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Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN
Greetings to my fellow prisoners of the worst timeline.

About a week ago the automatic newsfeed on my android starting trying to get me to go to a place called r/neoliberalism on a daily basis, and then today this article showed up


quote:

Yes, there really is a neoliberal meme community
399
SHARES

The alt-right and the radical left may be losing elections, but there's one kewl territory where they're still gaining turf: the meme wars.

Take a look at 2016. Weaponized white nationalist frog militias dominated elections in the United States, as memes of Bernie cuddling tiny kittens climbed their way to the Tumblr top. Largely absent were memes coming from free market centrists known, always disparagingly, as "neoliberals."

The moderates have a meme problem.

SEE ALSO: The alt-right's worldwide weaponization of memes

Neoliberalism, a socially liberal, pro-immigration, pro-market ideology popularized by Bill Clinton in the 1990s, does have its fans and its memes. There's r/neoliberal, which currently boasts over 11,531 "free traders" and some unapologetically wonky commentary. The page Gnarly Neoliberal Memes offers the equivalent on Facebook.

By and large, though, this technocratic, proudly unsexy political movement feels antithetical to populist meme culture — posing a real obstacle for moderates trying to capture the heart of the internet and even a few of their votes.

These memes are every bit as clever, sexy and compelling as you'd expect





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Darkman Fanpage
Jul 4, 2012
HARRY POTTER is a liberal meme

Telephones
Apr 28, 2013
But what about Biden Bro? :confused:

Dreddout
Oct 1, 2015

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

quote:

There's r/neoliberal, which currently boasts over 11,531 "free traders"

Lmao

GOOD TIMES ON METH
Mar 17, 2006

Fun Shoe

sword_man.gif
Apr 12, 2007

Fun Shoe

Helsing posted:

Greetings to my fellow prisoners of the worst timeline.

i prefer the phrasing "irony vortex", op

Condiv
May 7, 2008

Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

With love,
a mod


Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

cocaine good, weed bad

polyamory bad, foreign au pairs good

uh

Nix Panicus
Feb 25, 2007

I too am confused because 'freedom through inflation' doesn't sound like a very neoliberal stance because it benefits those who don't hold wealth and neoliberals typically hate poors

Strudel Man
May 19, 2003
ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT

Coolguye posted:

cocaine good, weed bad

polyamory bad, foreign au pairs good

uh
Almost as though it's insincere...

Dreddout
Oct 1, 2015

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Strudel Man posted:

Almost as though it's insincere...

Nothing with Pepe in it can ever be insincere or in anyway duplicitous.

You must take every Pepe at face value

Trumps Baby Hands
Mar 27, 2016

Silent white light filled the world. And the righteous and unrighteous alike were consumed in that holy fire.

Strudel Man posted:

Almost as though it's insincere...

I'd be careful about throwing stones, dude-who-thought-rome-had-robots

rudatron
May 31, 2011

by Fluffdaddy
lizard people have no concept of humor and thus cannot meme

when was the last time you saw a reptile laugh

and i must meme
Jan 15, 2017
how legit are the people who make neoliberal memes?

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 273 days!
i welcome neoliberals coming out into the open where their ideology can be identified as horribly unpopular triangulation marketed as left-wing politics

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

theres a fwiggin' genocide going on acwass da borda, why dont we do sumfin..? pweeez no votey for joe biden uWu

and i must meme posted:

how legit are the people who make neoliberal memes?

as legit as the ones making the nazi memes

which is to say "initially not at all, but slowly increasing as time goes on"

Kurtofan
Feb 16, 2011

hon hon hon
macron is the first neoliberal living meme

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 273 days!

Kurtofan posted:

macron is the first neoliberal living meme

I'd nominate Trudeau

Stexils
Jun 5, 2008

the most basic tenets of humor are subverting expectations and highlighting the absurd, so when your ideology is based around satisfaction with the status quo and doesn't actually stand for anything your jokes are going to be about as cutting as a suburban mom's facebook

Strudel Man
May 19, 2003
ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT

Trumps Baby Hands posted:

I'd be careful about throwing stones, dude-who-thought-rome-had-robots
"Thought?"

Vox Nihili
May 28, 2008

Strudel Man posted:

Almost as though it's insincere...

their actual attempt, lol

Vox Nihili
May 28, 2008

Victory Position
Mar 16, 2004

Vox Nihili posted:

their actual attempt, lol



this one doesn't have a frog in it, so I can safely assume that this is twice as sincere

Taintrunner
Apr 10, 2017

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Vox Nihili posted:

their actual attempt, lol



"it actually works in real life"

not for the people making these memes, that's for sure

Hodgepodge
Jan 29, 2006
Probation
Can't post for 273 days!

Taintrunner posted:

"it actually works in real life"

"this is fine"

Condiv
May 7, 2008

Sorry to undo the effort of paying a domestic abuser $10 to own this poster, but I am going to lose my dang mind if I keep seeing multiple posters who appear to be Baloogan.

With love,
a mod


Weeping Wound posted:

this one doesn't have a frog in it, so I can safely assume that this is twice as sincere

macron's name is clearly in the picture

magnavox space odyssey
Jan 22, 2016

and i must meme posted:

how legit are the people who make neoliberal memes?

100% sincere

Breakfast All Day
Oct 21, 2004

Vox Nihili posted:

their actual attempt, lol



neolibs care deeply about the global poor



continuing to exist to provide cheap unseen labor

MaxxBot
Oct 6, 2003

you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!

Breakfast All Day posted:

neolibs care deeply about the global poor



continuing to exist to provide cheap unseen labor

Taintrunner
Apr 10, 2017

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

I still don't think we've fully appreciated how utterly batshit this meme is considering the state of starvation wages subsidized by the government for the enrichment of gold-hoarding leprechauns

Yinlock
Oct 22, 2008

Vox Nihili posted:

their actual attempt, lol



left side isnt exactly wrong tho

ideally both of them would be the poo poo side

Telephones
Apr 28, 2013
Seriously folks if Biden runs in 2020 despite the fact that he is as or more right than Hilldawg he will win simply because of

Peanut President
Nov 5, 2008



"What if we hired the cast of Hamilton to be the cabinet"

MaxxBot
Oct 6, 2003

you could have clapped

you should have clapped!!
Not ALL moderates are losing the meme war, Jeb! is a man of many memes.

and i must meme
Jan 15, 2017

Stexils posted:

the most basic tenets of humor are subverting expectations and highlighting the absurd, so when your ideology is based around satisfaction with the status quo and doesn't actually stand for anything your jokes are going to be about as cutting as a suburban mom's facebook

i think that's the joke
neoliberalism is something you would never expect to see memes about, so it's absurd

Taintrunner
Apr 10, 2017

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

MaxxBot posted:

Not ALL moderates are losing the meme war, Jeb! is a man of many memes.

Jeb! is a meme.

Jeb! is a bless.

Pener Kropoopkin
Jan 30, 2013

Tiny Brain: Workers should control the means of production
Active Brain: Workers should have public healthcare & a living wage
Large Brain: Workers should have private insurance subsidies & a minimum wage
Cosmic Brain: Workers should have means tested tax breaks for their health savings accounts and earn $ 0.50 /hr to stay competitive with China

Colonel Cancer
Sep 26, 2015

Tune into the fireplace channel, you absolute buffoon
A tiny shriveled goblin with patchy hair and visible stink lines: radical left
A brutish, ugly man creature with prematurely bald head and stupid expression: libertarianism
A fat, fedora-clad blob with Bernie Bro helpfully written on the t-shirt, stink lines and flies present: democratic socialism
A nearly superhuman, well proportioned and eloquently dressed person with a thoughtful look on their face: neo liberalism

Bulgogi Hoagie
Jun 1, 2012

We

this one seems pretty well spot on

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Helsing
Aug 23, 2003

DON'T POST IN THE ELECTION THREAD UNLESS YOU :love::love::love: JOE BIDEN
/r/neoliberal
12,050 (((globalists))) shilling evidence-based policies for 6 years!

Being the only subreddit where "feel the Bern" refers to the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, r/neoliberal gives you the unique opportunity to spam "thanks mr bernke", admire Milton Friedman's erotic baldness and worship evidence-based policy. Thanks to an unregulated meme-based economy and free trade treaties with subreddits such as r/badeconomics and r/globalistshills, it enjoys high Gross Domestic Content.

Have you ever thought about becoming a (((globalist shill))) instead of whining about "the establishment"? If so, this subreddit is for you. Whether you're a supporter of Hillary Clinton of Jeb Bush, if you've been called a cuck or a dirty liberal, you can probably fit in in r/neoliberal. Neoliberals do what's almost unthinkable in our times - they pay attention to what policy experts say. In this elitist ivory tower, you can use UN, IMF and the World Bank to do whatever you want.

Neoliberals embrace the insult that has been used by people to criticize whatever they don't like about the current system. Because they are open-minded about endorsing any policy based on its scientific support, they usually wind up in the center of the political spectrum. They believe in empirical evidence-based policy instead of rigid abstract ideologies. They priorities of neoliberals are: eliminating global poverty with free trade, forging stronger international ties to prevent wars, and using capitalism to ensure growth and prosperity.

1. Tell us about yourselves!

THE_SHRIMP I took this mod position after my stint being a Hillary Clinton internet shill ended. Clearly, I didn't work hard enough.

DracoX872 I'm just a lowly undergrad studying econ and math. I hope to go to grad school for economics or finance. I've also become to central planner for this sub because the other mods are slacking... *clears throat loudly*

Wubotarian I have an undergraduate degree in economics. I have been a part of the Reddit Economics Network for awhile - and have been a bit of a meme.
I also moderate /r/badeconomics where I enforced rules that make it the best economics forum on the internet.

2. What was your journey to becoming a neoliberal? Why are you a (((globalist)))?

THE_SHRIMP You know, one of the most frustrating things is the amount of polarization in politics. Everyone is always yelling at the other side for not being bipartisan, but it's not that they want to compromise with the other side, they just want them to agree with their own views. That's not bipartisanship, that's whining. Also, (((evidence-based policy))) gets my dick looking like a LRAS curve, so there's that.

DracoX872 I was an unironic Bernie bro and what happened was basically this. As I looked for better solutions to things that I believed were problems, I found myself moving towards #neoliberalism. Not the Wikipedia definition of neoliberalism, but rather ideas that resulted in my being called a neoliberal/globalist shill by the Social Dem left. I decided to look more into the term, and what I found was something that fit my beliefs and was quite different from what most people think it is.

Wumbotarian I was a libertarian in college as a freshman - an Austrian AnCap at one point. It was bad. Through my continual education in college and reddit, my rejection of Austrian nonsense and gathering economic facts, I moved to a more moderate libertarian. Now, I think I am a neoliberal as described by the sidebar. I am still probably more libertatian than others here given my roots, but I see neoliberalism as the natural evolution of Libertarianism in the 21st century.

3. How did you get involved in /r/neoliberal?

THE_SHRIMP I posted some dank memes and harassed /u/DracoX872 enough that he gave me a position

DracoX872 About a month ago, I noticed this sub existed but it was completely empty. I didn't really think of myself as a neoliberal, but I decided I might as well ask to get ahold of it because why not. So, I pm'd the owner of the sub, Vakiadia, and he puts me in as a mod. I originally intended for this sub to be about serious policy discussion, but the memes started flooding in; I decided to leave the MemeEconomy deregulated. I grabbed a few more moderators, re-invited the old owner of the sub, and now we're here. It's still a very new subreddit, but we're growing fairly decently imo.

Wumbotarian I am a mod of /r/BadEconomics and friend of Draco's, and he brought me on to help moderate (though I am not as active as I ought to be).

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