Wednesday, June 07, 2017

It Seems Memes are the 2017 Version of Writing 23-Skidoo on Your Jalopy for Todays College Kids (Look it up)

Very interesting read about meme's and the 2017 college experience. This part was an interesting ideas on free speech.
The memes in question, some of which were published online by college-oriented news site The Tab, made light of sexual assault and minority groups, and included references to Mexicans, the Holocaust and child abuse.Tynes said one reason these “dark” memes can spring up among elite college students is the implicit privilege and superiority some group members feel after being admitted.“[These memes] cement your position in society,” Tynes says. “If you feel threatened in some way, or you’re a privileged group in society. … It cements your status on the hierarchy when you can share this meme that denigrates a woman, or denigrates a Mexican person.”
That last part is spoken like a true USC college professor. It's all about hierarchies and privileged groups and such. I look at it differently as kids being kids (ie subversive) in a world that is incredibly politically correct. The college campus might be the most clamped down anti-free thought zone in America these days. Any non-approved thinking is thoughtcrime punishable by not allowing them access to the Ivy. 
Those "dark" memes seem to be a way for kids just entering college to engage in so-called "thought taboo." I would be willing to bet sharing those racist, sexist, whaterver-ist "jokes" gives them the same thrill that snorting coke did with college kids in the 80s. 
I kind of fall on the side of not rescinding their admissions to Harvard and instead finding some other way to discipline them. Maybe have them do community service in some low income neighborhood. Maybe wearing dunce caps or banning their access to social media for 1 month or something. However, rescinding their admission seems very harsh.  

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