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Barbenheimer Memes Provoke Angry Backlash in Japan
(www.hollywoodreporter.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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This is one of the reasons it’s so weird and toxic to have brands posting on social media as if they were just “fellow users”.
If a random user posts some Barbenheimer content, I can grant that person the dignity of being a full human who probably has complex, conflicting feelings about the Manhattan Project, and some kind of ironic detachment yet fascination with the existence of the Barbie movie.
If WB posts (or comments on) it, there’s really no room for nuance. They want engagement, they want money. If there is (or was) irony or self-criticism embedded in the content, that fact is only incidental.
So then WB gets rightfully scorned for casually dismissing war crimes to get more attention to their properties.
But where does that leave the rest of us?
Cuz the implication is that individuals shouldn’t be posting Barbenheimer stuff, either… but that doesn’t feel right.
There’s something culturally meaningful to this meme, that we probably shouldn’t quash — but it also shouldn’t be crudely leveraged for profit.
Some of the backlash cited in the article seems out of touch, this in particular:
I must have missed the part where these memes are making jokes about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Simple: It doesn't.
It's just a typical case of taking a thing and getting riled up about it, without making a simple Google search, what the thing you don't like is even about.
Seeing they made 9/11 memes to retaliate against Americans already, why not keep barbenheimer? Tea is already spilled on both ends, everybody is unhappy, that's a compromise for ya
Very well said.