Hope I don’t get banned for this, but like can someone explain to me exactly why this shit is funny and there’s no nuance around it? Like, you can mourn the Muslim lives lost due to American Imperialism AND mourn the lives of the people who had fuck all to do with any of that? Like the janitors in the building for example? Like I get it fuck the state but for it to be something people post about and laugh at all day long is hard for me to grock. What if it was your family that died?
I’m not trying to argue anything or get in a struggle session around it but like, I’m just surprised that I haven’t really seen any kind of pushback or critique around making that big of a joke of this.
of course the actual lives lost in 9/11 was tragic, yes, but it is primarily funny (at least to me) because:
A. its been 22 years and most Americans act like it happened yesterday
B. We kinda had it coming (as a country, not saying the janitors or firefighters themselves did)
C. Most Americans will get red in the face if they hear you say or do something even mildly neutral about 9/11. I had a teacher once scream at me in the hallway because I, as a high school senior in 2012, was like “the 8:46 announcement that ‘please take a moment of silence the first plane has struck the North Tower’ and the 9:03 announcement ‘please take a moment a silence the second plane has struck the South tower’ are ridiculous and literally just trauma porn & what is worse is that most of the student body doesn’t even have memories of 9/11” (the announcement shit was literally done like every 9/11 in my school district. Announcements for both planes striking the towers on the exact minute it happened as well as moments of silence during them. Every 9/11 was like this K-12 - ridiculous)
D. I am kinda super biased against 9/11 in general because I for years, being biracial, had people call me a terrorist because in my 95% white town I was the closest complexion to middle eastern they’d ever seen.
Yes lol. Mind you school started at 7:45, so we’d literally be like an hour into first period and it’d just come over the intercom but every one of the 3 schools (and these were separate middle/high schools. So like X North Middle/X South Middle/X East Middle and X North High/X South High/X East High all under the same district) in my school district did this shit.
It was:
An announcement for the first plane hitting the towers. Moment of silence
An announcement for the second plane. Moment of silence
An announcement for when the first tower fell. Moment of silence
An announcement for when the second tower fell. Moment of silence
No idea whose idea it was but we did this every year from like 6th grade to 12th & it was never really talked about in the community at large lol. Half the time, teachers would either just continue teaching through the moments of silence or get really irate at students who didn’t take it seriously. I experienced both over the years and senior year was when I was politically aware enough to realize how fucking stupid it was in general. Still one of those things though that is so clearly politically motivated that I didn’t even get in trouble for saying what I said - just yelled at by a chud whose coffee breath is still stuck in my memory - they were that close to me, for like 30 minutes in the hallway about how 2,977 people died and how it was disrespectful to laugh & call the announcements and moments of silence ridiculous (even though most of my classmates, even those who weren’t politically engaged or outright conservative, were of the same mind that it was pointless and dumb lol)
it is in poor taste, but for those who came of age post-9/11, that one day was used as a cudgel for years by the worst types of people for the flimsiest appeals to patriotism. the flag humpers and such. also, state sanctioned violence (evictions, unaffordable health care, covid ‘rules’) have killed millions more than that one attack. it was a matter of america’s chickens coming home to roost, as would say
I think that everyone here does have a nuanced take on this, don’t get me wrong - many of you appear to be much smarter/well read than I am at this point. I just thought it was kinda weird to log on and just see a bunch of lulz with no other discussion from anyone at all; but I guess that’s because you’ve had this conversation before. That said, there are people who would totally joke about this without having that nuance so I was just making sure I didn’t enter the twilight zone or something lol.
I don’t want to speak for everyone but I’ll say this for myself.
After being told for over 20 years that I should still be morning these people and for the same amount of time our foreign policy hasn’t gotten any better, in fact it’s worse just makes me angry. They died and we’re worse as a country for it. It makes me deeply sad, but at some point the sadness just became a bitter sense of humor I reckon as a defense mechanism so I didn’t truly descend into madness.
Hope I don’t get banned for this, but like can someone explain to me exactly why this shit is funny and there’s no nuance around it? Like, you can mourn the Muslim lives lost due to American Imperialism AND mourn the lives of the people who had fuck all to do with any of that? Like the janitors in the building for example? Like I get it fuck the state but for it to be something people post about and laugh at all day long is hard for me to grock. What if it was your family that died?
I’m not trying to argue anything or get in a struggle session around it but like, I’m just surprised that I haven’t really seen any kind of pushback or critique around making that big of a joke of this.
of course the actual lives lost in 9/11 was tragic, yes, but it is primarily funny (at least to me) because:
A. its been 22 years and most Americans act like it happened yesterday
B. We kinda had it coming (as a country, not saying the janitors or firefighters themselves did)
C. Most Americans will get red in the face if they hear you say or do something even mildly neutral about 9/11. I had a teacher once scream at me in the hallway because I, as a high school senior in 2012, was like “the 8:46 announcement that ‘please take a moment of silence the first plane has struck the North Tower’ and the 9:03 announcement ‘please take a moment a silence the second plane has struck the South tower’ are ridiculous and literally just trauma porn & what is worse is that most of the student body doesn’t even have memories of 9/11” (the announcement shit was literally done like every 9/11 in my school district. Announcements for both planes striking the towers on the exact minute it happened as well as moments of silence during them. Every 9/11 was like this K-12 - ridiculous)
D. I am kinda super biased against 9/11 in general because I for years, being biracial, had people call me a terrorist because in my 95% white town I was the closest complexion to middle eastern they’d ever seen.
E. Uhhhh the War on Terror??
Your school had 9/11 roleplay?? Every year?? LMAO
Yes lol. Mind you school started at 7:45, so we’d literally be like an hour into first period and it’d just come over the intercom but every one of the 3 schools (and these were separate middle/high schools. So like X North Middle/X South Middle/X East Middle and X North High/X South High/X East High all under the same district) in my school district did this shit.
It was:
No idea whose idea it was but we did this every year from like 6th grade to 12th & it was never really talked about in the community at large lol. Half the time, teachers would either just continue teaching through the moments of silence or get really irate at students who didn’t take it seriously. I experienced both over the years and senior year was when I was politically aware enough to realize how fucking stupid it was in general. Still one of those things though that is so clearly politically motivated that I didn’t even get in trouble for saying what I said - just yelled at by a chud whose coffee breath is still stuck in my memory - they were that close to me, for like 30 minutes in the hallway about how 2,977 people died and how it was disrespectful to laugh & call the announcements and moments of silence ridiculous (even though most of my classmates, even those who weren’t politically engaged or outright conservative, were of the same mind that it was pointless and dumb lol)
Even in the Murica manga no one stops to mourn the pentagon lol
it is in poor taste, but for those who came of age post-9/11, that one day was used as a cudgel for years by the worst types of people for the flimsiest appeals to patriotism. the flag humpers and such. also, state sanctioned violence (evictions, unaffordable health care, covid ‘rules’) have killed millions more than that one attack. it was a matter of america’s chickens coming home to roost, as
would say
and there’s no nuance around it?
The fact that the whole ordeal was a giant fucking tragedy caused by American imperialism is funny for that reason, not because those people are dead.
That is the nuanced take.
I think that everyone here does have a nuanced take on this, don’t get me wrong - many of you appear to be much smarter/well read than I am at this point. I just thought it was kinda weird to log on and just see a bunch of lulz with no other discussion from anyone at all; but I guess that’s because you’ve had this conversation before. That said, there are people who would totally joke about this without having that nuance so I was just making sure I didn’t enter the twilight zone or something lol.
I don’t want to speak for everyone but I’ll say this for myself.
After being told for over 20 years that I should still be morning these people and for the same amount of time our foreign policy hasn’t gotten any better, in fact it’s worse just makes me angry. They died and we’re worse as a country for it. It makes me deeply sad, but at some point the sadness just became a bitter sense of humor I reckon as a defense mechanism so I didn’t truly descend into madness.
Or in other words, it jokerfied me.
LeopardsAteMyFace
This is the most succinct and accurate response lol