#anyways i plugged these distances into google maps later

[ellcrys]

still blows my mind that

portland > seattle > vancouver

is a longer distance than

venice > ljublana > zagreb

[weirdos-am-i-right]

Fuck Traveling// Pete Davidson x reader

Request from @annalayton19

Hi! I’m a new follower and I really like your stuff! Could I request a Pete Davidson x reader (angst to fluff) where Pete is on tour or filming away from home and the reader is left behind. After like 6 months of being apart Pete starts to get tired of the long distance and basically like done with it. And then he realizes his mistake and comes home to make it up to her! I’m sorry if that’s super long! Also if this imagine doesn’t interest you, then no sweat! Thank you so much in advance 💕

A/n: This took so much less time then I thought it would. Anyway, here you go, I really hope you like it!

Warning: angst, swearing, like one cigarettes

€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€

Six months. Six months was an extremely long time to be away from someone you loved.

Y/n sat on the couch, a small pout on her lips. She looked at Pete—her boyfriend of a year—and frowned. “I wish I could go with you.” Pete frowns too, and sits down next to her.

“I know. I wish you were coming with me too. But hey, it’s only a couple of months, all right? I’ll be back before you know it.” He kissed her cheek.

“I just wish my contract would let me. You have no idea how annoying it is to not be able to do things because of freaking Marvel.” She groans, falling on her back with a slight ‘plop’.

“Well, because of freaking Marvel, you are one of the best actresses out there. And I know you’re going to kill it with filming. My tour isn’t even that cool. It’ll broke you to death.” He jokes, leaning back on the arm of the couch.

“Babe, you’re a comedian.”

“Oh right, I forgot.” He grabs her arm, and pulls her up into his chest. “I love you, okay?” He lifts her chin up, and kisses her. “So fucking much. We’ll face time everyday, I’ll call you every evening and wish you goodnight.”

“Okay.” She looked over a the clock, and sighed. “We have to go. Your flight is leaving soon.” He brushes hair behind her ear, bringing her eyes back to him.

“I love you. It’ll be over before you know it.”

“I love you, too.”

********

The car ride to the airport was long, and quiet. Pete was driving, he had one hand on the steering wheel, and one hand on Y/n’s leg, rubbing small circles into the center of her thigh.

She knew she was going to miss him so much, but she also knew she was going to be extremely busy with filming, so it wouldn’t be as bad.

Once they were at the gate, they tearfully hugged, and she kissed him. “All right, now get out of here. We’re not doing that rom-com turn back at the last second goodbye.” She laughed at him, tears steaming down her face a bit. He wiped one with his thumb, and kissed her again. “Love you. Now go, so I get to watch you walk away.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” She turns around, and starts walking back to her car. She knew he hated leaving her too, but he was a lot better at hiding emotions then she was, that was one of the only things she learned while dating him.

She got in her car, and put her head on her steering wheel.

She groans, and leans back. Starting her car, she pulled out of the airport, and drove home.

**********

The first few months were the worst. Y/n hated going to bed alone, the left side of the bed always cold.

She was filming almost every day, and seeing her co-workers and friends always cheered her up, after all she had been working with the same people for quite some time now, so she felt comfortable around them.

The fourth month was slowly becoming easier. She got use to coming home to no one there, and making dinner for herself. She still talked to Pete every day, texting him good morning, and Goodnight, and FaceTiming him a lot during the day.

Though she knew he loved her, she felt as though he was slightly pulling away. The FaceTime calls were short, and he never texted her back right away like he use to.

“And so, we we’re almost done with the shoot, so close I could practically taste the coffee in my trailer waiting for me, and then Kevin calls cut, and he makes us do the whole scene over again! I swear, I was about to strange that man. Ugh, I can’t wait til you come home. Only two more weeks, I can’t believe we made it.” Y/n rants, talking to Pete on the phone.

“Uh huh. Cool.” He wasn’t looking at her, instead his attention was somewhere else. Y/n frowns, tilting her head a bit.

“Pete…are, are you okay?” That seemed to catch his attention, and he finally looked at the screen.

“What? I’m fine.”

“Okay…you just seem so…different lately. I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but you seem like you don’t have time for me anymore. Or if you do, you don’t like talking to me.” Pete scoffs.

“Of course I don’t have time for you right now. I’m in between shows, I’m driving to one as we speak. I mean, god forbid I get a minute to myself without my agents or you calling me.” Pete snapped.

“Wha-I’m just talking to you. If you didn’t want to, you could have said something.”

“That’s bullshit you would have thrown a fucking hissy fit or something.” He rolls his eyes.

“That’s not true. I understand when people are tired, believe me I would know.”

“Would you?”

“Yes!” She had tears stinging her eyes. “Of course I do, you’re forgetting what I do for a living. I work from 6 am to whenever we finish which most of the time is in the middle of the night. I have to re-do the same scene about ten times because RDJ won’t stop making jokes in the middle of the scene!”

“Oh, sorry, I forgot about your super-star actress life.”

“Why are you being so mean to me? I was only concerned about you.”

“Mean? What are you, five? I can’t-I can’t do this anymore.” She huffs, crossing her arms.

“What do you talking about? Are you breaking up with me?”

“Wh-”

“Because then fine. If you don’t want to be with me, I don’t have to take this shit. I’ll be with someone who, oh, I don’t know is actually here.”

“Oh that’s fucking rich, you know I can’t be there, don’t even do that.” She scoffs.

“I don’t care. You want to act like a petty bitch, I have no problem doing it right back.”

“No, I think you’re just a petty bitch.” She wipes her eye, and he laughs dryly. “Oh of course you’re crying.”

“Shut up. If you don’t want to be with me, fine. Go enjoy your show, Pete.” She hung up the phone, and turned off the ringer. She plugged it into her charger, and went into the bathroom, turning the shower on.

********

Pete rubbed his eyes, and took a drag of his cigarette. He knew he shouldn’t have snapped at her, it wasn’t her fault he was cranky, and needed to take it out on someone.

“I’m a dick.” He mumbles to himself, and bangs his steering wheel.

His phone rang again, and for a good second his heart leaping out of his chest, thinking it was his girlfriend, calling him back. He checked the phone, seeing it was Colson. He answered the call.

“What’s up, man?” Pete asks.

“The shows starting soon. You almost here?” Colson questioned. Pete looked at his google maps, seeing he was supposed to be there in ten minutes.

“I’m a good ten minutes away. I’ll be there.”

“You sound weird. What the fuck did you take without me?” Colson asks, trying to lighten the mood.

“Uh…Y/n and I just broke up. I think.” The line was silent for a few seconds.

“Why the fuck would you do that, you idiot? Are you kidding me?” Colson scoffs. “Man, what the fuck?”

“Shut up, man. I can’t stand talking on the phone with her. I’m busy, she’s busy, she plays a superhero for fuck’s sake. I didn’t even expect it to last this long to be honest.”

“Man, you fucking dumbass. That girl was probably the only good thing you had going for you. Get her the fuck back.I thought you loved her.”

“I did-I do. I do love her. I’m just so stressed right now, and excuse me for not wanting to hear about fucking Kevin Feige being a shitty director.”

“Hey, fuck-shit, you ever think that maybe this is more hard on her? Acting is fucking hard, you should know that, especially for a company like Marvel.

“Man, who’s side are you on?” Pete turns into the parking lot, and grabs his phone.

“You think I’m on your side here? You’re forgetting that we were friends before I met you. I can not believe you just fucked up the best thing in your life. Fix it, man. You’re going home in a week, fucking fix it.” And with that, Colson hung up, and put his phone away.

He kicked a rock across the pavement, and cursed under his breathe.

********

The worst thing about breaking up with someone you live with, who so happens to be long-distance is that their stuff fills the apartment with an existential amount of regret.

Y/n laid on her couch, flipping through the channels of the TV. She had called off work for the next few days, not feeling up to put on a performance for anyone. She knew she would get shit for it later, but she didn’t care.

Her head perked up when there was a knock on the door. She sighed, and got up, going over to the door. She really didn’t feel like company at the moment, and was sure she was going to send away whoever it was.

When she opened the door, her breathe caught in her throat. Pete stood in the doorway, looming over her. He looked like shit. She could tell he hadn’t slept, and probably didn’t eat anything, but she knew he didn’t look much better.

“Why-why didn’t you use your key?” Y/n asks, opening the door a bit for him.

“I uh, didn’t want to barge in on you. You also probably weren’t expecting me.”

“I wasn’t. I thought you didn’t get back until next week.” She says. It took every ounce of her not to jump into his arms, and kiss his face until she was sure she kissed every part of it.

“I took off early. Can we talk? Please. I was a dick. I was such a dick. I’m sorry, I know we grew apart in the last few months, and I promised we wouldn’t but we did, and I’m so sorry for that, baby.” He grabs her hand, and she slightly pulls it back, but let’s him grab it. “Please, forgive me. I love you, so much, okay? So fucking much, you’re the best thing that’s happened to me.”

She felt tears welling up in her eyes, and she looked away from him. “What you said really hurt.”

“I know. And I’ll spend every day trying to make it up to you.” She quickly wrapped her arms around him, pushing her face into his chest. He didn’t hesitate to hug her back, leaning down and kissing the top of her head. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Fuck traveling.”

“Fuck traveling.”

.

[oncearoundthegarrison-blog]

London to Lundy Part 1

5 months sounds like a long time, but when you’ve started a new job in a completely different industry, it flies by. New colleagues, new commute, new schedule, new maze-like museum building that took at least a month to get used to. Even new vocabulary. 

I felt like I was desperately treading water, slowly drowning in a sea of to-dos. It finally took the Christmas period, when the museum was closed, most colleagues and external contacts had taken holidays and my telephone and inbox fell quiet, that I had a moment to realise... I have 13 days of annual leave to use up before the end of the financial year.

My husband’s birthday is in March, so I thought we could go somewhere together to celebrate, as we had been doing the last few years. The thing is, my husband works in a small company, a team of 3, in fact. Unfortunately, the other 2 also have their birthdays in March, so, being the most junior, he felt he couldn’t take a week off, especially because they were planning a work trip around that time too.

“You should go on a yoga retreat by yourself.” he suggested. As if I wanted to pay hundreds of pounds to go and spend days stretching with strangers, some of whom were guaranteed to be a little too ‘woo-woo’ for my taste (no offence). 

I decided I wanted to do something that was ‘worthwhile’ with my time. After hours researching expensive (and scammy) conservation holidays, scrolling through WorkAways and WWOOFing opportunities, I somehow landed on the jackpot; a National Trust working holiday on Lundy, a three mile long, half mile wide island off the coast of North Devon.

Having hastily signed up and gained a place, I set to work on the dreaded getting-there logistics. The first thing was already ticked off the list. The only way of getting from the Devon coast onto Lundy Island at that time of the year is by Helicopter. With that booked, I looked into getting from London to Devon and back. 

The autumn before, I had bought my first car. It’s a fully electric Nissan Leaf. Using it largely for the weekly shop and commuting to work (15 minutes if the traffic is nice, 1 hour if it’s the usual), it’s the perfect car for pootling around the city and suburbs, where an electric charger is always close to hand. We’d done the odd 2 hour drives, but the route planning, and adding 30 mins per charge stop, the anxiety of ‘what if the charger we are heading towards is out of order’ was quite stressful, so a solo drive down to Devon seemed a foolhardy concept.

But, the more I tried to arrange the public transport, the more complicated things got. First off, the nearest train station is 25 miles away, and you need to get on a bus for an hour even to get close to the helipad. Not only that but you had to get there by 10am latest, so unless you wanted to leave London at crazy o’clock, you had to arrive the night before and find accommodation. On top of that, on the way back, you have no idea what time your helicopter flight is. “Sometime between 11 and 3pm, and it depends on the weather, you could be delayed to later in the afternoon or even the next day!” So booking a train for the way back was a gamble. Driving to Devon in my electric car started to look like a more attractive, at least simpler, concept.

I’m not what you call a confident driver, and some past long distance drives had been very stressful. It’s hard for me to forget that I could kill myself or anyone else by making a silly mistake. And I make plenty of those in my everyday life. What if I don’t plan well and I run out of charge on my car? The prospect of driving alone, for four hours, which would probably include at least 4 charges, was terrifying. Also, if I want to arrive at the heliport at 9:30am, then I would need to leave at 5:30am, but add on 4 x 30 minute charges is 3:30am, and maybe I should add an extra hour in case I take the wrong turning or there is traffic or a diversion... well that’s crazy o’clock. So I decided to break up the journey by stopping off at my uncle’s in Bristol.

The week before setting off, I made sure to check and double check the route on the Zap-Map app, which shows you the locations of all the EV chargers. I read reviews of each charger, making sure it was used recently and recorded as having a successful charge. I made sure I knew the locations of at least 2 other chargers near the one I actually planned to charge at, in case that one was occupied or faulty. 

I wrote out the addresses of each charger, in case I lost my phone. I packed a portable power bank for my phone, in case it ran out of battery. I found out what numbers I need to call if I break down or run out of charge, or have an accident (yeah OK I should’ve known those already). Some chargers require you to start the charge using your mobile phone... but what if you didn’t have enough reception? I drove my husband crazy with my fretting and stressing. I made sure I had enough car snacks and a good playlist.

Then the day finally came. I left for Bristol around 9.00am. It was a bright sunny day and I left in high spirits, onto the M4. Forty minutes later, dirty black clouds appear and it starts to properly pour. The roads were not too busy but there was a ropey 15 minutes of very poor visibility, the spray from the other cars and lorries obscuring the road like a thick fog. My heart pumping, I was very glad to arrive at my first charge stop at a service station just after 10am.

There, I struck up a conversation with a fellow Nissan Leaf driver, and I asked him if he’d heard the rumour that you shouldn’t charge your car up to 100% on one of the rapid chargers (there are a few different charge speeds, you see). It’s something I was told by the customer services person when I rang up the helpline on a day a charger refused to stop charging (really reassuring). The man looked at me doubtingly and said that he hadn’t. When he left, I googled it and it really does seem to be the case that it damages your battery. I hope he looked it up later as well. I had a hot chocolate in the Starbucks, charged my phone and bought some gloves, as I forgot to pack mine. Feeling panicked about damaging the battery, I headed off at 82% charged.

Luckily, the closer I got to Bristol and my uncle’s flat, the lower the speed limit, the more traffic there was. I say lucky because driving in those circumstances uses up much less charge than going 70mph down the motorway. By 11:40 I have arrived at my final charge stop, a Bannatyne Health Club just round the corner from my final destination. I was even more happy to see that it was a simple plug in, tap your contactless card and charge jobby. You’d think that’s how all chargers are, but no. EV chargers are run by different providers, I have no less than 5 different apps on my phone plus a physical tap card, and there’s still some chargers where I have to spend ages registering on a website in order to start a charge. Mental.

I go into the health club and explain I’m not a member but would like to sit in the cafe while my car charges. I was a bit worried they would turn me away, but, just as my Zap-Map colleagues had reassured me, they asked me to sign in to a guest book and let me in. I order a tea and settle down for 20 minutes. In hindsight, during my journey to Devon and back, I think I spent almost the same amount of money on beverages and nibbles waiting for the car to charge as for the charge itself!

Anyway, all in all a smooth journey to Bristol, and I get to my uncle’s around 12:15, just in time for lunch. After a lovely afternoon taking in the sights of Bristol (managed to catch the excellent Wildlife Photography of The Year 2019 exhibition at M Shed, see below for the fun image of a shocked Himalayan marmot that won the Grand Title) and catching up with a friend over a quick drink in the evening, I go to bed early, ready for an early start in the morning.

[teachanarchy]

“I think the computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole, you know, age of computer, has made it where nobody knows exactly what’s going on.”

—Donald Trump, Dec. 29, 2016

The night of Donald Trump’s electoral victory, as journalists and pollsters sat stunned, alt-right trolls on the online imageboard 4chan were declaring ecstatic victory. The election outcome was, for them, the culmination of a long-orchestrated campaign they had dubbed “The Great Meme Wars.” “Will we ever experience something this great again?” an anonymous poster wrote on the site’s “politically incorrect” imageboard, the post accompanied by a twist on one of the site’s more popular characters, Wojak, the character’s MS Paint-rendered visage outfitted in Nazi SS gear. “The meme wars of 2015/2016 are over and we are the winners.”

Who were these self-declared winners? A bizarre allegiance of online trolls, experts at manufacturing memes—the jokey, absurdist images, often overlaid with text, that are copied and spread endlessly with slight variations by people online. Through memes and the clandestine net spaces they used to share them, these trolls met and formed a Frankenstein political bloc out of adult My Little Pony fans, furries, anime enthusiasts, self-described “masculinists,” disgruntled video gamers, Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, xenophobes, neo-monarchists, reactionaries, old-school racists, and nihilists in search of edgy lols. They were coronated the “alt-right” by white nationalist “leader” Richard Spencer, and referred to Trump as “God Emperor” on Reddit, where they made the r/The_Donald forum into one of the most popular on the hugely popular news and web content aggregation site.

As trivial as it may seem, The Great Meme Wars and the chaos it wrought on social media likely had a very real effect on the 2016 election. By weaponizing their memes, berating their targets with aggressive rhetorical strategies, and generally acting as outrageously as possible, the so-called alt-right gained the acknowledgement of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, hijacked the mainstream media, and dragged the national Overton Window toward their extremist views in the process—all from the safely removed distance of their crusty keyboards.

They may have won the battle, but according to their opposition—some of which is located in the Northwest—the Great Meme Wars are far from over.

“I try to clean up messes, but I also try to create them,” a woman named Addy says over the phone as she prepares to relocate from her lifelong home in the Midwest to the Northwest, where she says she will be “safer.” The line goes silent for a moment—the sound of distant gulping and a staticky video barking something about counter-terrorist operations in the background. “I’ve got to tell you something real quick as I chug my Mountain Dew, because yes, I’m a memer. I’m not the alt-right, but I still drink Mountain Dew. Anyways, yeah, I actually consider myself more of a ‘social hacker’ than a memer. Every hacker is either addicted to chaos or addicted to order. I myself am addicted to chaos, but I’m chaotic good.”

Before she came out as a trans woman, Addy (who asked Seattle Weekly to withhold her last name) spent a lot of time on 4chan and took part in the same early troll culture that would, many years later, form the alt-right. “I was the embodiment of 4chan,” she says. “I would say anything just to get a rise, do anything just to get a rise. I don’t even feel comfortable talking about the person I used to be.” Then something changed. Addy’s sibling married a black woman; along came two new black nieces; and soon Addy had a biracial child of her own. “I started realizing I was a racist, a sexist, all these things. It wasn’t hard to admit that—it was empowering to admit that, because once I did, I could destroy it. I’ve been on a warpath ever since.”

She left 4chan and began spending more time in another meme-making community she found on Facebook. There she would start her own page to distribute her own memes. She named the page Lettuce Dog and adopted a logo that is, indeed, a head of lettuce fashioned to look like a dog. Just a month after Addy began Lettuce Dog, in the fall of 2015, she had amassed 9,000 followers. Today, roughly a year, four months, and 1,700 memes later, that number has grown to 93,000. On a decent week, Lettuce Dog’s memes will reach 1 to 3 million people using the same troll tactics Addy learned from 4chan and often sparking fierce political debate in the comments.

Take one simple meme she made in November. Featuring a stock photo of two Jet Ski riders carving through ocean waves, a message is written in goofy blue font: “It’s time to get EXTREME about destroying white supremacy.” The nonsensical image was liked by 2,100 people, shared over a thousand times, and resulted in conversations between Addy and upset commenters about white guilt and the definitions of racism and white supremacy.

According to Addy, when she began Lettuce Dog on Facebook, there were only two types of meme pages. “There were really stuffy, obnoxious social-justice-warrior pages—completely humorless, very angry white allies complaining about things,” she says. On the flipside there were “dank” meme pages—pages that “were on so many layers of irony, just totally out there, playing with the human mind.” With Lettuce Dog, Addy had decided to combine the two forms and create what is likely the first “dank social-justice page.” Countless others followed the same path until dank social-justice pages constituted their own subculture, known as “Weird Facebook.” As a collective, these pages reach somewhere in the tens of millions.

While plenty of Weird Facebook pages are largely apolitical, the community overall tends to have a far-left bent—its memes are often anti-capitalist, fiercely pro-LGBTQ, social-justice oriented, and sit on a spectrum that ranges from anarchist, Democratic socialist, socialist, and Marxist to full-on communist. Collectivism is a central tenet of Weird Facebook. “Individualism is terrible and inevitably going to die,” says Addy, who self-identifies as an “anarcho-collectivist,” but isn’t shy about espousing explicitly communist values and ideas in her memes.

Via Lettuce Dog

Weird Facebook content creators typically don’t care to take credit for their work, preferring to remain anonymous while posting to pages with names like “Gangster Popeye,” “G a Y L O R M O O N S a Y S” or “I play KORN to my DMT plants, smoke blunts all day & do sex stuff.”

The community is also structured in a collectivist framework—they don’t compete, but share each other’s content freely, cooperating in an effort to drive fans to each other’s pages and help grow each others’ audiences. They do this because memes live and die by the masses, their strength and potency directly tied to how many people are engaging with them rather than the prestige of any individual creator.

By their very nature, memes represent a violation of traditional notions of “ownership.” Everything from trademarked intellectual properties, pop-culture detritus, watermarked stock photos, random cyber-garbage off Google images, and AP news photos to the very structure of past memes themselves are on the table for endless remixing by the masses who share them and participate in their creation. As a result, “normies,” as meme-culture outsiders are called, might not even be able, at first glance, to decode a meme—the result of a cascading, mutating series of Dadaist in-jokes and symbols whose agreed meanings that, while somewhat fixed, are also incredibly fluid, largely guided by their makers’ intuition rather than any logical plan.

“When you log into the Internet, you’re plugging your brain into millions, billions of other brains,” Addy says. “The Internet is a giant brain, just like a neural network.” She claims her most popular memes have come to her in visions not unlike those of religious mystics. “Sometimes I feel like the Internet wills me to make certain memes, like I’m plugged directly into the zeitgeist.”

Addy isn’t the only meme-maker at Lettuce Dog. Like most of the other Weird Facebook pages, hers has a decentralized structure with a number of administrators, a collaborative practice that results, often intentionally, in a more diverse array of voices.

Although it’s impossible to know the racial or gender makeup of the alt-right or trolls in general due to their anonymity, researcher Whitney Phillips, who spent six years infiltrating, observing, and interacting in troll spaces for her 2015 book This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship Between Online Trolling Culture and Mainstream Media, notes that “what is empirically verifiable, however, is the observable fact that trolling behaviors are gendered male, are raced as white, and are dependent upon a certain degree of economic privilege.” Alt-right politics, while all over the place, hinge largely on white identity politics—thus the opposition on Weird Facebook often relies on and prides itself on its rainbow coalition of counter-trolls to fight those same tactics.

Via Cory in the Abyss

In addition to Addy, a white trans woman, Lettuce Dog’s three other contributors are a digital artist (a white cis-woman), an Instagram manager (a white cis-man), and a black meme-maker named Cory in the Abyss, who runs his own Weird Facebook page as well.

After admiring each other’s memes and their shared politics, Addy reached out to Cory and asked if he would join the Lettuce Dog team as a writer/content-creator, agreeing to cross-post his page’s memes to hers as payment. “It’s a really intersectional process,” Cory tells me. “I’m not up on trans issues, so Addy kind of makes trans issues more visible for me. On the other hand, I help her see race issues in a way a white person might not see them. So we compliment each other’s shortcomings politically, but it’s all propelled generally in that same far-left direction.”

Via Lettuce Dog

Cory started making memes after growing frustrated with his original arts medium of choice: poetry. “I felt frustrated with its ivory-tower elitism,” he says. “With a poem, you might get published in a journal, and then a few people in academia might read it. When I make a meme, I post it, and almost right away it reaches thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of people. It’s immediate, and honestly, probably the most pragmatic way to reach people now.”

Via Cory in the Abyss

Another Weird Facebook page called Eses Be Wilin was born of a similar spirit. “A friend of mine from central California started the page, and I asked to join as an admin when it had maybe 100 likes,” Jorge Bustamante (who asked Seattle Weekly not to use his real name), tells me from his Seattle home. A “Latinx ghetto cultural empowerment” page, it has amassed 27,000 followers in the year it’s been up. “Eses Be Wilin started in the midst of the Trump campaign—I got involved because I feel like Latin American oppression arises every election cycle, and I wanted to show that what many might perceive as the bottom of the barrel of Latin culture is actually a very rich culture. There’s a lot of Chicano pride pages on Facebook, but we were the first to bring meme-ing to that culture and that audience, which is why I think the page took off so quickly.”

Bustamante and his friend began with a central-Californian Chicano cultural focus, but they quickly added a Dominican admin, a Puerto Rican admin, and a Guatemalan admin in an effort to represent the wider Latin American experience. Like Lettuce Dog, Eses Be Wilin peddles primarily absurdist-humor memes, but sprinkles in memes with political, resistance-oriented motifs as well—memes that address Western imperialism, colonialism, police violence, the Zapatista movement, and the United Farm Workers movement.

Though Trump was the main reason Bustamante felt prompted to make memes about Latinx culture, he chose the form as his medium for a separate reason—declining faith in mainstream media’s issues coverage. “One [outlet] I stopped following recently is CNN,” he says. “I used to read them every day, but I haven’t in months because during the election cycle, the front of their website every day was some inconsequential shit regarding e-mail scandals or some mean thing Donald Trump said. That was it, just the same shit back and forth. There was nothing to learn at that point—I started to feel like real news was becoming inaccessible. I think that’s why a lot of people are turning to memes.”

Media analyst Andrew Tyndall released a report on Oct. 26 noting that from the beginning of 2016 to the time of its publication, ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News and the NBC Nightly News had devoted a mere 32 minutes total to issues coverage—defined by Tyndall as coverage which “takes a public policy, outlines the societal problem that needs to be addressed, describes the candidates’ platform positions and proposed solutions, and evaluates their efficacy.”

What dominated instead? The endlessly controversial exploits of Donald Trump, who earned 327 minutes of coverage, a third of the year’s total airtime, and “more than the entire Democratic race combined.” Tyndall’s report focused on only three major broadcast news programs, but Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the media’s attention across the board—print journalism, web journalism, blogs, television, radio, mainstream media, independent media, alternative media—and the corresponding lack of substantive issues coverage were observable to anyone who consumed any kind of news this past year.

In her book, Phillips proposes a somewhat radical thesis about the media and trolls. The trolls who lurk on Facebook, Reddit, 4chan, and Twitter spewing vile racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic transgressions—the ones the media consistently deride as societal outsiders—actually fit very neatly into the contemporary cultural landscape. In fact, they simply mirror the methodologies of a mainstream media that thrives on controversy. “Not only do these outlets give trolls precisely what they want—specifically, a national platform—they validate the impulse to troll,” Phillips writes. “As sensationalist media have proven again and again, these behaviors work, and not just for trolls. The behaviors also work for mainstream media companies, since stories about trolling translate into page views, and page views translate into advertising revenue, and advertising revenue is the lifeblood of any successful media organization.”

Trump laid out his understanding of this very phenomenon—albeit in its analog form—three decades ago in his memoir The Art of the Deal: “One thing I’ve learned about the press is that they’re always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational the better. The point is that if you are a little different, or a little outrageous, or if you do things that are bold or controversial, the press is going to write about you.”

In fact, many in the alt-right refer to The Art of the Deal as The Art of the Troll.

Trolls hit the big time—with assistance from the media—on Sept. 12, when hillaryclinton.com published an article with the subhead “That cartoon frog is more sinister than you realize.” The frog in question was Pepe—who began his life in Matt Furie’s Boy’s Club comic series from the mid-2000s, a collection of which was published last year by Seattle publisher Fantagraphics. The comics follow the stoneriffic adventures of four anthropomorphic animal roommates. In one comic from 2008, Pepe is caught peeing with his pants all the way down. When confronted by his roommate about it, he responds, “feels good man.” Pepe’s smiling frog head, with the words “feels good man,” became an innocent icon on the Internet and a fixture of early meme culture, endlessly remixed onto countless bodies expressing a range of emotions (“feels bad man”).

But on 4chan, Twitter, and r/the_donald, an army of “alt-right” trolls began churning out an incredibly high volume of incendiary “smug” Pepes (Pepe smirking with his hand on his chin). Some were simply of green, Pepe-fied Trumps or Pepes wearing red “Make America Great Again” hats, which Donald Trump and Trump Jr. both retweeted. But many more were Nazi Pepes—Pepe as Hitler, Pepe as SS officer, Pepe holding guns to the heads of minorities and women, and Jew Pepes, drawn in the style of anti-Semitic WWII propaganda posters.

With the help of Pepe’s cartoon grin, the alt-right was winning.

“For the past year and a half, they destroyed us in memes,” Bustamante says. “They beat everyone in memes this past election—they made so many, they made more than us, they made so many effective ones. They were better content creators. It doesn’t matter if they’re politically inept or living in their mom’s basement, what matters is they’re outwardly expressing this train of thought, bringing together people with vaguely similar interests to congregate in the same space on the Internet.”

The sheer volume of these memes yielded real results—the unparalleled level of activity most evident in the engagement on r/the_donald. Thanks to Reddit’s algorithm, the questionable content at play on that subreddit was thrust to the front page. The domination was so intense that Reddit decided to change the algorithm on June 15 in an attempt to present its general users with some semblance of variety.

All of this, of course, was “just about having fun,” as alt-right media platform Breitbart wrote in March. Then Clinton declared that Pepe the frog was a white nationalist symbol, akin to a swastika. In one fell swoop, she both legitimized a band of trolls and officially handed it sole ownership of a powerful meme. “Everything has been weird since the day Hillary talked about Pepe,” Bustamante says. “I think that was a very dark time for memes. From that point on, everything the alt-right did was validated.”

Two weeks later, the Anti-Defamation League officially filed Pepe the frog as a hate symbol. The alt-right were thrilled at the “triggered” media. The Hill, Vanity Fair, Talking Points Memo, CNN, The Economist, MSNBC, and countless others took the bait, drawn to the story’s literal cartoonish extremes. Suddenly swastikas were everywhere, and the alt-right, previously a fringe web group, was a household name.

The coup, in turn, further revealed the increasingly low bar of mainstream media coverage. In one instance, Chris Matthews on MSNBC exclaimed that “the green guy there has become a popular symbol of white nationalism—I didn’t know this! I’m learning! […] I know none of this stuff! But I now know it. I just learned it today,” admitting his lack of knowledge and context of the meme in a rush to brand it a hate symbol. The first article that comes up in a Google search of Pepe, a Los Angeles Times article on Pepe as a hate symbol, doesn’t even get the name of Furie’s comic correct, calling it Boy’s Life, similarly exhibiting a lack of real knowledge or insight while simultaneously handing its ownership to the alt-right. Following the newfound legitimization, white nationalist Richard Spencer seized a media spotlight and became a “spokesperson” for the “movement,” which until then had been little more than an online mob.

Soon after the Pepe episode, it was revealed in The Daily Beast that Palmer Luckey, the almost-billionaire creator of the Oculus Rift virtual-reality headset, which is Facebook-owned and has offices in Seattle, was the secret backer of a pro-Trump, anti-Hillary “meme magic” nonprofit campaign called Nimble America which filed for a 501(c)(4) in September. Inspired by the success of the provocative Pepes, Luckey sought to fund a group of meme-making trolls he was in contact with so they could churn similar content out on social media full-time. Posting on r/the_donald as “NimbleRichMan,” Luckey wrote “we’ve proven that shitposting is powerful and meme magic is real. So many of you have asked us, how we can bring this to real life,” promising to match donations to the upstart meme organization dollar for dollar.

“There’s all this ‘fake news’ now,” Cory in the Abyss says, “and in a way we’re also ‘fake.’ The difference is, with our memes, we have an agenda, and there’s no pretense about those agendas. The exciting thing about memes now is that we’ve kind of become like pirate news—we don’t represent an institution or an establishment. The left can troll too.”

While the alt-right may have outpaced the left in the first battle of the Great Meme Wars, Weird Facebook has seemingly become the most formidable, viable challenger to the movement’s nihilistic, irony-drenched tactics. Many collectivist memers revel in the historical precedent the communist Soviet Union set on the Eastern front in WWII when defeating the Nazis’ fascist empire—images from which admins of Weird Facebook often weaponize as memes in their own battles against the alt-right. But as Phillips wonders in her book, if “certain forms of trolling can be justified, is the righteousness of a particular act compromised if it replicates precisely the cultural logics it seeks to dismantle?”

According to Lettuce Dog, the answer is a firm yes. “So, remember, I’m chaotic good,” she says. “Trump and the alt-right are chaotic too—chaotic evil.”

For Addy, a core value separates Weird Facebook’s trolling tactics from that of the alt-right’s. “I’ll intentionally make a meme that I know will stir a lot of controversy and anger a lot of people,” she says, “but with the express purpose of empowering marginalized people.” Early on, when Lettuce Dog was first gaining in popularity, Addy posted a meme that began to get “tons of shares.” Although the meme was well-intentioned, as most of hers are, when a Mexican man reached out and explained to Addy why he thought the meme was offensive, she had to make a fateful decision: “Should I be a white asshole, tell him to shut up, and keep the successful meme rolling? Or should I not be a prick, and make another that’s less offensive?”

The answer wasn’t obvious at first. Her time in the extreme, taboo-breaking culture of 4chan had trained Addy to place edginess above all else. But she decided she was done with that. “I deleted it, apologized to him, and have continued to run my page that way,” she says. “Now with the Internet, we’re all sharing one collective mind, so to hurt any part of that collective is to hurt the whole collective—to harm me. The 13-year-olds typing the n-word on YouTube don’t understand how much they’re hurting themselves.”

The alt-right is seemingly of a different mind when it comes to such empathy. Yet there is another area where Addy and her fellow memers hope to replicate their enemies: how to harness memes to hijack the media, use it against itself, and seize a national platform for their politics. “We don’t want to be edgy in a troll-comment way,” says Lettuce Dog admin Cory, “but edgy in that our memes stand on the edge of many different seams, make you think, and hopefully push you towards a better ideology. I think they’re the cultural foundation—the memes are the pre-body politic.”

And indeed, the loletariat did begin to rise just this past weekend. The Meme Wars took a decidedly sweet turn for Weird Facebook on Inauguration Day, when alt-right “leader” Richard Spencer was caught on camera during an interview getting punched in the face by a masked member of a black bloc. In an act of “meme magic,” the punch landed right as Spencer was beginning to explain the enamel pin on his lapel— “It’s Pepe, he’s become kind of a symbol … ” Smack!

In less than 24 hours, the clip had been remixed hundreds of times and shared by millions. In various iterations of the clip, the audible thud of the punch synched to the snare hits in “Born in the USA,” “Blue Monday,” and others. Still images of the violence were Photoshopped alongside images of Captain America and Indiana Jones punching Nazis, an activity memers presented as “American as apple pie.” “I’m afraid this is going to become the meme to end all memes,” Spencer later said on Periscope. “That I’m going to hate watching this.”

“I think what we’re going to see now is a lot more anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, anti-fascist content creation,” Bustamante says. “While people with those trains of thought have always been underrepresented under the neoliberal U.S. government and the media, I think approaching this far different flipside, being the alt-right and Trump, we’re going to be the new fighters in terms of content creation—primarily through memes at this time.”

Bustamante’s one reservation is Facebook’s own algorithm—which itself caught flack last summer for its seemingly arbitrary censorship of “inappropriate” memes and the pages that host them. The flashpoint for the criticism was a popular meme featuring a photo of a goose whose head appeared to be on fire—in reality, it was simply an illusion, created by a campfire in the background. Regardless, Facebook censored the meme, deeming it “graphic content.” Many follow-up memes highlighted the absurdity that mainstream-media images of bloodied Syrian children and the bodies of drowned refugees were allowed on the site, but this goose with a fake flaming head wasn’t. A 100-page strong “Meme Alliance” emerged to challenge Facebook’s policy and the algorithm.

Yet even without the alliance, it seems foolish to think Facebook could ever truly quash the flow of memes. Thanks to the masses, and Weird Facebook’s leaderless, collectivist structure, the memes will always find a way. But if there comes a need to go further underground, Addy, for one, has an idea.

“We need to start a hacktivist group called Unanimous,” she says, “and all wear Guy Fieri masks.”

ksears@seattleweekly.com

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A Week in NYC. What to do? A Kid-Friendly guide

Visiting the big apple can be overwhelming if you don't know what to do, where to go, where to start.  The best thing to do when visiting NYC, and any other new place really, is to educate yourself on the best places to see, how to get from point A to point B, and about how much things are going to cost you (so you can budget, and also, so you don't get ripped off by the seldom opportunist hustler).  We put together a guide of kid-friendly things to do when you visit The Big Apple; from where to stay, to how to understand transportation, and some good places to eat we found along the way.  So, keep reading and plan your trip!

WHERE TO STAY

Basically, the answer to this question depends on your budget.  As you may already know, NYC is divided into boroughs, and they all vary in price considerably. If you stay in Manhattan you will probably pay a tad more than if you stay a little farther from the touristic sites. We always check out deals that include airfare and hotel on Groupon, or Expedia, or even just lodging through Airbnb for the best prices. 

HOW TO BOOK LODGING/AIRFARE AT A REASONABLE PRICE

Don't settle by checking just one site. Check them all, several times a day, several days a week as the specials change by the hour. We have noticed that a lot of good deals are released on Wednesdays and/or Thursdays nights. If it's Saturday, and you want to book your vacation right away, you will pay more. Similarly, if your stay includes a weekend, you can also pay more as hotel rooms, and plane tickets increase in price if your travel plans include Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Try booking during the week and you could pay less.  

TRAVELING ON A BUDGET?  READ THIS!!!

I FOUND A GREAT DEAL, NOW WHAT?

Once you've found the ideal price for your flight/hotel, start loosely planning your days. We like to have a simple and flexible itinerary when traveling. Yes, sometimes is great to do things as they appear, but finding fun things along the way is not always that easy. You don't want to "waste" your day away while deciding what to do, where to go, and how to get there. Have a plan...IF you find something better along the way, then you can change your itinerary. Flexibility is key. 

RELATED: PACKING WHEN TRAVELING WITH KIDS

START YOUR FIRST DAY ON A LOW KEY

Don't burn yourself out on the first day, especially if you arrive to your destination later on the day.  Relaxing is a very important part of the concept of Vacation. Start sightseeing with whatever is closest and/or easiest to get to, or simply enjoy a good dinner and a short walk.  If you already feel rested, or you are one of those people with extreme amounts of energy, try to follow your itinerary the first day.  

HOW TO GET AROUND

In NYC, you can walk, take the metro, train, taxi or Uber/Lyft. Up to you. Our preferred method for this visit was Metro. Since we knew we were going to use it a lot, several times a day, we opted for purchasing the week-metro card (about $35). You can purchase single tickets as well. Just don't try to skip the entry gate...if they catch you, it's not pretty.  

First thing you want to do is to make sure you have Google maps installed on your phone.  Second, know where you are on a map to decide if you need to go in the "uptown" or "downtown" directions.  Basically, downtown is south, uptown is north...or pretty close. Plug in the address or landmark onto Google maps, and it will tell you, step by step, what train to take, and the times of arrival based on your location.  IT'S AMAZING! Even if the train is running late or if there are scheduled maintenance conflicts, this app will let you know and give your alternative routes and options.  

We recommend that you still get a physical map of the metro, just in case your phone dies or your internet stops working... you never know! Don't get overwhelmed by the map. Once you get familiar with the system, it becomes very easy to read. The trains are color coded and the connection stations are clearly marked on the maps. Grab one before you leave your hotel! They are usually free.

YOUR ITINERARY

Know what you want to see before you arrive to NYC. I've been to the city many times, and I still haven't see it all. Don't think that you can go see everything in a few days... you will burn out.  Here's a list of our recommended places to see and eat while in NYC. You can google the names to get the address and directions. Please note that this is just a personal opinion and does not mean these are the best things to do or eat. If you know of other sites or restaurants that are a must do/see, PLEASE comment down below and let us know!! We would love to try them when we come back!  

WHAT TO SEE

1. THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY

Do you know that museum from the movie "Night at the Museum"? Yes, the same! (and if things come alive at night, sign me up for the night shift!) We enjoyed our afternoon at the museum.  NOTE: wear comfortable shoes because it's a lot of walking! The museum is large and there's a lot to cover.  In fact, you might not be able to see it all if you try to rush. There are four accessible floors in this massive building. You might start on the second floor, as the iconic main entrance on Central Park West leads to the second floor. You will have the opportunity to purchase general admission and/or tickets for the additional attractions. The museum is divided by wings, which are pretty much divided by continents fauna/cultures/sub-cultures.  Then you can find ocean life, minerals, and of course, the dinosaurs on the fourth floor. It also has a great planetarium with a stellar presentation narrated by Neal Degrasse Tyson. Don't miss it!

2. TIME SQUARE

This one is a big, "duh!!" Obviously you can't come to The Big Apple and not visit Times Square. The main things to do here are 1. admire the lights and colorful advertising on the buildings, 2. Great dinning, 3. Shopping, 4. Entertainment.   

PLACES IN TIMES SQUARE

RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT!

This place is AMAZING!! Definitely a must do in NYC. I've been to other Ripley's museums around the country, but the one on Times Square takes the gold. It's full of interactive, weird artifacts and fun activities for the whole family.  It also makes for amazing photo ops!!  It's worth it.

LIKE CHOCOLATE? VISIT M&M WORLD AND HERSHEY'S WORLD ON TIMES SQUARE

Yes, both of these MASSIVE stores are located diagonally from each other right in the heart of Times Square. Word of advice, they are obviously overpriced... like, I can literally buy the same amount of M&Ms at Target for a fraction of the price. The cool thing is that they do offer products that you can't find anywhere else or they are rarely available in stores. We tried to purchase the rare candy and stayed away from the normal products... save your pennies! 

THEATER... THE BEST

Plays like The Lion King, Wicked, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are located in Times Square...unfortunately we couldn't purchase tickets in advance...and the fact that are incredibly expensive! You can, however, find great sales on Broadway tickets in Time Square! Keep an eye for those.  

Sleep No More is another AMAZING off-broadway interactive play.  Read the review here ... Just so you know, Sleep No More is NOT kid friendly...so adults only.  

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTER: OCEAN ODYSSEY

This fabulous interactive experience will take you into the deep ocean and will make you feel very close to the marine life of our world.  Parts of it feel as if you are inside the ocean, while other parts were a little cheesy. Overall, it was good. The kids thoroughly enjoy this guided tour of the seas.  

EATING AT TIMES SQUARE

Two of my favorite places are:  

BUBBA GUMP SHRIMP COMPANY 

Run Forest, Run! Yes, maybe because Forest Gump is one of my ultimate favorite movies of all times, or just because this place is pretty cool, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company had amazing food! Have shrimp anyway you can imagine... this is the place for that. 

CARMINE'S

You better make reservations for this family style Italian Restaurant or you'll be waiting a long while for a table. The restaurant has been around since 1990 and continues the tradition of large meals for the whole table. Believe me... you don't need an appetizer if it's just two of you. The portions are SO BIG that are aimed for a family of 4+.  We didn't even have room for dessert and we just had ONE entree. It was fantastic!

 3. CENTRAL PARK

This colossal green space in the heart of Manhattan is not only iconic, but also beautiful.  It's a green paradise away (and inside) a jungle of asphalt. Take a morning walk, or have a picnic by a lake while gazing over the city.  It's relaxing.  

4. CENTRAL PARK ZOO

While walking around Central Park, we encounter the zoo. It is NOT very big, but big enough to spend a good couple of hours observing the animals and shopping around.  

5. STATUE OF LIBERTY AND ELLIS ISLAND

Everyone knows New York's most iconic symbol, the Statue of Liberty.  Located on Liberty Island, it is worth visiting this lady at least once. She doesn't look that big from a distance. In fact, she looks faded and small if you observe her from Battery Park. Take a ferry tour (purchase tickets in advance.  Beware of scammers.  I learned that only Statuecruises.com is the direct seller, and most others will charge you an extra fee to get your ticket.  So go directly to statuecruises.com to get them).  When you see Lady Liberty close and in person, you'll realize that she's not only massive, but also bright and colorful.  We opted to do the Crown pass... We saw it as a once in a lifetime opportunity to climb up the very, very, very tight 354 steps to the top. The view was fantastic!

Once you are done with the statue, get on the ferry again towards Ellis Island. Here, you can walk through the shoes of the immigrants that entered this country so long ago.  The things they went through, the things they suffered, how they were treated. This fascinating museum is powerful and interesting.  Don't skip it!

6. CONEY ISLAND

We didn't get in the ocean, but the beach looked beautiful! We walked by the pier and along the boardwalk. It was a fun day of (expensive) carnival rides, and funnel cake! We stopped by NATHAN'S famous Hot Dogs, and shopped for souvenirs. The rides are good, but they cost a pretty penny, so choose wisely.  

WHERE TO EAT?

So many options!!! I cannot possibly tell you about every single place or this list would have to be a book.  Besides the two places in Times Square mentioned above, we visited a couple of local landmarks that are a must: 

LOMBARDI'S

Established in 1905, it's said to be the very first pizzeria in the US! Now, I don't know how true this is, but this place looked pretty retro and has a great atmosphere. Beware! Cash only my friends!! Enjoy good pizza, but bring your cash, as plastic is not accepted. The walls are covered with pictures of the celebrities that have visited the restaurant.  

VENIERO'S

Hands down my favorite dessert place in the world...Another very old city landmark. If you want amazing desserts, go straight there.  Everyone that visits NYC should go here first. Serving pastries and desserts since 1894, this family owned cafe has been in business for five generations. Sweet and heavenly place this is.

BLACK TAP

Black Tap offers craft burgers and beer as well as the most amazing and creative milk shakes you would ever encounter. The milkshakes are massive and should probably be shared and not consumed alone....unless you are OK with the million calories you can ingest. They are deliciously tempting!

PATACON PISAO

In the mood for some good, affordable, Venezuelan cuisine? Go to Patacon Pisao. This very small hole in the wall is made for big taste buds. Get your food to go, or eat it there (if there's a table).  They cook the food as you order it, right in front of you. Guaranteed that you will lick your fingers.

 WHAT ABOUT BREWERIES? 

If you would like to taste some good craft beer you don't have to go very far.  NYC has a few breweries that are kid friendly, so no excuses!  

HEARTLAND BREWERY

With several convenient locations, Heartland Brewery offers great beer and good food.  Their Time Square location is within walking distance of many attractions, so swing by in between or have dinner with your beer!... Or beer with your dinner...whatever.

CONEY ISLAND BREWERY

Like the name suggest, Coney Island Brewery is located in Coney Island.  After a hot day of walking about the boardwalk, take a rest and have a cold one at the brewery.  We weren't sure how kid friendly this place is, but it seemed OK if you sit down outside by a shaded picnic bench.  Their beer was interesting, with cotton candy flavors, and other sours (which are my favorite).  Hubby enjoyed the IPA.  

BROOKLYN BREWERY

By far my favorite NYC brewery.  We tried many of their beers over the week and they were all amazing.  The facilities are very inviting, spacious, and kid friendly.  Definitely a place I would come back to.  Also, the staff is extremely helpful and friendly.  LOVED IT!

OTHER LANDMARKS

There were many other places we visited and many many more we wanted to visit but didn't have the time.  Here are other places you may want to consider for your sightseeing adventure:

*Empire State Building.  

You can climb the stairs or take the elevator to see the city from this 102 floor building.  There's really nothing much else to do, just take a pic and make your way back down.

*MACY'S

I've never seen a store this big in my entire life.  This block long, 10 story building feels like a city within itself.  I am pretty certain that you could find anything you can ever need here.  Also, it's NOT cheap.  I couldn't find a cute outfit under $100.  Cool, but not my kind of store.

*9/11 MEMORIAL

Commemorate those who died in this tragic attack by visiting the museum.  Read the stories and learn about the history and the rebirth of the city after the attack.

*HOBOKEN, NJ

Yes, I know this is not New York, but Hoboken is just a short train ride away.  Hop over the river into the shore of New Jersey, and observe New York skyline from the other side.  It's breathtaking and peaceful.  Also, Hoboken has plenty of restaurants and entertainment to offer!

*CHINATOWN

This culturally rich neighborhood in Manhattan has a lot to offer for a fun afternoon of great food and good, cheap shopping.  Hundreds of vendors and stores will try to lure you into their shops, while the smell of good food will lure your nostrils and wake your appetite.  Beware of scammers and be vigilant of offers that sound too good to be true!

There are many, many more attractions, museums, landmarks, and sites that I didn't mention. I mean, NYC is a place with 8.5 million people! I'm giving testimony of what I've experienced when I traveled.  Please feel free to add to this list by commenting below!!!

Bon Voyage!!

Always, 

Mia