“do you think you fell out of a coconut tree? you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you”

these words recently became a meme through going viral on x/twitter and then becoming a popularized sound snippet on tiktok and the meme taking off on other platforms as well.

the context of this phrase is kamala harris giving a speech at the  swearing-in ceremony of commissioners for the white house initiative on “advancing educational equity, excellence, and economic opportunity for hispanics.”

the full phrase being:

“part of the extension of the work you will do is, yes, focused on our young leaders and our young people, but understanding we also then have to be clear about the needs of their parents and their grandparents and their teachers and their communities because none of us just live in a silo. everything is in context.

continuing she added: “my mother used to — she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘i don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. you think you just fell out of a coconut tree?' you exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you."

these words have been echoing in my ears for reasons beyond the meme’s popularity. for one, the context itself is interesting. after reading up on it on knowyourmeme.com i learned the origin of it started through being posted by a far right platform on youtube. from there mostly far right white nationalists used the video on x/twitter until eventually it was posted by larger humor accounts on x/twitter and then used de-contextualized from it’s original space by the general population. i had started using the meme, and thinking about it, because the phrase itself is pretty grave and wise and humorous. however realizing how it originated forced me to draw comparisons to wojaks, meme characters that originated from alt right 4chan users, or the “reject modernity, embrace tradition” meme which also originated with fascists and then got picked up out of context after increased popularity and use. 

thinking back to the meme in question, do memes exist in the context of all in which they live and what came before them? 

i question the severity of the impact of fascist memes on popular culture, seeing as much of the election was also influenced by his meme-ing, and twitter(since being bought by loser technofascist elon musk and becoming x on july 23, 2023) has become even more openly overrun by white supremacist fascists. considering this, memes created by fascists seem to tend to serve as propaganda, infiltrating the sub-conscious of popular culture. 

i wonder how long before the state itself picks up this meme, as a way to try to feed into celebrity-dom and infantilize itself with  perceived lightheartedness to cover for directly being  involved with upholding ongoing genocides and slavery. there are implied respectability politics involved in the phrasing of the event, of “equity, excellence, and economic opportunity for “hispanics”” what does the state mean by “excellence”? what does economic opportunity mean, at who’s expense it ? for what? “hispanics” ? another ambiguous term which says nothing about the positionality of someone outside of having been geographically been born in so-called “latin america”. representation politics within representation politics. 

when reflecting on cultural shifts since the uprisings in 2020, there are many ways in which representation politics shape and inform the political landscape under a liberal fascist president like genocide joe. what does it mean for kamala harris to bring up her mother’s phrase in this setting ? it means everything and nothing in the context of destruction, co-optation and decay by the empire, changing very little only because it is now at the hands of a woman of color. the world we hope to build shouldn’t mean diversified oppressors, but rather complete liberation and release from oppression, hierarchy, and the death cult that is white supremacy.

“this ship is not canon” babe, they’re fictional characters. they’re not real. they’re literally dolls we play with. we don’t care about whether or not these fictional characters’ love story is canon in this piece of media that is also entirely based on fiction. I mean, sure, canon would be lovely, but it’s a bonus. it’s not necessary. what we care about is the fun of talking about these 2 idiots being in love.

we don’t give a fuck if they didn’t kiss in “canon”. they had raw sex in thousands of fics about them though. and I’d say that’s more than enough to make people who ship them happily ship them even harder. happy shipping!

The "Zepotha" trend on tiktok makes me SICK as an indie slasher fan. Why did they choose the name "Zepotha?" Name one fucking indie slasher from the 80's that isn't called something like House of Guts. "Zepotha" would be the name of an arthouse horror from the 70's created by a giallo-obsessed Johnny-come-lately director from New Jersey. Zepotha would be brought up in every other "obscure horror recs" thread on reddit until it became a circlejerk meme to even mention it.

"Oh you sound so mad, you sound like you just want to gatekeep--" I DO! I'M GATEKEEPING! None of these people even like slashers! They can barely make it through Fear Street, and then they still make fun of effects that aren't Marvel-sweatshop-grade CGI! You expect them to be able to create a fictional slasher movie with the conviction that this site had when it created Goncharov? Get! Off! Of! My! Lawn!

btw when you're being mean to aziraphale this is who you're being mean to. hope this helps

I just finished rewatching ATLA and I have to say…

Absolutely insane to me that people were insisting that Azula not getting a redemption was “misogynistic” and some kind of writing mistake. The girl told her dad to commit mass genocide.

What is it?

he's not only a clown, he's the entire circus

astarion + text posts (part 22)

*This poll was submitted to us and we simply posted it so people could vote and discuss their opinions on the matter. If you’d like for us to ask the internet a question for you, feel free to drop the poll of your choice in our inbox and we’ll post them anonymously (for more info, please check our pinned post).

angel dust: are you a coke or pepsi guy ?

husk: coke

angel dust: oh thank god. i couldn’t date a pepsi guy

husk: what ? so if i gave you the world, but i drank pepsi, you wouldn’t date me ?

angel dust: yeah exactly

husk: *shocked, but laughing*

angel dust: no because what if we had kids ? and then you raised them to be pepsi people ? that’s, like, abuse. can’t raise pepsi kids

Gordon/Barney/Alyx is really really funny to me conceptually bc it's like, two hot geniuses in their 20s who look at the 40-something smartass who hangs around and go 'yeah that guy. we both want him carnally'

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