this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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solarpunk memes

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[–] Turret3857 12 points 2 days ago

Lots of people in the comments saying south park shouldnt be here. i think it should be family guy. the show frequently bashes the right, and they dedicated 2 episodes to Trump entirely, not to mention its a work of Seth McFarlane and if you've seen the Orville you know he is definitely not a MAGAt.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 11 points 3 days ago

i definitely got my understanding from a word cloud that part is spot on.

[–] ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Many Americans received their entire political discourse up until about 2016 from about an hour of programming on Comedy Central: Daily Show, Colbert Report, and South Park.

[–] courval@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I don't get South Park.. It's a pretty leftist show imo or is it implying people don't understand the sarcasm of its messages?

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

it's not leftist, it's very enlightened centrist and somewhat libertarian. i say somewhat because they don't advocate for lowering the age of consent as far as i know. but they're very comfortable with the status quo and the familiar, and rarely ever point to systemic issues or argue for systemic change. most of their critiques and solutions are based on individuals.

[–] digitalnuisance 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The amount of bad takes South Park has had over the years is astounding.

[–] qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"Political choice is between a turd sandwich and a giant douche" being my favorite example.

Neither candidate is/was ideal, but good lord to say that what's happening now is no different than when the other side was in power is beyond asinine, it's an incredibly disingenuous and offensive take on reality. (I know the SP episode wasn't about the current US political situation, but the current US political situation absolutely has its roots going back to those SP episodes.)

[–] hitwright@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Wasn't the episode about US voting system being systematically flawed, and bashing the general populus for keeping up the status quo?

[–] TimeNaan@lemmy.world 61 points 4 days ago

I mean Stalin Lenin and Mao aren't exactly that much better

[–] millie@slrpnk.net 21 points 3 days ago

I definitely didn't get my understanding of socioeconomics from Mao or militaristic dictators in general. Marx? Sure. Engels? Sure. Lenin? I mean, as an example of how to use workers' rights as a veil for the promotion of authoritarianism I guess. Reading the State and Revolution is an exercise in seeing how someone can take a good idea and use it to justify terrible shit.

Personally, I take a view of Marx and Engels as descriptivists. Reading works like the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, my takeaway is that these are describing a natural process whereby hoarding of wealth and influence inevitably leads to an overthrowing of power in a cycle that culminates in capitalism and the eventual seizing of the means of production in response by workers. When I read Lenin I see an accelerationist who wants to jump start this process and doesn't care how many people suffer and die in the interem.

To me, that's a form of interference that slows progress in the long run. If you start burning rocket fuel as soon as possible before acquiring enough to reach escape velocity, all you do is cause your rocket to crash back down to Earth if it gets moving at all. Do it hard enough or enough times without a controlled landing, hitting cities full of people with the wreckage, and you're just going to make people skeptical of rocketry.

That's not to say no one should do anything to bolster workers' rights, we absolutely should. It's a natural part of the process for people to be informed by theory and try to advance things. But that's far different from purging large portions of the population in order to shift the system in the span of a single generation before there's widespread support. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is, to me, about the most anti-proletarian measure you can take. It slows things down and harms a lot of people with poor results. For evidence, literally look at Russia today. Look at the reputation communism has in Eastern Europe. Lenin and Stalin forestalled any possibility of a worker's uprising by at least a couple of generations. The same can be said of Mao.

And the reactions this post is going to get? I'm guessing many will be much more in line with the knee-jerk thoughtless mockery of South Park and Rick Sanchez than the considered and careful words of Marx and Engels. That also functions as a sort of steam valve letting off the required pressure to achieve meaningful results in favor of mindless posturing, which is why I often question its motivation. It serves the bourgeoisie, not the people.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 26 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I don't think you should be taking socio-economic understanding from the guy whose mismanagement caused/exacerbated this. And, you know, created an authoritarian state out of a revolution; that was bad too.

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[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 30 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I mean… does South Park have bad socioeconomics? Like it’s not something to base your understanding on but I don’t see it as inherently right wing.

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's pretty standard "enlightened centrist" from what I've seen (where of course "centrist" means centered between the right-wing party and the fascist party in the US).

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 13 points 4 days ago (2 children)

it focuses on social aspects never seen it touch economics, very American view point which inherently means a right wing economic baseline, it mocks right wing ideology and dogmatism and encourages a more liberal and socially just perspective but never really explored economic aspects

[–] kogasa@programming.dev 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

There was the Margaritaville episode. I think that said... something... about capitalism and economics.

But I think the political commentary got a lot less pointed around the time hindsight kicked in on the climate change episodes. Kinda felt like the recurring theme was "everyone is an idiot, even us." Giant Douche v. Turd Sandwich felt a bit enlightened centristy.

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[–] wpb@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

They're centrist, which in a country with a right wing and a far right wing party, equates to being right wing. In general they have this smug sense of superiority, shitting on anyone taking a stand for anything. I really can't stand the show's attitude, because it's exactly like that mac from it's always sunny quote: "I play both sides, that way I always come out on top", except with this completely undeserved arrogance and smugness on top of it.

[–] Rookwood@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 days ago

Yes. Matt and Trey are kinda nihilistic in ideology. Enlightened centrists. Everything is dumb. etc.

[–] untorquer@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The only person i know who still watches it has horrifically right wing socioeconomics.

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I mean me and my wife still watch it and we’re dirty communists. I just don’t really see them talking about economics much.

[–] untorquer@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I'm not judging the show or other viewers. I haven't seen it since season 9. Probably more of a reflection that i just don't know a lot of people who watch it.

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Your friend probably just sucks

[–] untorquer@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I never said they were a friend, and yes you're right about them.

[–] Rookwood@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 3 days ago

And that's the reason the Right is in power. The Left needs to endeavor to be more culturally relevant. Liberals cuck us pretty hard there and then the Right threatens us for it. Gotta keep trying though.

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 19 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

To be even fairer, how many leftists or progressives reading this can name anybody in the photo collage besides Marx, Lenin, Mao, Castro, Malcolm X, and maybe Angela Davis, without doing an image search? And I say this as a guy who has voted progressive all my life. Too many people nowadays seem to get their "understanding" from memes.

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[–] houseofleft@slrpnk.net 13 points 4 days ago

Me, meanwhile, hanging out on solarpunk memes. . .

[–] Commiunism@beehaw.org 11 points 4 days ago (3 children)

The right also has some prominent socio-economic writers such as Thomas Sowell and other writers adjacent to Austrian school thought, so it's not just media slop but also book slop.

It's just a bit unfortunate that the right doesn't read any theory, even ones that agree with their worldview, they just like talking about the authors because book = smart. Same with the left - there's lots of people who proclaim themselves to have some theoretically heavy position (e.g. communism or anarchism) then proceed to say the most stupid shit.

[–] for_some_delta@beehaw.org 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I like how your post addresses the anti-intellectualism of the original post. I also like the acknowledgment of cherry picking sources. The critique validly states the meme creator is ignoring scholarly sources on the right. The best part is, even with scholarly sources involved, humans are still silly. Humans sometimes consume content, TV show or book, to feel superior to other humans.

I have found delving into the views of others has helped me create better arguments. For example, I read "Anarchy, State and Utopia" by Robert Nozick, to better understand the anarcho-capitalist minimal state position. Even if I can form a better argument, I realize I can "proceed to say the most stupid shit". Keep it stupid comrades.

You fuckin' dorks ain't a source of the art You can't be cooler than the corners Where you source all your parts

  • Dorks by Ian Bavitz (Aesop Rock)
[–] Commiunism@beehaw.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I honestly don't mind if someone bases their beliefs based on flawed theory or books, as that does show some degree of engagement with actual texts and leaves the room open for recognizing why it might be flawed via future reading or discussion.

What I was mostly referring to were people who claim to be Marxists/Anarchists/whatever, proceed to not read any theory whatsoever and just roll with what they imagine the theory to be, usually based on some surface-level discourse floating online. Now that's where one can find true incoherent bangers

Yeah, all the Hayek’s and Fridman’s.

At the end of the day, the actual field of economics is mostly built on capitalist assumptions except for some smaller subfields. So you get A LOT of neoliberal types as economics professors.

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[–] TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

The Right has captured a good portion of the American lumpenproletariat (excluding me).

At least that is what I think that these media choices were chosen to communicate.

[–] panic@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 4 days ago (4 children)

If you’re watching Fox for the cartoons, you might accidentally catch their “news”

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[–] notsure@fedia.io 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)
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