• Free_Opinions@feddit.uk
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        2 years ago

        By Dawknin’s original definition (cultural) memes are ideas, behaviors, styles, or practices that spread within a culture by imitation (Greek mimema, meaning “imitated”) and carry symbolic meaning. Some examples would be the “Keep Calm And Carry On” posters during WW2, the concept of the “American Dream” or toasting with glasses.

        However in this context we’re talking about internet memes which is not synonymous with cultural memes. An internet meme is a picture or video that is funny, ironic, or relateable.

  • mister_flibble@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    I mean, I can feel bad for his kids (especially if they’re too young to understand, no idea how old they are) and still be of the opinion fuck that guy. The two are not mutually exclusive.

    Grief is not a conscious decision and we do not get to choose who we will mourn for and because of that, I do feel for them, but the rest of us are under absolutely no obligation to mourn along with them.

    • pachrist@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      It’s hard to grow up with no dad.

      It’s also hard to grow up with a dad who’s a bottom feeding scumbag.

      Brian Thompson was a scumbag. We can’t say whether it will be better or worse growing up without him. We can only say that if he wasn’t a scumbag, he’d probably still be here.

    • granolabar@kbin.melroy.org
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      2 years ago

      Nobody cares about his kids and they were not a topic of discussion until media pulled them in.

      If you gonna do this moral grand standing, talk to the big media.

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 years ago

      I’m sure that seems like the right way to feel. But honestly his kids will grow up to hurt poor people just like their dad.

      • Wrench@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Jfc. You people are gaslighting his children, whose father was murdered weeks ago.

        Get a fucking grip.

          • Wrench@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            To manipulate a murdered person’s sons to reevaluate their perception of their own father because of some public lynching?

            • maniclucky@lemmy.world
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              2 years ago

              No one is being manipulated? Their father was the head of an objectively evil corporation (by any ethical philosophy I can think of) and people were celebrating that he was dead, 99% of whom had never heard of him before. Probably worth evaluating why at some point.

              No one is hunting down his kids and screaming “YOUR FATHER PERSONALLY MURDERED MY FAMILY”.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Not one of the people cheering for Thompson’s death had actually heard of Thompson before this.

    They are cheering because of his job title. This has nothing to do with Thompson’s character or who he was.

    This man is an asshole

  • RagnarokOnline@programming.dev
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    2 years ago

    Truth is, people celebrated before we had any idea who this guy was. He wasn’t famous or a public figure before he was killed. People didn’t hate the man that died, nor his kids.

    People cheered because of what he represented. People didn’t celebrate his death, they celebrated that it made his type of person look like they aren’t untouchable.

    Anyone who has kids and wants to leave a good legacy for their kids will now have to take into account whether they want their kids to end up like this guy’s kids. I know I won’t be accepting any c-suite jobs any time soon, but I’ve turned down jobs in the past because they didn’t align with my morals.

    • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      people like him are not like most of us. The amount of wealth they’ve acquired is absolutely an indicator of that. There are many legitimate reasons to hate the man.

      • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        There are a lot of situations out there where people, myself included, say one thing but when it comes down to it, they’d do the same thing if given the chance. I try to be cognizant of that but this is one time where I can absolutely say I wouldn’t be in that situation. I’ve turned down jobs for much less. Granted I wasn’t offered anywhere near the kind of money this jagoff was making but money isn’t a factor when it comes to something like this.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    There are more people who can say “Brian Thompson killed my father”, than there are “Luigi Mangione killed my father.”

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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    2 years ago

    The thing is that tons of strangers are celebrating his death and they know nothing about him bar a job title and a ton of misinfo. So if I were a kid I wouldn’t think I’ll of my father I’d just think worse of the general pop.

      • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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        2 years ago

        There is a lot of misinfo going around about how many claims are denied and other things relating to United Health care.

        • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          If there is i haven’t seen it. I don’t know why you feel the need to defend them. Even if it’s overstated it’s still thousands of preventable deaths a year at the very least.

          • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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            2 years ago

            With record profits. Always needs to be said to provide context this isn’t about a company treading water.

            The just demand ever moar, and don’t care who they have to murder to get moar.

        • SoGrumpy@lemmy.ml
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          2 years ago

          You need to watch Sicko from Michael Moore.

          Then you’ll understand the hate. I’m a Brit, but this film pissed me off no end, purely for the inhumane suffering and death caused by Thompson and his ilk. Every single one of them should burn in hell.

  • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    What Tompkins is failing to realize here is that the people who are elated know absolutely jack shit about who Thompson was, and Thompson’s own kids know a lot about who he is.

    • AFaithfulNihilist@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I don’t know much about who Irmgard Furchner was but I know she was a piece of shit because only a piece of shit would do that job.

      Tompkins was a garbage human and the species is better off without him. If his kids didn’t think poorly of him for having that job they could not have known him.

      Just because a monster goes home to a family and manages to keep them in the dark about the horrors they willingly commit for money… Or worse, maybe the family is aware of and approve of the inhuman way he takes your money… Having a family does not make a monster less monstrous.

      It doesn’t matter how many Little League games he went to, how active he was in the PTA, whether he volunteered at his local church. He was a terrible no good very bad person. And I don’t need to have sat down and played Canasta with him to see that.

  • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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    2 years ago

    Or… maybe, just maybe, people can have the opinions they want and have their reasons for them.

    The idea I have to consider my parents’ role as my parents undermined if they did something scam-ish is arguably appalling.

    This is turning into a collective shame kind of culture.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Yeah. Kids are allowed to love their parents. My parents are flawed. They’re not evil, but they’re the kind of people I wouldn’t spend time with or associate with if they weren’t my parents. We simply have different values and opinions.

      But I still love them and love spending time with them, and they feel the same.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I am not at all worried about his kids. His kids are set for life.

    I am worried about other kids- and adults- suffering due to a much less discerning and less accurate copycat vigilante. It hasn’t happened so far, but it is something that greatly concerns me.

    • psud@aussie.zone
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      2 years ago

      Thompson was divorced. My understanding is he had either limited or no contact with his kids.

      I wonder if he updated his will since the divorce

  • KoboldCoterie@pawb.social
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    2 years ago

    Nobody says “Won’t someone think of their kids?” when celebrating a mass shooter or a drug kingpin or a foreign dictator being deposed. It’s a shitty argument here, too.

    • BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.worldOP
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      2 years ago

      Nobody says “what about their kids” when a poor single parent stealing food to live ends up in jail and their kids in foster care.

      • A7thStone@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        They are absolutely thinking of the children. They are thinking about how much more likely they are to end up in the system, more slave labour from the next generation.

      • LillyPip@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        Those criminals would have raised their kids to be criminals, too. It’s good the kids will be taken away to be raised by a system that will [checks notes] orphan them, abuse them, and raise them to be institutionalised. That will totally fix the problems of generational poverty and waste of societal potential, preventing those kids from becoming adults who have to steal food so their own kids can live.

    • goldteeth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 years ago

      Yeah I never heard anyone say “won’t someone think of Osama bin Laden’s, like, 30 fukken kids?” Genghis Khan had so many goddam kids that we’re still finding bits of Mongol warlord genome stuck in random places like it’s craft glitter. Fuckin’ Leopold II had four kids, went off to make people-hand soup down in the Congo, and then had three more kids while he was doing it! This is not necessarily an indicator of virtue, folks!

    • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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      2 years ago

      The reporting on Brian Thompson feels similar to as if Igor Kirillov (Russian general killed in the scooter bombing) was being reported by Russia Today on how his two kids and wife love him and anonymous staffers praising his work.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Nobody says “Won’t someone think of their kids?” when celebrating a mass shooter or a drug kingpin or a foreign dictator being deposed.

      I’ve heard it said unironically a few times about dictators we’re allied with who have a sudden fall from grace. The Shah of Iran, the Batista Regime in Cuba, and the brief failed Jeanine Áñez coup in Bolivia all leap to mind. I’m sure we’ll get some kind of “President Yoon was a cool dude with a family why is everyone in South Korea so mean to him?” Op-Ed sooner or later. We just stuck the head of Al Qaeda in Syria in charge of the country and I don’t doubt we’ll get a bunch of “Damn, what a cool guy I can’t believe he got got his family will be so sad” stories if he ever accidentally swallows a hand grenade in a power dispute.

      And I can’t count the number of articles, TV Shows, and movies that try to lionize the CIA. They’re some of the biggest drug runners on the planet. Hell “Charlie Wilson’s War” might as well have been “Dr. Heroin the Child Rapist or how I learned to stop worrying and love the Mujaheddin”.

      And then you’ve got the real heavy hitters like American Sniper and Rambo II. Talk about celebrating mass shooters.

    • adhocfungus@midwest.social
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      2 years ago

      This whole thing has me thinking about the gun control episode of Bojack a lot.

      The moment rich white guys felt threatened (by women in that case) guns were completely outlawed, and I think this is the closest we’ll ever get to that in real life. If a few more CEOs are knocked off I could see it being discussed. If 10 or 20 more are killed I think we would actually see severe restrictions put in place.

      • Nougat@fedia.io
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        2 years ago

        This is literally what Reagan did as governor of California when Black Panthers were arming themselves.

        2A is unassailable … until the wrong people decide to embrace it. Be one of those people.

        • A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          Yeah I was gonna say it’s already happened

          We had a story in my area about a dealer who wouldn’t sell to members of the local SRA or something like that recently too, guess he felt threatened by a bunch of queer brown folks

  • Psychadelligoat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 years ago

    Their dad didn’t give even a single thought to the people who died because of him, why should his priveleged-ass kids get even a seconds thought from me beyond potential future followers in daddy’s shoes?

    • granolabar@kbin.melroy.org
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      2 years ago

      He made life changing mind and his kids will get it all. I doubt they give any fuck how he made it.

      They will live large while rest of us are at risk of getting screwed by the health insurance industry when we are most vulnerable.