The insanity of political memes

Like bumper stickers to generations, political memes have become the preferred way of choice for people to communicate their political views. They allow people to make big points with little effort. Simply take an image, put some text on the top and bottom, and you have a meme. You get bonus points if it is funny or as some sort of twist to the punchline.

For example, I created this one from a site called memegenerator.com.



Not overly funny, but the character's face combined with the condescending question does send a message.

While the above meme attacks meme culture, most political memes are for the in-group and condescending towards the "others".

But what if two memes on the same subject with different perspectives were put together?



The premise is the same: comparing the words of Donald Trump to the use of different gendered bathrooms by transexual individuals. But each meme takes a completely different perspective and attempts to insult the intelligence of the "others".

The meme on the left assumes transsexuals are not a threat, but Donald Trump is. The meme on the right assumes Donald Trump is not a threat, but transsexuals are.

It is easy to spread propaganda on Facebook. It has become a sandbox for tribalism and group identity. But when we pull media out of Facebook and look at it critically, we see how unoriginal it really is. But like a homemade bomb, it is simple, but effective.