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November 22, 2011

Taking it to the Kittens: The Pepper Spray Cop Meme — and What It Means

By Michael Shaw

Pepper Spray Statue of Liberty

But does this kind of “fun” trivialize a serious event? After all, as inevitably happens on the Web, the meme has gone on to have Pike spraying adorable little kittens.

There is that danger, but Stopera makes the case that the news about what occurred at UC Davis is now reaching a whole new — and probably younger — audience. If they jump from Tumblr posts with funny or sarcastic images to search for news about what’s going on, they end up learning about what happened.

And, of course, it is a meme — which means it probably has a life of just another day or two. So if it does dissolve into the silly, it won’t be for long.

from: “Casually Pepper Spraying Cop’ Meme Takes Off” via THE two-way (NPR)

Different “pepper spray everything” images have different messages. If you page through the Pepper Spraying Cop Tumblr site,

I think the writer in the quote is missing the point, and not giving either visual consumers or the images nearly enough credit. If you page through the Pepper Spraying Cop Tumblr site, you’ll realize that many of the best pics are simultaneously totally funny and totally not funny. That’s because, you don’t mess with what’s culturally sacred. You don’t mess with John John on the tarmac in his short pants. You don’t fuck up Jesus — at least, not when Michaelangelo has had a hand in it, and you don’t assault Snoopy. But no one clued Officer Pike (who otherwise looks and sounds like some sad sack extra from Andy of Mayberry) about what we still aspire to and hold sacred in 2011. And what he did, especially in the incomprehensible and grotesque and naked and superior and pitiful and unilateral and weirdly stop-time and goddamn orange way it presented, is exactly like putting it in the face of Forrest Gump.

Different images are surely saying particular things, but what they are all saying, at the meta-level, is: after witnessing such a profound betrayal of trust perpetrated by the State, as mentor and guardian, on the kids in their trust, we have further lost innocence and the lens we were using up until last week to view our culture through suddenly isn’t so clear anymore.

As so, it’s in that exaggeration and the incomprehensibility of these cascading photoshopped images that we feel some relief that, no, nobody would go that far — that our iconic images of Marilyn, and the indelible vision of John and Yoko meeting the press in bed, and all our kittens (and kitten jpegs) are actually safe. And that’s how pathos works.

It’s already pretty late (or early) here on the left coast so I’ll leave the analysis of individual images till later. I do really love “The Statue of Pike,” however, especially how he gets the copper treatment. (Well, he is “a copper,” isn’t he?) Just like gave it to UC Davis’ huddled masses, the riot cop absolutely deserves to be set up right now on America’s highest pedestal — as a platform for the highest moral circumspection. Because frankly, after Thursday, who knows what liberty, an ideal having been washed out by testosterone, still stands for?

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  • bks

    Anything is better than more pictures of Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber.

        –bks
     

  • bks

    Anything is better than more pictures of Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber.

        –bks
     

  • Bystander Again

    Funny+Not Funny=Jarring  And, I found this somewhat jarring as well.


    Massive rally at UC Davis, some protesters carrying “pepper-spraying cop” meme-signs

    …And below, again shot by Ramon just now: Occupy Lulz-themed
    signs carried by protesters, with image macros making fun of the grim
    scene just days ago at the very ground on which they’re standing.
    Recursion overload…

    Particularly the image being held up on the left by the woman whose face is hidden.  Talk about pepper spraying (or pissing?) on the sacred.  And, perhaps, how absolutely appropriate for the circumstance?

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=699726629 Dave McLane

    If you take the time to read a full-spectrum of comments, I think you’ll find there are many (the majority?) who think such actions are right on as the 1% are simply low-level do-nothings along with liberals and democrats. Perhaps even better is to find and sign-up for TeaParty based e-mail.

    • Anonymous

      The 1% are low-level do-nothings? Along with liberal and democrats? 

      You are confused or ignorant or both. I recommend that you unsubscribe from that TeaParty email which is poisoning your mind, and take a clear look at the world around you. The 1% refers to people so wealthy they can buy a government. Liberals and Democrats refer to people of a particular mind-set and political party respectively, and they may or may not belong to the 1%. And the so-called Tea Party, funded by 1%ers Koch and Koch, is a deluded fringe.

  • Anonymous

    Dadaism is a reasonable response given the surreal circumstances of the Cal Davis actions. Way back when (in the days before steamships) at our freshman orientation we got a lecture on in loco parentis, the legal notion that the school was responsible for us in some ways and would act as our parents in those situations. If a parent in my community decided to casually discipline his children with pepper spray he’d have Child Protective Services so far up his ass he would taste Brylcreem (to paraphrase Junior Soprano). It would not be hard to imagine jail time.

    • http://www.bagnewsnotes.com Michael Shaw

      After that image, I doubt I’ll be able to shave for a week.

    • LanceThruster

      My male friend peppered sprayed an abusive female ex when she attacked him and *he* was charged with assault (charges later dropped – product comes with a whole list of do’s and don’t’s and cautions of local statutes), but a law enforcement “professional” can do this (with an industrial sized can no less) and it’s somehow in the realm of “no harm, no foul”.

      I call shenanigans.

  • Bystander Again

    Whoops.  Katehi, speaking to her students at the rally, reportedly said, I know you may not believe anything that I’m telling you today, and you
    don’t have to, it is my responsibility to earn your trust.      Given this find by John Quiggin, the students would be justified if were they highly skeptical.

  • Pingback: Pepper Spray Cop Meme Is Casually Macing Everything « Occupy Wall Street News « Occupy Medford

  • Ev Ihrke

    I seriously think “coppers” have a ways to go to rectify their image as community leaders.

    • Amandla

      Nothing they do will be able to “rectify their image” short of linking arms with these totally silly “protesters” and singing kumbaya. The current crop of trustafarians and my-contracted-debt-is-your-problem professional victims hate anyone to the right of Amy Goodman. Since most working class people cannot afford such lofty elitist and pie-in-the-sky beliefs (never mind six years as undergraduates slacking and scamming thru part of that basket weaving social work program), they by necessity are defined as “farther to the right.” Thus the elitist faut proles get to hate real proles, bash them, and tell themselves that they are superior. 

    • Josh_Samples

      cops really need to get their images fixed after all the stuff they’ve done before and after this event. i mean remember the whole Jim Crow Laws protest era?
      cops are behaving now like they did then.

  • http://2millionthweblog.blogspot.com MichaelF

    FYI, The Statue of Pike, and thanks for giving it a title, was my entry. I also submitted one of Officer Pike spraying Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk who self-immolated in Saigon in 1963.

    My inspiration for both, to cite another well-known-almost-to-the-point-of-cliche expression, was the banality of [Pike's] evil. The guy’s spraying demonstrators as casually as he might spray herbicide or insecticide. And, whether you agree or disagree with the Occupy demonstrators — as you might expect, I agree with them strongly — they have the absolute right to peacefully assemble without Officer Pike essentially dehumanizing them, especially given this is the United States…though, as your Homeland Security post shows, the idea that America is somehow different…Statue of Liberty different…doesn’t seem to hold water anymore, does it?

    • Anonymous

      In the lead-up to the Rwandan Genocide, Tutsis were referred to as ‘cockroaches’ by the Hutus, and were subsequently slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands.

    • Anonymous

      Great job Michael. Kudos for the ‘copper’ coloring. I believe the Statue of Pike is the best of all the many clever submissions.

    • http://www.bagnewsnotes.com Michael Shaw

      I second maveet. I thought the monk was brilliant also. Thanks for weighing in here.

  • http://2millionthweblog.blogspot.com MichaelF

    FYI, The Statue of Pike, and thanks for giving it a title, was my entry. I also submitted one of Officer Pike spraying Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk who self-immolated in Saigon in 1963.

    My inspiration for both, to cite another well-known-almost-to-the-point-of-cliche expression, was the banality of [Pike's] evil. The guy’s spraying demonstrators as casually as he might spray herbicide or insecticide. And, whether you agree or disagree with the Occupy demonstrators — as you might expect, I agree with them strongly — they have the absolute right to peacefully assemble without Officer Pike essentially dehumanizing them, especially given this is the United States…though, as your Homeland Security post shows, the idea that America is somehow different…Statue of Liberty different…doesn’t seem to hold water anymore, does it?

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  • Amandla

    “Protestors” sure have gotten wieneresque over the past 40 years. Guess it’s the Special Snowflake/Everybody’s A Winner thing of the Age of Self-Esteem.

    Cop bashing is just one of the many ways that liberal Democrats and “progressives” get away with bashing the working class, which always has been less leftist than the pampered collegiate hipster class. Truth is that these LE are the most professional we’ve had in the nation, ever, but nothing is ever good enough for the children of victimization and entitlement, who spend their lives doing nothing productive, just trying to find something to shriek about.

    The left lost me on all this. Sad. I had hoped to be buried in my Wellstone t-shirt with Gene McCarthy ‘76 button. 

    • http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ Ralfast

      Lost you, or never had you? Where do you think these kids come from and what do you think they are fighting for? But as always you find those who embrace authority in the hope that they will never be targeted by it. God forbid you raise your voice and actually stand for something.

    • Glenn

      You don’t think an 18% increase in tuition at a public university is worth protesting by those who would have to pay it?

      And I am fascinated to hear that the University of California Police are the “most professional we’ve had in the nation, ever.” Where is the citation to support that?

    • Glenn

      You don’t think an 18% increase in tuition at a public university is worth protesting by those who would have to pay it?

      And I am fascinated to hear that the University of California Police are the “most professional we’ve had in the nation, ever.” Where is the citation to support that?

    • Glenn

      You don’t think an 18% increase in tuition at a public university is worth protesting by those who would have to pay it?

      And I am fascinated to hear that the University of California Police are the “most professional we’ve had in the nation, ever.” Where is the citation to support that?

  • Enoch Root

    My favorite is the Guernica one.

    I have mixed feelings about how this might trivialize the moment, but it also ends up being a storytelling device. You get to explain to your friends what it’s about, if they don’t know already. Part of being hip and cool in these networked days is to already know the news being commented on in these types of images. The kids are alright.

    • http://2millionthweblog.blogspot.com MichaelF

      The Guernica was was really good. In my mind most/all are really good, even the ones that might look a little hastily done — maybe they were short on time or using a program that isn’t as versatile as Photoshop — but they all support the UC Davis students specifically and OWS generally. Nothing wrong with diversity, and you’re right about the kids being alright, even if I did get a few odd looks at the events I’ve attended here (I’m 46, and my age group is badly underrepresented in this town. Most of the demonstrators are students, or people a few years older than me. Oh well.)

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  • Anonymous

    All these kids wanted was to make a statement about government corruption. Think about the cops’ response if they really wanted something: food, a place to sleep, or MONEY? Forget the pepper spray? Remember the unphotoshopped photo of the Vietnamese getting his head blown off as casually by a policeman? That’s what’s ahead as the 1 percent tighten the screws on thier strongboxes….

  • http://2millionthweblog.blogspot.com MichaelF

    maveet
    Thanks — funny enough, I wasn’t really thinking about the copper coloring besides trying to match the statue.

    Another inspiration was from years ago — here in Baton Rouge, Lousiana, some activist friends of mine sold t-shirts with a Statue of Liberty wielding a billy club, with the caption, “Welcome to America, You’re Under Arrest.” This was a reaction to the immigrant prison built in Oakdale.

    TopCathy, yes, I’ve heard that, and I get a bad feeling about some of the rhetoric from the right wing. No, I don’t think they’ll literally slaughter thousands, but they did kill several hundred people during the height of the Civil Rights demonstrations…and some sound like they wouldn’t mind seeing a few more people killed.

  • http://ralfast.wordpress.com/ Ralfast

    Wow, assuming to you actually know anything about student debt, the current job market and these protestors you do realize that they don’t hate anyone and are actually fighting so that everyone gets a chance, as opposed to those like you who simply grin and accept your lot in life with whimpering, “Please sir, may I have another.”

  • Glenn

    If, as you say, most working class people can’t afford an undergraduate degree at UC Davis – a public university – don’t you think that’s a problem worth protesting?

  • FatBoy

    If you don’t want to pay the 18% rate hike, don’t.  You have choices, don’t go to college, go to a less expensive college, or go to a community college.  No one is forcing you to pay the rate hike.

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