Memes that HURT!

"The labor of online content production is done with hopes of an audience in mind; memes are created for the very purpose of virality and, by extension, appropriation." (Poor Meme, Rich Meme)
I came across the meme above recently and I thought I recognized it with another meme I had seen circulating a long time ago. After doing a very quick google search I discovered the original meme this young boy was placed in (without any consent of course). It really got me thinking about our use of children's photos and videos in memes and gifs. After all we often share many pictures of our children, not thinking they will become a hurtful meme that goes viral.



Now when I see this meme come up as a mother, teacher, and human being I am mad! Seeing a child with a clear disability but also a child should not be subjected to the cruelty of being in a meme with such mean and hurtful comparisons and "humor". Someone found this child's photo and instead of using it for awareness they used it for their own personal gain of possibly going viral. Apparently with no moral values or concern for our children this was made for humor. Disabilities are not funny!

Unfortunately the mother of this child found this meme of her child and responded with her own. She began creating memes of awareness instead. Her memes brought awareness not only to her son Jameson's disability and the use of his photo for such a hurtful purpose. See for the Internet trolls that made this he is a funny face, he is not Jameson. 

As responsible citizens I think we have a responsibility to unfollow, unfriend, report people that are making these. Simply choosing to skip past it is not enough. We need to find ways to stop making them viral. Our children are unable to do it themselves and we need to take responsibility and act. I have realized what contributions I have had to simply skipping past a meme or gif I thought was inappropriate or hateful and instead stopped contributing my likes and follows to pages and people that spread hate. Let do it together and create some change for our children! 




Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 25, 2018 at 10:47 PM

    I completely agree. It starts with one person speaking up and advocating for those who don't get to speak for themselves in the image. I believe the more awareness and advocacy for marginalized groups will hopefully lead to less hurtful and hateful memes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JaneNovember 26, 2018 at 2:08 PM

    Platforms make it deliberately easy to share -- no matter what it is... so a basic digital literacy is to just stop impulsively sharing before thinking through the consequences. Thanks for sharing this poignant example.

    ReplyDelete

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