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It can sometimes be hard to pin down the explicit principles of any internet subculture. The nature of the online cliques—which can be slavish or ironic, reactive or calculated, trollish or sincere, each with their own memetic language—can make it hard to know if anything being said is gospel or heresy, if any belief is ephemeral or permanent.
But radicalized right-wing posters? There’s one thing that’s true. Those motherf*ckers love the damn Joker.
Two iconic performances of the Clown Prince of Crime—at a time when the American experiment was roiled by both an economic crash and the fears of Trumpism––helped the nihilistic dissatisfaction with society embed itself in a certain type of Millennial and Gen X male, a black-pilled rightward troll who sees the beauty in burning it all down.
They were Jokers, and the Joker was them. Trump, in 2016, was their Joker, crashing stages and laughing at institutions.
So… then why the heck are all of them photoshopping Kamala Harris into Joker makeup?
On sites like Gettr and former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social, posters are now terrified of Harris.
“It is disturbing and infuriating that this Cackling Kamala and Tampon Timmy duo maniacally laugh about the EVIL they’ve done and call it ‘joy’—I pray people’s eyes will be opened and they’ll realize that’s not joy—that’s the heinous JOKER coming out in them,” wrote Nacho Grannie.
“Kamala harris cackles, laughs, guffaws!!!!! The misery of the American people, is always a joke to her!!!!! . . . . The joker, the clown, the harlequin!!!!! wrote ArchAngel5.
The trend appears to have first come from news aggregator Citizen Free Press, who put Harris into the makeup and branded her Woker (Joker… but Woker.)
That image macro includes a 2017 quote from Harris on wokeness that’s recirculating for its incomprehensibility.
“We have to stay woke. Like everybody needs to be woke. And you can talk about if you’re the wokest or woker, but just stay more less woke than less woke,” she said.
Soon, other images of Harris as the Joker started populating the sites.
Harris has been photoshopped and AIed into the makeup of nearly every famous Joker of recent memory, even getting a side-by-side comparison to Caesar Romero’s original portrayal.
“Look Mr President, All I’m say’n is, I’ve never seen the Joker and Kamala in the same room at the time together,” wrote one person to Trump.
The edits also have an obsession with her laugh, which they think is demonic, evil, and sadistic.
In videos, it’s been compared to both Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger’s cackles.
Trump even got a Batman edit, who in some reads on the comic and the administration, is a billionaire fascist singularly obsessed with crime in major cities which… tracks.
“We must be Batman and Robin,” wrote one poster in response to an image of Harris in clown makeup.
Which, turned out, was not the creator’s intent.
“This depiction of Kamala Harris is actually not supposed to be The Joker,” the wrote. “It is making her look like Pennywise from the 2017 remake of the movie ‘It.’”
Ooops.
But there seems to be one simple solution the people are missing.
Why debase your heroes like this? The effort rings hollow, you can’t both love and respect and hate and fear the Joker. If Harris truly wants to burn the world down, you should support her, party affiliation be damned.
But if right-wingers can’t handle Harris, she shouldn’t be photoshopped into Phoenix, Ledger, Nicholson, or Romero makeup. If Harris is so evil, so demented, so … twisted, she should be showing up in Jared Leto Joker core.
Now that’s a Joker to be afraid of.
2) JD Vance’s drag name
Podcaster Matt Bernstein broke the biggest JD Vance story of the week, sharing two photos of Trump’s running mate wearing a wig and a dress while in law school.
The pictures, purportedly from Halloween, sparked joy online given the GOP’s massive anti-drag push, as they try to tie the community to the trans grooming panic they’ve concocted.
Vance fans defended him, claiming it was a joke.
“Vance dressed this way as a joke. The whole point is that it looks absurd,” wrote one prominent commentator.
But while lots of Halloween costumes are gags, others use the holiday as an excuse to dress up how they secretly want to, as superheroes, witches, or women.
So, who is really to say. But what is true is that the picture got roped into a fake Vance controversy, about him having sex with a couch.
On BlueSky, posters instantly concocted drag names referencing the meme.
“Drag name: Ashley Furniture,” wrote one.
“The drag names I’ve heard so far are Sofa Loren and Ashley Furniture, and it’s by far the best part of this running joke,” added another.
“Someone one said his drag name could’ve been Anita Couch,” chimed in another.
But the consensus was Ashley Furniture, a manufacturing company that, incidentally, chose the name because it would appear early in phone books, an inverse of the kind of SEO problems JD Vance is facing these days.
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