Take care the Anomalies: Internet Satire
Imagine it’s late one night, and you’re taking part in a conversation among friends.
After a couple of hours of easy small-talk, the topic deviates into the absurd. The resulting laughter inspires a series of increasingly-hilarious comments, and soon climaxes in a statement which brings down the house.
This “statement” might be distilled into just a few words (for example: “Christians Against Dinosaurs”), and within the small circle responsible for the climax, the distilled “meme” retains its original comedic impact.
This kind of social dynamic serves as a typical birthplace of what we’ve come to refer to as a meme, which is a sociological concept originally introduced in the 1970’s by Richard Dawkins, but in modern parlance typically refers to an image or an idea that’s acknowledged as funny.
Humans embrace comedy for many reasons, and for that reason, people been churning out memes for millennia, but with the introduction of large-scale media platforms (such as social media) it’s possible for ordinary people to innovate and launch memes into global acclaim.
Allow me to propose two different categories of comedic Internet memes:
- Indigenous
- Contrived
An indigenous meme is an organic joke that arises by happenstance, bursts into widespread acclaim, and vanishes almost as quickly.
What purpose does a comedic meme serve?
For one: comedy helps form a basis of shared experience between two or more individuals, and the sharing of a meme can help transform on-line interactions into something enjoyable.
Secondly, knowledge of a certain meme helps reinforce a person’s status within their circles, speaking to how well they are able to keep abreast of evolving absurdities as they manifest.
To that end, within circles of hackers the knowledge of a certain indigenous meme coupled with its temporal context plays an important role in providing the basis of high-context multi-factor authentication.
Allow me to elaborate.
For a variety of reasons, there are communities of people on the Internet who cycle through different accounts. Some of these people are journalists in war-torn regions, seeking to protect their identity. Others are hacktivists who likewise seek to obfuscate their identities from the authorities.
Within these exclusive circles, it’s common for an individual to cycle through a large number of sybils, or fake accounts. On Monday they may be a middle-aged woman, and by Wednesday they may be costumed as a younger male.
How do they authenticate their identity among their cohort? Through references to shared high-context, and highly-exclusive memes, coupled to its original temporal context.
This may sound complicated, but most of us do this all the time, now that the existence of fake accounts is now considered widespread knowledge.
Let’s assume that someone sends you a friend request on Facebook. You look at their profile, and recognize their name and their photo, but how do you verify they are who they claim to be?
In a one-on-one chat, you may challenge them to provide some information that only they would know, which would have occurred during a specific period of time, for example:
You and I worked at Tripwire. You worked in Finance. I was in Product Management. One time we went to lunch at Gandhi's and I spilled my food on my pantleg. You spit your drink in laughter.
Again, this is an example of a comedic experience (a meme) that exists within the shared sensorium between two or more individuals, and if properly delivered and sufficiently accurate, may serve to verify a person’s claimed identity.
In the parlance of the security industry, this is referred to as an example of a high-context form of multi-factor identity verification, and I contend that it’s one of the most sophisticated, most ancient, and most difficult to hack, because memes in their distilled and exclusive form typically relies upon extremely exclusive shared experiences within a specific window of time.
Contrived memes
The second category of memes (contrived) are easily discernable from indigenous memes for a variety of reasons by answering a few questions:
- Q: what’s the meme’s half-life anomaly?
- Q: what’s the meme’s comedic diversity over time?
- Q: is there a militant rejection of any organic evolution in the memetic pattern?
- Q: is there a disciplined maintenance of the meme by an exclusive core team?
- Q: is there a tie to profit motive which might otherwise justify the years-long disciplined stewardship of a meme with low organic evolution or diversity?
- Q: is there a small core team of meme stewards?
- Q: What do the meme stewards do for a living?
- Q: is there a history of harassment or rumored insanity among those who had visited the memetic instance in the past?
- Q: do the stewards of the meme engage in the disciplined use of psychological projection, deflection, and gaslighting?
Let’s go through them one-by-one:
Q: what’s the meme’s half-life anomaly?
This test is simple: an organic, indigenous meme typically boasts a half-life of about three to seven days.
Viral memes come and go with the blink of an eye, often morphing and merging with other memes before fading into obscurity.
In contrast, the potentially contrived meme Christians against Dinosaurs has been running persistently and consistently for several years, with almost zero deviation from its unpublished style guide.
Q: what’s the meme’s comedic diversity over time?
As noted, an indigenous meme evolves at lightening speed, and merges with other memes before it fades into absurdity and obscurity.
A contrived meme maintains a disciplined and almost militant maintenance of the original meme over time.
For example, the Christians against Dinosaurs meme has been running without discernable comedic deviation for several years.
Q: is there a militant rejection of any organic evolution in the memetic pattern?
Subtle practitioners of sybils (fake accounts) are able to spot, assess, and verify contrived memes because they deviate so completely from the more natural variety, and the most egregious deviation is a militant rejection of any organic comedic evolution within the joke itself.
Indigenous memes are organic in nature, and one which arises naturally comes without any rigid style guide which dictates what’s allowed and what’s taboo.
Typically, Internet-savvy marketers will define “buzz-ready” memes in support of a for-profit consumer enterprise, designed to elevate awareness of a product or a brand.
An easy test: identify who’s propagating the meme by adding creative extensions to the meme to test how receptive its stewards are to natural creative evolution.
An indigenous meme has no centralized body of stewards, and as such: there’s no enforcement of a style guide which dictates what’s allowed and what’s taboo.
In contrast, the administrators for the Christians against Dinosaurs meme are ruthless in their enforcement of an unseen style guide which dictates what constitutes allowable content.
Q: is there a disciplined maintenance of the meme by an exclusive core team?
A contrived meme is maintained over the course of weeks, months, and (in the case of Christians against Dinosaurs) by a small and exclusive core team which allows no deviation from a small number of comedic extensions.
Likewise, the contrived meme is maintained by a small number of individuals with almost no churn (cycling of new leadership in favor of old).
Q: is there a tie to profit motive which might otherwise justify the years-long disciplined stewardship of a meme with low organic evolution or diversity?
As discussed, a contrived meme is one which deviates from an organic joke in the manner by which it’s constrained to strict parameters by a small number of exclusive stewards for the course of months or (in the case of Christians against Dinosaurs): years.
Which begs the question: why? Do they sell t-shirts?
As shared previously, the most common reason for such militant protection of a meme is a for-profit endeavor which may justify the extensive operational overhead of such an operation.
However, if a meme has answered the other tests for a contrived meme in the affirmative, and yet is not maintained by a for-profit entity, why do they exist?
Q: is there a small core team of meme stewards?
If you’ve answered the prior questions in the affirmative, it’s time to reconsider the effort through the lens of what makes sense.
Ask yourself:
If the meme has been running for years, and without any organic deviation in comedic direction, and its maintenance is assigned to a small number of exclusive administrators, it’s time to ask this question:
Q: What do the meme stewards do for a living?
In what manner do they pay their bills? How are they funding their years-long disciplined maintenance of a certain comedic meme if they aren’t leveraging to make money?
Again, ask yourself: what makes sense?
Q: is there a history of harassment or rumored insanity among those who had visited the memetic instance in the past?
In review: if you’re this far through the tests listed above, and have established that the stewards of the memetic instance are apparently without employment, it’s worth probing a little deeper.
Pay attention to see how the meme stewards commonly describe their effort as a joke, or a troll which might justify an orchestrated harassment of its visitors.
Some contrived memes which boast years-long disciplined execution have left in their wake a large number of people who have been harassed personally, professionally, and some have been driven to rumored insanity and suicide.
Which begs the question….
If the stewards of the years-long memes are not employed, are maintaining a meme framework for years, and have established a history harassing visitors personally and professionally to the extent that some are rumored to have gone insane or committed suicide, what are these efforts?
Is there peril in exploring too deeply into the satirical anomalies?
To answer this question, first ask another question:
Q: Do the stewards of the memetic framework cloak themselves in the language of righteousness while engaging in acts of cruelty?
If so, you’re looking at two options:
(1) you may be looking at a disciplined concentration of individuals who have expressed cruelty that’s very nearly sociopathic
(2) and/or, you may be looking at a privately funded psychological operation, likely by either an information gathering entity, law enforcement, or federally-aligned agencies
In other words: the years-long satirical effort might well just be a honey pot maintained by law enforcement or intelligence for the purposes of identifying individuals of a certain potential for harassment and/or fatal disruption.
Of course, it’s possible that you’ve encountered a possible deviation from the comedic norm, but not probable.
Q: do the stewards of the meme engage in the disciplined use of psychological projection, deflection, and gaslighting?
First, some definitions:
- Psychological projection: denying the existence of a quality in themselves by attributing them to others (example: “you’re the cheater,” says a woman who is cheating)
- Psychological deflection: a narcissistic abuse tactic that’s similar to blame-shifting designed to divert attention away from misdeeds, controlling the mind and the emotions of everyone around him/her
- Psychological gaslighting: a form of psychological manipulation in which a person or a group covertly sows seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, perception, or judgment.
It’s impossible to debate with a person who uses these methods, for they are either naturally narcissistic (such as someone with borderline personality disorder), or they are disciplined practitioners of what’s called psychological operations, or psyops.
Another simple test: a byproduct of borderline personality disorder (BPD) is instability, and a person with BPD is not able to consistently participate or function within a disciplined, years-long memetic effort before driving themselves towards self-destruction, burning bridges along the way.
If the stewards of the meme are disciplined in their efforts, over several years, and without deviation from the core parameters, and if they are disciplined in their maintenance of an unpaid endeavor, and if they are disciplined in their use of psychology as a weapon, you may be looking at a funded psyop.
We’ve learned in recent years that many nation states inclusive to the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, Israel, and others have (and will) fund disciplined, multi-year memetic campaigns managed by a small number of compensated administrators who are disciplined in the use of psychology as a weapon, more commonly referred to as a psyop.
What’s a psyop?
Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.
Indeed, in recent history, the former Israeli company the Psy Group (slogan: “shape reality”) was hired by the Trump campaign to create FBI Anon to fill the vacuum left by Anonymous, later rebranded as: Qanon.
These efforts are implemented to devastating effect, and satisfy the criteria listed above for a contrived meme, although I’ll give Qanon credit: at least their stewards allowed some creative evolution and memetic deviation, whereas other efforts (such as Christians against Dinosaurs) tolerates no deviations from rigid and precise comedic parameters.
So what’s the purpose of these satirical anomalies?
Are the the result of an inside jokes maintained for years by people who derive enjoyment from the personal and professional harassment of individuals, sometimes to the point of suicide?
Are they evidence of psychopathic and sociopathic troll subcultures on the Internet which exist solely to entertain people who enjoy cruelty?
Are they disciplined fundamentalists who derive enjoyment from harassing individuals into committing suicide?
Or are they honeypots funded by law enforcement or intelligence agencies for the purposes of identifying people of a certain quality, and harassing them until they are diminished or destroyed?
It’s time we invest in a more careful review of those who contribute to our collective health, as we’ve all learned how much some individuals derive personal enjoyment in the orchestrated suffering of others.
