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Casually Pepper Spray Everything Cop
Kanutte Roestad
The event - UC Davis Occupy Protest
On November 18th 2011, an Occupy protest was held by a group of students at the
University of California Davis as they formed a human chain by linking their arms
together. When they refused to comply with the police request to leave, UC Davis
Lieutenant,John Pike and another ocer walked across the group, administering
orange pepper spray straight down the unmoving students. (knowyourmemes.com)
Below is the video of the incident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6AdDLhPwpp4
Little did Lt. John Pike know that a photograph of him peacefully pepper spraying
demonstrators would spread around the world and become an internet meme, as
people inserted the pepper spray photo into famous works of various art and popular
culture. This is the original picture taken by Louise Macabitas:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cophttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6AdDLhPwpp4http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6AdDLhPwpp4http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cop7/29/2019 Casually Pepperspray Everything Cop
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The photoshop Meme
On 20th of November, 2011 , two photoshopped versions of the image appeared on
Reddit. The rst image featured the meme Strutting Leo, photoshopped over Lt.
Pike. The secondplaced The UC Davis Ocer in the 1819 painting Declaration of
Independenceby John Trumbull.The same afternoon, Lt. Pike was placed in Georges
Seurats A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte(1884) on a Tumblr
blog, here the image where received over 2400 notes in a day. (knowyourmeme.com)
The spread of The Pepper Spray Cop meme
The incident itself was quickly picked up by nearly all major U.S. news media outlets.
The meme reached its peak on November 22nd, this only four days after Lt. Pike
showed o his pepper spray skills on the US Davis campus this is visualized below
through Google Trend:
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/strutting-leo-leo-struthttp://knowyourmeme.com/memes/strutting-leo-leo-strut7/29/2019 Casually Pepperspray Everything Cop
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The next days after the event dierent photoshopped images of the meme began
appearing on dierent social media. According to knowyourmeme.com 20th of
november additional images were posted on Washington Post, ABC News, the Metro,
Gawker and Buzzfeed.Four separate single topic Tumblrs were also created that day.
It was also created an interactive Pepper Spray Cop where users can take the
exploitable cop and shoot pepper spray throughout the Trumbull painting.
During the next month, Casually Pepper Spraying Everything Cop images were
shared and discussed on many major U. S news media outlet.
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A selection of the Pepper Spray Cop meme pictures:
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For more examples, visit: http://peppersprayingcop.tumblr.com
The eects of the memeThe eects were many, but this text will take base in the eects that happened rthe
same week as the event to emphasize the short time information needs to spread
across the internet.
The Campus police in UC Davis came in for their share of criticism, including
specically the police ocer who has become notorious from the the event, as well
as the various memes created from of the original picture. Both he and the UC Davis
police chief remain on paid administrative leave after the spread of the incident over
internet and media.
On November 19th, Anonymous hackers in support
of the Occupy Movement released contact information,
home address and salary records of the UC Davis police
ocer Lt. John Pike, which was quickly picked up by a
number of outlets on Twitter and Tumblr. As a result
of the controversy, Pike has reportedly received more
than 10,000 text messages and 17,000 emails
critiquing his actions (knowyourmeme.com).
http://peppersprayingcop.tumblr.com/http://peppersprayingcop.tumblr.com/http://peppersprayingcop.tumblr.com/http://peppersprayingcop.tumblr.com/7/29/2019 Casually Pepperspray Everything Cop
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Something that are mentionable in conjunction to the Pepper spray meme is when
Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly appeared on political commentator Bill OReillys
talk show The OReilly Factor to discuss the UC Davis pepper spray incident on
November 21st,. In discussing the incident, Kelly described pepper spray as a
food product:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Qrx6DDgTH_w
The same day dierent social media picked up the interview where up Kelly claiming:
Its like a derivative of actual pepper. Its a food product, essentially. In
response an advice animal image series featuring M. Kelly emerged on the
internet the very same day captioned with dismissive phrases downplaying the
eects of various human rights abuse. The dismissive statements were also
downplaying chemical weapons, war crimes, torture tactics etc. Here are some
examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Qrx6DDgTH_whttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Qrx6DDgTH_w7/29/2019 Casually Pepperspray Everything Cop
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Meanwhile, a fake Pepper Spraying Cop Twitter account, @PepperSprayCop
(https://twitter.com/PepperSprayCop) was made to provide satirical commentaries
on in relation to the photoshop meme.
As early as the same week as the incident various songs was released on dierent
social media channels, both tributes, mocking and satirical kinds. Maybe you can call
them meme songs, not theme songs?
https://soundcloud.com/lelink/ballad-of-the-pepper-spray-cop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzTE0WGyjSI
At November 22th a parody was made showing a subtitled scene form the movie Der
Untergang (200f) on how Hitler responding to the viral rise of the Pepper Spray Cop
meme:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iU7y81FBxu4
Why did the meme become so big?
The incident it self looked quite notorious, and something that exacerbated the
event even more was previous episodes involving the police use of pepper spray
against Occupy protesters. The meme became a big hit partially because of its topics
relevance.
https://twitter.com/PepperSprayCophttps://soundcloud.com/lelink/ballad-of-the-pepper-spray-cophttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzTE0WGyjSIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iU7y81FBxu4https://twitter.com/PepperSprayCophttps://soundcloud.com/lelink/ballad-of-the-pepper-spray-cophttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzTE0WGyjSIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iU7y81FBxu47/29/2019 Casually Pepperspray Everything Cop
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When you add those facts together with Lieutenant Pike casually pepper spraying
various historical events and milestones in civil rights, ranging from the signing of
the U.S. constitution to Picassos famous anti-war painting Guernica, the meme got a
great impact.
This meme is a very good example on how powerful the internet can be, and how
extremely fast information can spread. Since the internet is a place were you can stay
anonymous and sanctions are hard to give, the socially acceptable boundaries are
more likely ti be crossed, and the Pepper Spray Cop meme is a example on this kind
of humor or memes that is touching up on what is nat socially acceptable. The many
images produced in the Pepper Spray Cop meme can be perceived in the range from
very oensive, absurd, random or humorous something that gave this meme a
extra level of attention.
At the same time the internet is also a place were anonymity is hard to keep, and Lt.
John Pike got this experienced only one day after the incident when all of his
personal information got spread over the internet, together with the pictures of him
pepper spraying students as if he were casually watering his plants on a late sunday
afternoon.
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The best recipe for the Pepper Spray Cop meme:1. Find something that is socially unacceptable to joke about
(religion, historical events or in the category offensive will giveyou a hit guarantee)
2. Place Lt. John Pike and his notorious pepper spray in a pictureof it, and let him bite the dust (even more)
Sources:
Google Trends: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=pepper%20spray%20cop
(Retrieved: 02.23-13 )
Knowyourmeme.com: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-
everything-cop (retrieved: 02.15-13)
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=pepper%20spray%20cophttp://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cophttp://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cophttp://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=pepper%20spray%20cophttp://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cophttp://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-copTop Related