World War Meme(politico.com)
politico.com
World War Meme
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/memes-4chan-trump-supporters-trolls-internet-214856
58 comments
There are at least a few Great Meme War veterans who truly believe they made a difference: "I helped meme a President into office, cucks" - Gab.ai CEO Andrew Torba.
If any effect came from 4chan /pol/ it was because the mainstream validated them and tried to categorize them as a coherent whole: The Alt-Right. Anonymous self-marginalizes. It was the Hillary campaign who drew attention to Pepe the Frog and made it part of the common discourse.
And no word (yet) in this article about Russian influence on social media and political campaigns. Even though the far-right plays a clear role in that propaganda machine.
If any effect came from 4chan /pol/ it was because the mainstream validated them and tried to categorize them as a coherent whole: The Alt-Right. Anonymous self-marginalizes. It was the Hillary campaign who drew attention to Pepe the Frog and made it part of the common discourse.
And no word (yet) in this article about Russian influence on social media and political campaigns. Even though the far-right plays a clear role in that propaganda machine.
rvcamo(1)
> "I helped meme a President into office, cucks" - Gab.ai CEO Andrew Torba.
Reading that, I thought is was an innocent meme and would pave the way for free and open expression of memes. But, after reading the full story it's sad he had to get violent about it.
Reading that, I thought is was an innocent meme and would pave the way for free and open expression of memes. But, after reading the full story it's sad he had to get violent about it.
It seems to me that the memes (in the wider sense, not image macros) that won it for him were primarly spread by Fox News, with talk radio, infowars, various think tanks etc. thrown in.
If we did focus only on the internet I'd suggest "forwards from grandma" on Facebook are another contributor, usually with the content coming indirectly from the above sources. But I don't really see the evidence to give any credit to these youngsters with their new-fangled pepes.
I started twigging that Trump would win by watching video journalists who visited the heartlands of america and did vox pops with random people. Their opinions about politics seemed to have no basis in any reality I recognized. A very nice chairwoman of a Republican committee said "There was no racism before Obama" for example. This wasn't some spittle-flecked ideologue, just an average old lady happily offering her opinion on politics.
If we did focus only on the internet I'd suggest "forwards from grandma" on Facebook are another contributor, usually with the content coming indirectly from the above sources. But I don't really see the evidence to give any credit to these youngsters with their new-fangled pepes.
I started twigging that Trump would win by watching video journalists who visited the heartlands of america and did vox pops with random people. Their opinions about politics seemed to have no basis in any reality I recognized. A very nice chairwoman of a Republican committee said "There was no racism before Obama" for example. This wasn't some spittle-flecked ideologue, just an average old lady happily offering her opinion on politics.
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Its sad how many news outlets grapple to find some excuse for Trump's meteoric rise to power besides the obvious one; a massive voter-base of disenfranchised American workers, nearly completely ignored by the administrations of the past 25 years. And they're still being ignored by the press, if this article is any indication.
Wait. Sorry, I'm the crazy one. Its the memes. The dank pepe memes are what helped him win. How could Hillary have been so blind?
Wait. Sorry, I'm the crazy one. Its the memes. The dank pepe memes are what helped him win. How could Hillary have been so blind?
I really hate to burn Karma, but I'm going to disagree.None of the polling data bares out your assessment. The majority of his voters were not poor ex-coal miners. The average income was somewhere around $70K/year.
It wasn't strictly about income as measured in numbers, it was about social class. We have a really hard time talking about and grappling with social class in this country, but it's a fundamental force, as it is in nearly all cultures throughout history.
There are many divisions and shorthand ways of trying to describe the divide, and none are fully satisfying, but one of them is that some people are economically threatened by rapidly accelerating technology, and some are economically empowered. Another is that some people are threatened by trade, and some profit from it. And so on. The global economy is changing rapidly, the distribution of wealth is becoming more unequal, and not everybody is thriving in that context.
Talking about it in raw dollar terms in the aggregate has value, but it's one of many data points. Class resentment is a powerful force that has underpinned nearly every major political realignment in history, I'm not sure why everyone has such a hard time seeing it.
There are many divisions and shorthand ways of trying to describe the divide, and none are fully satisfying, but one of them is that some people are economically threatened by rapidly accelerating technology, and some are economically empowered. Another is that some people are threatened by trade, and some profit from it. And so on. The global economy is changing rapidly, the distribution of wealth is becoming more unequal, and not everybody is thriving in that context.
Talking about it in raw dollar terms in the aggregate has value, but it's one of many data points. Class resentment is a powerful force that has underpinned nearly every major political realignment in history, I'm not sure why everyone has such a hard time seeing it.
Right, the mean is meaningless.
The majority of anyones base cant be just coal miners.
President Trump campaigned heavily in swing states he correctly thought he could flip, while Hillary didnt.
From a statistics point of view, mean is a very dubious and untelling metric.
Adding a mode, median, and interquartile ranges will help tremendously in finding where the "bulk" of Trump voters lay.
If nothing else, I'm sure you know that one big outlier can skew the entire data sheet, for instance, like Peter Thiel?
Adding a mode, median, and interquartile ranges will help tremendously in finding where the "bulk" of Trump voters lay.
If nothing else, I'm sure you know that one big outlier can skew the entire data sheet, for instance, like Peter Thiel?
That's about what I'd expect mid level union workers to make. Maybe skewed a little high. Similar for most skilled trades, though worse benefits for nonunion..
I really hate to burn Karma
If anything I'd expect this to farm karma.
It seems to me (a few years on this site on two accounts) that your opinion is most popular and the ones who don't like it are less likely to downvote (either because they can't or because they don't want to).
I don't have access to the backend though so it is just a feeling.
Edit: hehe, someone has taken the task on them to prove me right. -1 at the moment.
I can't trade in my Internet points here in Europe and I don't plan on visiting US anytime soon so I just find it funny :-)
If anything I'd expect this to farm karma.
It seems to me (a few years on this site on two accounts) that your opinion is most popular and the ones who don't like it are less likely to downvote (either because they can't or because they don't want to).
I don't have access to the backend though so it is just a feeling.
Edit: hehe, someone has taken the task on them to prove me right. -1 at the moment.
I can't trade in my Internet points here in Europe and I don't plan on visiting US anytime soon so I just find it funny :-)
And why does he resonate with disenfranchised American workers? He's policies were ill conceived and in many cases worse for that voter base than the administration that preceded him. But because he spoke their language they adopted him regardless of the political blunders he made during his campaign. Which means memes and other non-conventional methods of promotion really helped sell Trump as an alternative to the convention because they speak to the working class in the way that career politicians seldom achieve (not for want of trying). So your comments aren't mutually exclusive from the points made in the article.
There's a disconnect between actual policy and campaign rhetoric. His campaign rhetoric targeted, among other groups, the disenfranchised American worker. Whether his policy actually helps this group is irrelevant; the point is that he targeted them and they believed him.
"he targeted them and they believed him."
So memes, then.
So memes, then.
A good rule of thumb is that if you are 100% sure of the obvious reason for a problem there is no consensus about you're probably wrong.
This is almost verbatim what my 9/11 Truther college buddy would say. I'm not convinced it's a good rule of thumb. It's way too easy to say "there's no consensus on chemtrails/evolution/etc"
Except that there is a consensus on those things. It's just not unanimous.
Maybe not 100%, but Occam's Razor suggests disenfranchised voter groups are the underlying reason Trump won, not dank memes.
Of course Occam's Razor doesn't always point to the correct answer, just the simplest one.
Of course Occam's Razor doesn't always point to the correct answer, just the simplest one.
Can you demonstrate that the 'disenfranchised voters' argument requires fewer assumptions than the 'meme' argument?
> a massive voter-base of disenfranchised American workers, nearly completely ignored by the administrations of the past 25 years.
I think most people accept that but it does still leave the question, 'why Trump?'
I think most people accept that but it does still leave the question, 'why Trump?'
Because those people saw him as lesser evil compared to Clinton? If there was another not-Clinton candidate, they'd have voted for him/her.
It'd be interesting to see Sanders vs Trump in parallel universe.
It'd be interesting to see Sanders vs Trump in parallel universe.
> Because those people saw him as lesser evil compared to Clinton? If there was another not-Clinton candidate, they'd have voted for him/her.
As a Trump voter - but not a Republican - this pretty much sums it up. His SCOTUS list and the formation of his "Second Amendment Coalition" nudged me from the "he's better than Clinton" to the "maybe he'll deliver something I want" column, but there are no circumstances where I would have voted Clinton.
> It'd be interesting to see Sanders vs Trump in parallel universe.
I think it would have been a slaughter in that case, instead of the squeaker it was. Trump's biggest challenge was winning over the libertarian wing of the GOP. If he were against Sanders, that part of the party would have been locked down from day one.
As a Trump voter - but not a Republican - this pretty much sums it up. His SCOTUS list and the formation of his "Second Amendment Coalition" nudged me from the "he's better than Clinton" to the "maybe he'll deliver something I want" column, but there are no circumstances where I would have voted Clinton.
> It'd be interesting to see Sanders vs Trump in parallel universe.
I think it would have been a slaughter in that case, instead of the squeaker it was. Trump's biggest challenge was winning over the libertarian wing of the GOP. If he were against Sanders, that part of the party would have been locked down from day one.
That part of the party was never going to vote for Clinton though. The question was do they vote (for Trump), or stay home.
Sanders would have had a much better chance with moderates, independents, the anti-establishment groups, etc.
Sanders would have had a much better chance with moderates, independents, the anti-establishment groups, etc.
I think it is generally underappreciated how bad of a candidate Clinton was. Many people for good reason were frustrated by the status quo of politics and the Democrats would probably have had a hard time to find someone playing more into this. Her entire platform seemed to be to continue what already was happening except that she will be there first female president; she was heavily associated with a previous president; the way she and the Democratic party treated Sanders played badly into her being the heartless, corrupt establishment. I don't think I met anyone who really was excited to vote for Clinton her entire virtue was not being Trump. I'm honestly certain that pretty much anyone could have beaten Trump except Clinton.
It also shows to me how broken the US election system is. We badly need something like approval voting. It's unacceptable that we ended up was two candidates who both had awful approval ratings.
It also shows to me how broken the US election system is. We badly need something like approval voting. It's unacceptable that we ended up was two candidates who both had awful approval ratings.
I think Sanders woukd have had a good shot.
What I gathered from Trump voters was that they looked for someone to shake up a system they viewed as not working. So Trump was that guy. It was pretty clear that voting for Clinton would prolong the status quo. It's unfortunate that the American system doesn't provide choice.
Of course I do not have inside information, but if I had to guess...
Trump basically stumbled on this untapped political bounty more or less by chance, but he has smart enough to recognize its value and design a political persona that would speak directly and effectively to that group[1] The fact that there was otherwise no obvious leader around whom the Republican party could gather gave us Trump-the-candidate.
Trump-the-president was a slightly more complex matter. There was another candidate that was able and willing to tap into this new constitutency of the politically ignored: Bernie Sanders. Unlike the Republicans, there was also one obvious Democratic leader around whom the preexisting constitutencies of that party could gather. The problem with Hillary Clinton is that she is the very incarnation of political status quo; instead of picking Bernie as her vicepresident she doubled down on keep ignoring the chronically ignored. She went as far as to antagonize them, mistaking the whole of the group for a very vocal minority of them, - the racist misogynist know-nothings.
I do not need to tell you that was a huge mistake. The way the American politics work, you win by winning most battles, not by winning the biggest battles. Even if the majority of individual votes went to her, she still lost; and she lost because she decided to abandon a number of critical camps. Or rather, because by failing to notice this new political constitutency, she lost electoral votes that historically should have been Republican. She did not notice the balance of power shifting under her feet. Again, having Bernie on her team would have helped her to put a fight in most of the battlefields that Trump winned just by being the only one to show up there.
[1] I am using the term "group" loosely here. The way I see it, it is more a coallision of different disempowered groups that had little in common beyond feeling cheated by the status quo. By example, I've heard a number of women that voted for Trump were mothers and wives of the millitary, who saw Clinton's warmongering as an existential threat to their families and voted accordingly. Trump's friendly overtures towards Putin make much more sense if you frame them as subtle signaling to that particular subgroup.
Trump basically stumbled on this untapped political bounty more or less by chance, but he has smart enough to recognize its value and design a political persona that would speak directly and effectively to that group[1] The fact that there was otherwise no obvious leader around whom the Republican party could gather gave us Trump-the-candidate.
Trump-the-president was a slightly more complex matter. There was another candidate that was able and willing to tap into this new constitutency of the politically ignored: Bernie Sanders. Unlike the Republicans, there was also one obvious Democratic leader around whom the preexisting constitutencies of that party could gather. The problem with Hillary Clinton is that she is the very incarnation of political status quo; instead of picking Bernie as her vicepresident she doubled down on keep ignoring the chronically ignored. She went as far as to antagonize them, mistaking the whole of the group for a very vocal minority of them, - the racist misogynist know-nothings.
I do not need to tell you that was a huge mistake. The way the American politics work, you win by winning most battles, not by winning the biggest battles. Even if the majority of individual votes went to her, she still lost; and she lost because she decided to abandon a number of critical camps. Or rather, because by failing to notice this new political constitutency, she lost electoral votes that historically should have been Republican. She did not notice the balance of power shifting under her feet. Again, having Bernie on her team would have helped her to put a fight in most of the battlefields that Trump winned just by being the only one to show up there.
[1] I am using the term "group" loosely here. The way I see it, it is more a coallision of different disempowered groups that had little in common beyond feeling cheated by the status quo. By example, I've heard a number of women that voted for Trump were mothers and wives of the millitary, who saw Clinton's warmongering as an existential threat to their families and voted accordingly. Trump's friendly overtures towards Putin make much more sense if you frame them as subtle signaling to that particular subgroup.
[deleted]
the story being sold by the DNC and its sycophants both inside the press and outside is that Trump did not win the election, it was either stolen or given to him.
This is the reaction of irrational people who can see no other solution other than those they come up with. In their ordered world all other opinions are those of the ignorant, the bigoted, and racist. As such they are all discounted if not ignored.
Trump won because of who he wasn't and he took down to political establishments to do so. Why wouldn't they both be mad and worse the press who for too long decided instead of being journalist that they should be part of the story. I cannot recall a time in my life where I have seen so many stories from the press reporting on the press.
So while the linked article has no real place on HN it is just indicative of a narrative being pushed by the losing side. Someone else gave it to him, we were never wrong or disliked, we were cheated. (we as in them)
This is the reaction of irrational people who can see no other solution other than those they come up with. In their ordered world all other opinions are those of the ignorant, the bigoted, and racist. As such they are all discounted if not ignored.
Trump won because of who he wasn't and he took down to political establishments to do so. Why wouldn't they both be mad and worse the press who for too long decided instead of being journalist that they should be part of the story. I cannot recall a time in my life where I have seen so many stories from the press reporting on the press.
So while the linked article has no real place on HN it is just indicative of a narrative being pushed by the losing side. Someone else gave it to him, we were never wrong or disliked, we were cheated. (we as in them)
> There is no real evidence that memes won the election
Yet still enough to write this article? Or is this article Fake News™?
> but there is little question they changed its tone
Correlation doesn't equal causation. What if Trump's popularity resulted in a torrent of pro-Trump memes? In general, I find it much more likely that both the memes and Trump were caused (or at least influenced) by a third factor, e.g. the incresingly hostile culture of political correctness in mainstream media.
Yet still enough to write this article? Or is this article Fake News™?
> but there is little question they changed its tone
Correlation doesn't equal causation. What if Trump's popularity resulted in a torrent of pro-Trump memes? In general, I find it much more likely that both the memes and Trump were caused (or at least influenced) by a third factor, e.g. the incresingly hostile culture of political correctness in mainstream media.
"I did it for the lulz." is the best explanation, I think.
But hypothesis that memes helped Trump win (and also helped brexit) is itself a metaironic dank meme.
I'm not even sure that all these "fake news", "alt right" exist. And isn't 4chan something from the past like Myspace, is there still any active users? Or there left only 2 insane anonymouses who write all the posts?
I'm not even sure that all these "fake news", "alt right" exist. And isn't 4chan something from the past like Myspace, is there still any active users? Or there left only 2 insane anonymouses who write all the posts?
>I'm not even sure that all these "fake news", "alt right" exist.
BuzzFeed News tracked down and spoke to Macedonian teenagers who created over 100 fake news sites, who readily admit it. They were pro-trump sites because pro-trump stories made the most money, not because of any political ideology.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became...
>"Yes, the info in the blogs is bad, false, and misleading but the rationale is that 'if it gets the people to click on it and engage, then use it,'" said a university student in Veles who started a US politics site
BuzzFeed News tracked down and spoke to Macedonian teenagers who created over 100 fake news sites, who readily admit it. They were pro-trump sites because pro-trump stories made the most money, not because of any political ideology.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became...
>"Yes, the info in the blogs is bad, false, and misleading but the rationale is that 'if it gets the people to click on it and engage, then use it,'" said a university student in Veles who started a US politics site
Wow, did buzzfeed makes something of substance....?!!
They did the ole switcharoo.
Garnered intense notoriety and then used that infamy to push their real journal.
The clickbait and listicles are only to keep the lights on.
Garnered intense notoriety and then used that infamy to push their real journal.
The clickbait and listicles are only to keep the lights on.
BuzzFeed News is a source of original investigative journalism. The publish a lot of substance, check out some of their other work.
Just follow Trump on Twitter for a while, and see who else follows him, and vice versa. It's Poe's Law with a vengeance. You can't really tell who's trolling who. Except that one of them is President ;)
4chan is losing users to 8ch, but that doesn't really change the game.
I got curious by this question so I googled trends it against reddit.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=4chan,re...
4chan seems to slowly be trending down.
The giant spikes on both reddit and 4chan were when the nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence were leaked. It's kind of hilarious to put that in perspective.
Anyway, from that we can conclude that the alt right from 4chan that has been blamed is probably unlikely at least as the main community.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=4chan,re...
4chan seems to slowly be trending down.
The giant spikes on both reddit and 4chan were when the nude photos of Jennifer Lawrence were leaked. It's kind of hilarious to put that in perspective.
Anyway, from that we can conclude that the alt right from 4chan that has been blamed is probably unlikely at least as the main community.
The alt-right is congregated more in Voat and Reddit.
4Chan spiraled into depression after countless controversies that spoiled its ethos.
4Chan spiraled into depression after countless controversies that spoiled its ethos.
For as long as I can remember, every election is followed by the losing political party claiming either (1) they didn't do a good job with marketing, or (2) the other side does marketing better.
The political parties never publicly state that the voters disagreed with their platform, or that their platform was focused on the wrong things, or that the voters were willing to take a gamble on something new, etc. It's always the case that the voters would have chosen their party if they had run better ads, or more ads, or ads in different places, etc.
The political parties never publicly state that the voters disagreed with their platform, or that their platform was focused on the wrong things, or that the voters were willing to take a gamble on something new, etc. It's always the case that the voters would have chosen their party if they had run better ads, or more ads, or ads in different places, etc.
The electoral college decided the election. Voter sentiment was at least even, or favored Clinton. So the mechanics of marketing and such were really an important factor in the election.
Hopeful, empty rhetoric about jobs just might have won the election for Clinton. Instead there were gaffes and silence.
Hopeful, empty rhetoric about jobs just might have won the election for Clinton. Instead there were gaffes and silence.
Maybe this election really came down to marketing. However, when every post-mortem amounts to "we don't need to change the party platform; we just need to work on messaging" I start to wonder if the post-mortems do any good.
Sometimes you need a shake up.
Sometimes you need a shake up.
I personally think memes only happened because so many people were already primed for change of the status quo.
Maybe more like ready to burn the damn thing down.
As I said I don't have numbers and I don't know what kind of effect memes actually have, as they are largely consumed by young non-voters, but it's not secret that Obama had a very active meme-team and it makes sense for Trump to have followed the strategy.