Sort-of memes that are cracking you up at the moment

In the News thread ->

I assume the photo is some confiscated items in a police raid or something, and the joke is Jack Laws thinks it's a prize being advertised on the police's social media channel.

And that's why it's funny.

Danny Baker - ex Radio 5 Live presenter.

I always thought he was a cunt - now he's proved it

You were wrong then, and you're wrong now. His mistake was only that he assumed that everybody else was intelligent enough to see the point of the joke.

I reckon he's coming at this from a different angle to the rest of us given his past unironic comments about "soy boys" and so on... we all think it's (unintentionally?) racist, I bet it's the anti-monarchist angle that he objects to :)

Genuine question - what is the joke meant to be? I really don't understand what's the reason for the chimp, if it's not meant to be racist.

Not sure either way if it was deliberately intended to be racist. But I don't understand the joke if it isn't. Is it that they're all wearing posh old fashioned clothes?

He says it was a comment on the baby being paraded like a circus animal and also that the parents/baby are posh.

As I understand, he has no previous for being considered a racist. If so, you've got to say that if his intent was that this was his great unveil as a massive racist, it's a pretty brazen way to do it. Considering he instantly removed it, rather than attempt any kind of double down, kinda reinforces that this was simply a mistake.

No doubt he could have apologised better, the reference to "diseased minds" and "his turn in the barrel" were unnecessary, but still, the sacking seems pretty harsh.

One of his programmes features is imagining animals dressed as famous people from history

I really don't understand what's the reason for the chimp, if it's not meant to be racist

There is no reason for the chimp, it's just that because his mind did not immediately go to the possibility of a racist interpretation, he picked the funniest and most easily accessible image rather than wasting half the afternoon trying to find a satisfactory image of some annoying couple parading their dog in fancy costume.

Ahh I see

.

^ Pretty much how I read it.

(His son's a top fella as well!)

I'm not buying intelligence. U are ignorant and a bit stoopid if u think u can post that online. #justsayin

This is clever.

1 Attachment

#justsayin

It's a fair point; he assumed a level of intelligence on the part of the audience which a more thoughtful person would have known was taking too much for granted. Clearly he made a mistake which somebody with a more defensive posture would have avoided, but that just speaks to the stupidity of the public, not the motives of the Baker boy.

maybe we should leave judgement regarding what is and isn't racist to people who are and have been on the receiving end of actual racism. which i'm pretty sure counts most of us out.

wasting half the afternoon trying to find a satisfactory image

D0NT JUDGE ME YOU'RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR!

To be fair to the forum, not many have argued that what he did isn't racist.

Baker’s always been massively up his own arse, which is why he couldn’t bring himself to admit the pic was wrong and tried to blame the people who pointed it out. I mean, who seriously thought it was clever/funny/appropriate?

He ceased being funny 20 years ago, so no great loss.

fair enough - this is playing out over about five threads at the moment - keeping up is hard!

maybe we should leave judgement regarding what is and isn't [prejudice] to people who are and have been on the receiving end of actual [prejudice]

The two main effects of this would be that a: the internet would fall silent and b: people would always be judged by the worst possible interpretation of their actions, rather than the best possible interpretations of their motives. While the first might be a good thing, the second gets us nowhere if the aim is to increase understanding between people. Neither does the massive over-reaction to what was, on any properly contextualised view, a matter of carelessness rather than viciousness.
It's right to point out that using a non-human hominid as a stand in for a person with black heritage has been a racist trope, and you don't have to have black heritage to know this or to point it out. On the other hand, it's also right to point out that sometimes a chimp is just a chimp, even when he is standing in for a human; nobody in their right mind thinks the PG chimps are representing people of black heritage.
Baker should have posted that image when George was being paraded before the public, because the ridiculousness of the monarchy's Faustian bargain with the populist media is always worth pointing out, and should, as a matter of politeness, have refrained from doing so on this occasion because he ought to have known that it would cause unnecessary offence.

nobody in their right mind thinks the PG chimps are representing people of black heritage.

pretty sure the PG tips chimps weren't being associated with being the children of a non white woman.

the worst thing about all this is i'm defending the royals ffs.

/not really the worst thing about this

Is the expression ‘non white’ not classed as racist?

i hope not. i thought it was appropriate in this context tho, happy to be proven wrong.

(you can take the racist out of SA etc)