A small commentary
Oct. 12th, 2006 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjpepperSo this morning in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
blackfolk (I swear, I get most of my daily news from there and from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sydneycat, it's scary) someone posted an image they'd found lampooning both the events of yesterday and the actual plane bombing of the WTC. I'm too lazy to post a copy of it, but basically it was a photo of the burning apartment complex with "10/11/06 - NEVAR[sic] FORGET" superimposed on it in big block type.
I'm sure the person who created said image wasn't thinking about the greater satirical meaning of his quick photoshop job and was just going for a cheap laugh. I fully believe that 99.9 percent of stuff created on the internet is just on the fly humor and its creators never think about what's beyond the initial giggle. That would be giving people too much credit. But I did have to consider why I found it funny when I probably should have been offended, at least, on behalf of the people that died five years ago and those that died in the accident yesterday.
The conclusion I came to was that the humor value isn't coming at the expense of those who died in both tragedies. However it is a pretty effective lampoon of the media circus, soundbites, slogan-ism, jingoism and exploitation that erupted in the aftermath of September 11. Consider: how many of those "9-11 - Never Forget" ball caps, t-shirts, signs, flags, mugs and other useless crap did you see people using and wearing afterwards? I'm willing to bet a fraction of a percentage of that stuff went to charity. Of course, that means somewhere some seriously twisted folk profited upon a nation's shock and horror and probably used either sweatshop or maquiladora labor to do it with. Then there's what the news did to it. The phrase "Nine-eleven" practically has a registered trademark following it. It's become a buzzword, not an event. The date has been transformed into this big media and political juggernaut that is used repeatedly pretty much the same way sudden loud orchestral accents are in a horror movie score - that burst of swift, from the gut emotional response. Except when dealing with horror movies, emotional manipulation is part of the fun and expected. In terms of a tragedy, it's insensitive and inexcusable. Especially considering how that nationwide emotional manipulation was used by the Powers That Be.
Is that picture offensive? Sure. However, considering the greater context, it's also funny... in an I-have-to-laugh-or-I'll-punch-something sort of way.
blackfolk (I swear, I get most of my daily news from there and from sydneycat, it's scary) someone posted an image they'd found lampooning both the events of yesterday and the actual plane bombing of the WTC. I'm too lazy to post a copy of it, but basically it was a photo of the burning apartment complex with "10/11/06 - NEVAR[sic] FORGET" superimposed on it in big block type.I'm sure the person who created said image wasn't thinking about the greater satirical meaning of his quick photoshop job and was just going for a cheap laugh. I fully believe that 99.9 percent of stuff created on the internet is just on the fly humor and its creators never think about what's beyond the initial giggle. That would be giving people too much credit. But I did have to consider why I found it funny when I probably should have been offended, at least, on behalf of the people that died five years ago and those that died in the accident yesterday.
The conclusion I came to was that the humor value isn't coming at the expense of those who died in both tragedies. However it is a pretty effective lampoon of the media circus, soundbites, slogan-ism, jingoism and exploitation that erupted in the aftermath of September 11. Consider: how many of those "9-11 - Never Forget" ball caps, t-shirts, signs, flags, mugs and other useless crap did you see people using and wearing afterwards? I'm willing to bet a fraction of a percentage of that stuff went to charity. Of course, that means somewhere some seriously twisted folk profited upon a nation's shock and horror and probably used either sweatshop or maquiladora labor to do it with. Then there's what the news did to it. The phrase "Nine-eleven" practically has a registered trademark following it. It's become a buzzword, not an event. The date has been transformed into this big media and political juggernaut that is used repeatedly pretty much the same way sudden loud orchestral accents are in a horror movie score - that burst of swift, from the gut emotional response. Except when dealing with horror movies, emotional manipulation is part of the fun and expected. In terms of a tragedy, it's insensitive and inexcusable. Especially considering how that nationwide emotional manipulation was used by the Powers That Be.
Is that picture offensive? Sure. However, considering the greater context, it's also funny... in an I-have-to-laugh-or-I'll-punch-something sort of way.
