Fatima Nasiyr
The "Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop" meme originated from a video from November 18, 2011 that showed ten UC Davis students being pepper sprayed by UC Davis police officers, and it particular Lieutenant John Pike. The students were sitting on the ground with their arms linked in protest for the Occupy Movement. A photo was also taken of Lt. Pike walking down the line of the peacefully protesting students and pepper spraying them. This photo was uploaded onto the popular social news site Reddit the day after the incident where it gained popularity. Users quickly began to photoshop the image of Lt. Pike peppers spraying into many famous paintings, such as the one below. The image was photoshopped into various historical and famous artworks or events, especially those that had to with any type of human rights.
The Occupy Movement was widespread around the country at this point, and so was the news of the police brutality against the Occupy protesters. This led to the news of the pepper spraying, as well as the image, to be covered by many news outlets as well as it to be heavily circulated among people through various social media and social networking sites. Another meme, or technically a macro, was spawned from this meme when news reporter Megyn Kelly from Fox news tried to downplay the seriousness of being pepper sprayed by saying, "[i]t is like a derivative of actual pepper... it's a food product, essentially."
The the meme as the image of Lt. Pike pepper spraying first came into use on November 19, 2011 when it was uploaded onto Reddit. Although searches for "pepper spray cop" began in September 2011 because of the rise of the Occupy Movement, the actually meme did not exist until the incident that took place on November 18, 2011. I believe the meme became so popular because it clearly showcased the brutality that the Occupy protesters were receiving for their peaceful protests, which was a big topic of discussion but often debated. Some people believed the police were acting within their rights in handling the protesters, but the pepper spraying at UC Davis obviously showed an intrusion on our right to protest.
References (for information as well as pictures):
No comments:
Post a Comment