SALON

Wednesday, Aug 10, 2011 11:11 PM UTC

“Too Soon?”: Internet makes light of the London riots

Looter memes find Britain's devastating ordeal a laugh riot, but is the humor hitting too close to home?

By

Topics: Internet Culture, Going Viral, Twitter, Television,

Is this image funny, offensive, or both?

When the president announced that Osama bin Laden had been captured and killed by American Navy SEALs, jokes started pouring in over the Internet within minutes. Twitter and Tumblr allowed for both anonymity and the ability for content to be shared instantaneously, creating the perfect storm for politically incorrect humor to go viral. And while some of the jokes and memes circulating during the days following the al-Qaida leader’s demise may have been funny, some people wondered whether “it was too soon to laugh.”

Three months later, and the “too soon?” refrain is being sung again, though this time in regard to the riots and looting that have devastated London. A Tumblr called PhotoshopLooter — which digitally alters photos from the riots to include Justin Bieber, My Little Ponies, giant cookies, and unicorns (among others) — has only been up for two days, but already has four pages of submissions and thousands of reblogs. Obviously, there is a market in this kind of dark humor on the Internet. And maybe that’s not a bad thing.

It’s hard to imagine what kind of atrocity, short of the damn apocalypse, could keep 4Chan members from making politically incorrect macro images about the event moments after it hits the newswires. Gawker’s Adrien Chen may have been being facetious in his commentary on the looter memes when he said, “It’s that famous British stiff-upper-lip — they’re able to make the best out of any situation. Like during World War II, when they made all those funny Hitler YouTube videos,” but there is a kernel of truth to his words.

One of the classic ways to deal with fear is to laugh at it, and I have no doubt that had the Internet been around during the Blitzkrieg, images of Kitler would be even more popular than they are now.

Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 13 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations