Yet they have a higher child income equality than Spain without actually having money.
Simple put – Country finance > memes
Then we come to the classic immigration across the EU. Something that started picking up mid 2016 and that will remain happening until future notice. Immigration is definitely something that needs focus at all times, with what happened in Germany in the Christmas period; there always seems to be a reason to be on edge. Once again more important than memes.I may be sounding like a broken record but it is two areas which really highlight how ridiculous it is to worry about the latest memes created. It goes to show how the internet has generated a new paranoia for politicians and even people in power to worry about…
Is there a silver lining?
Normally I’d make silver lining view on a situation. explaining how not is all THAT bad but I find this one difficult. Funny images are just that, if anything they’ve benefited politics by making it relevant and accessible to the public.
MEMES ARENT THAT BAD. If anything it’s just impressive that a simple set of images have become an apparent threat for an entire nation.
This is my signing off – adios
Leave a Reply