We need to discuss the political significance of emoji. Not just any emoji, but the worst emoji of all. That obnoxious, chortling little yellow dickhead – bulbous, cartoonish tears streaming down its face – which seems to have taken over social media in recent months.
Some have suggested that the frog face is the worst emoji, because of its recent association with the so-called alt-right (neo-Nazi nerds, in layman’s terms) who adopted it as a mascot after the Southern Poverty Law Center declared the Pepe the frog meme a symbol of hate. These people are wrong. While it’s true that this new fascist connection has irreparably tainted the previously innocent amphibian character, it’s still not as intrinsically offensive as the “crying laughing” or “tears of joy” face that is the subject of my ire.
You might think she’s kidding. But no, she’s really talking about this triumphant little fella.
This article was written November 24th, 2016 by one Abi Wilkinson. This was the height of the Trump Derangement Syndrome era, back when everyone, us and these NPCs, thought Trump was real. It really is a walk down memory lane, with this English wahman being so assblasted by people replying to her meltdowns on twitter or elsewhere with the crying laughing emoji that she decided to make her psychosis official and put it out there in the public. That this got published indicates that this is normal behaviour at Giardian HQ.
Still, there’s something about this particular character – with its broad, cackling grin and the perfomatively prominent tears of mirth – that just feels inherently mocking and cruel. When I found out that the design had been used to create balaclavas, my immediate thought was: “At least we know what They’ll be wearing when They come.” Even in cases where the emoji user’s meaning seems entirely innocent, it still provokes a visceral reaction in me that I’d struggle to overstate.
As is often the case, I somewhat struggle to add commentary. I mean, it’s an emoji. Imagine having such a fragile mental state that someone sending you a crying laughing emoji causes you to write an article on how inherently cruel this little bastard is.
It appears that the Giardian commentry did not share my bafflement induced writer’s block, as there are well over five hundred comments on her piece. No doubt they are of such cruel nature that they needed to be hidden from the precious, fragile eyeballs of the bots who actually read the WMD Liars. There’s even a nice “I’m not mad, you’re mad,” attempt when they reframe people laughing at this as “moaning about this being published.”
It almost certainly has less to do with the actual nature of that graphic than the scenarios in which I most commonly encounter it. Most often, the sender is gloating about something or other. In many cases, the topic that appears to have amused them is the sort of thing you’d hope any empathetic, reasonable person would find unconscionably horrific. Deaths of refugees who were desperately attempting to cross the Mediterranean in a rickety, overfilled boat entirely unfit for such a journey. Reports of a rise in hate crime in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote. Particularly horrendous benefit sanction case studies. Trump’s threats to create a register of Muslims living in the US, to deport millions of primarily Latino US residents and to defund Planned Parenthood.
Getting conned by Trump was so much fun. Remember when it looked like there was this guy who was going to actually represent Our People in office? Remember the guy who was going to “drain the swamp,” and kick out all the Mexicans? Remember that guy?
Sometime around 2018 the narrative shifted hard. The propagandists stopped being so venemously hateful of Trump, and shifted their nasty ire to Trump’s supporters. It’s not hard to see why, considering the King of Israel literally gave them more than they thought they could get.
The defining event of Trump’s political career was him literally saying “I’ll be there with you,” as he told his supporters to go and march on the capital because he had lost an election by refusing to appeal to White People. That and raising $300 million for a totally fraudulent legal battle that never happened.
He’s been reduced to whining about Elon Musk not letting Twatter rip him off to the tune of $44 billion just so that Trump can have his shitty little twatter account back. That’s where he is in 2022. Knowing what a fraudulent piece of shit Trump is really leaves a sour taste in my mouth, but six years ago he was still causing seething and coping to a level never before seen and it was crazy fun at the time.
However, I’ve come to realise –
Actually there’s one bit of hers that I have to come back to. She mentioned people laughing about migrants getting eaten by sharks, Trump’s threatened Muslim registry, threats to deport Mexicans, and the rise of “hate crimes.” But there was one other thing that she included.
…Reports of a rise in hate crime in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit vote. Particularly horrendous benefit sanction case studies. Trump’s threats to create a register of Muslims living in the US, to deport millions of primarily Latino US residents and to defund Planned Parenthood.
I didn’t even know what honeybuns was referring to, but those are studies that conclude that the lower class gets too much money. This is apparently “horrifying,” on a level of people getting eaten by sharks or mass ethnic cleansing. Similarly, inconveniencing wahmens getting abortions is pretty much at the top of the list of horrifying things that can happen in the world of Abi Wilkinson.
However, I’ve come to realise that the specific nature of the horror frequently isn’t the primary reason for the glee. It takes a certain level of callous disregard to respond to human suffering in such a manner, but the real target of derision is most often People Like Me. That is, socially liberal, middle-class do-gooders piously informing people that they should care about these various issues. In the words of Rage Against the Machine, the message being conveyed is clear: “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me.”
Did she… did she capitalize People Like Me? She did, this insane wahman actually did it.
As for her self-described do-gooder nature, fuck you. These little cunts are the nastiest people on the planet, and are fully aware that their job is to shill for our parasite class, while keeping the conceit of bravely fighting against the privileged and powerful.
That’s not really the point, though. Personally benefiting is far less of a priority than ensuring that the appropriate people are losing. Call it spite, or even just a desire to exert some sort of influence on the world because many of these people have felt powerless for a very long time. In the UK, in elite rhetoric if not always in policy, the liberal social and economic consensus has held for almost as long as I’ve been alive. Though we disagree heavily on the details, I empathise with the yearning to bring about some sort of change. It’s undeniable that the ability to affect things must feel thrilling, even if the specific nature of your influence mainly involves just totally fucking stuff up.
Wilkinson uses a tried and true propaganda technique, where she replaces “x is happening,” to “these bigots feel like x is happening.” The reason those people feel powerless is because in Fake Democracy they are. There is no direct, online voting, although there could be. There is no politician who actually represents them. There is no institution that exists for them. All they have is watching the propagandists for the privileged, like Abi Wilkinson, suffer meltdowns.
But Abi’s illustrious career with the Giardian came to an end in 2018. I wonder what poor Abi could possibly have done to –
Oh, I see.
Danny Finkelstein – or Baron Finkelstein of Pinner to give him the title he hardly ever uses – has become the latest person to be the object of a twitter hate campaign.
He is, according to Abi Wilkinson, a Corbyn-supporting journalist, “a racist scumbag” who is “chill with ethnic cleansing.”
It may seem surprising that Finkelstein, former member of the SDP and since that party’s demise a leading voice of “moderate” Conservatism, should be so characterised, even by Wilkinson who believes that “incivility isn’t merely justifiable, but actively necessary.”
Let me guess. Danny Finkelstein is a hardcore jew nationalist violent racial cleansing enthusiast Israel supporter, but he’s also super anti-White and pro-pervert, at least in goy countries. Then, Abi Wilkinson, a ditz who just doesn’t get it, looks at his support of Israelis murdering the goyim in the middle east and thinks that the principle of not genociding Brown People is supposed to carry to jews. It doesn’t.
That’s my prediction, let’s see how accurate it is.
What has Finkelstein done to prompt such abuse?
Was he seen outside the Court of Appeal, joining hands with Katie Hopkins chanting “Tommy Tommy Tommy!” as the great white hope of British fascism was sprung from gaol last week?
No.
Has he been using his Times column to call for the indigenous folk of Europe to unite to drive Islam back beyond the gates of Vienna, to the Bosphorus and beyond?
No, although in recent weeks he has written paragraphs like this about about immigration and the problems of multi-ethnic societies:
“It is therefore right to argue for control and moderation in allowing the migration that creates ethnically diverse societies; essential to recognise that integration is extremely challenging and will require great political effort; vital to see that civic equality will not happen by itself and prejudice will not easily disappear, both needing to be driven by enlightened leaders.”
Control and moderation! Creating diverse societies! Trying to make prejudice disappear! Demanding political effort to achieve civic equality!
What about international affairs?
As, Finkelstein himself has written:
“The allegation of dual loyalty is one of the most common ways I encounter antisemitism, through the suggestion that my political position on an issue is the result of my “zionism”. This, alongside the posting of comments about Israel to almost anything I or other Jews write.”
It’s amazing isn’t it? This jew is a big supporter of diversity, and integration. He’s also a jew nationalist Israel supporter, who probably thinks that you should be thrown in jail for “hate speech,” if you say that Israel doesn’t have a right to exist as a jew ethnostate. Here are the results from his uncensored twatter I got searching for “Israel”.
It’s so odd, isn’t it. This ditz has a nice cushy sinecure in propaganda lined up for her. Then she goes and criticizes a jew nationalist using the same “leftist,” principles that she no doubt uses to attack White English People and her propaganda career gets holocausted. Not the armies of people on the internet who “feel,” powerless sending her crying laughing emojis. Just a “moderate conservative,” Israel Firster named Danny Finkelstein.
Funny how that works.
Judging from her twatter profile pic, Abi looks to be about the right age where a picture of an empty egg carton would do far more emotional damage than a laughing emoji.