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I'm not sure if you're American or not, but it's a fairly common meme of sorts in U.S. discourse. "But what about 9/11" is shorthand for "I'm bringing up some r
by mjn 13y ago
I'm not sure if you're American or not, but it's a fairly common meme of sorts in U.S. discourse. "But what about 9/11" is shorthand for "I'm bringing up some random political point that is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, because I hope I can outrage people."
For a period absolutely everything, whether at all even distantly related or not, was somehow tied to "because 9/11" or "what about 9/11". Not because people actually thought it was relevant, but because politicians can't pass up a chance to grandstand by invoking something that people have strong opinions on.
I thought it was a succinct way of conveying the point here. "But what about the node.js gender incident??" isn't as widespread and not as big a problem as the "but what about 9/11???" crowd, but suffers from a sort of isomorphic logic.
- untog 13y agoThe popular example of this being skewered is Family Guy's take on Rudy Guliani: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YOh-rpvjYg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YOh-rpvjYg
- jsmthrowaway 13y agoOn 4chan, "Jews did 9/11" is also a meme. Should I not consider that a horrible comment simply because it has some meme qualities? Bend over backwards to forgive and explain all you want, I guess.
- mjn 13y agoIf someone were to mock a conspiracy theorist by saying he was like the "Jews did 9/11" people, I wouldn't have any problem with that comparison.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jlas 13y agoHi, American here. I think the problem here is that memes are actually not common in public U.S. discourse. One may use it in private discourse with friends, etc. but when they represent a large software organization the onus is on them to be diplomatic and take care not to offend their public. izs' ignorance to this principle is on par with, say, someone refusing to change a gendered pronoun because of its perceived triviality.