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This is my favorite meme. Please observe the juxtaposition of the cultural taboo of openly acknowledging pornography with the reappropriation of said acknowledgment to express repressed and endemic trauma. This is the first layer of dissonance that establishes the basis of the meme. The second, deeper layer is formed of emotional vulnerability. Our subject is caught in a candid pose that invokes pity. This lets the viewer know that the subject is not in on the joke, creating a veil of separation between viewer and subject that shifts how the scene is viewed. We are invited to laugh at the subject not as we would a clown, who, having some degree of social awareness, has weaponised humor as a means of social capital, but as a pathetic creature, unaware of the depravity of its situation. Thus, our laughter comes from a place that is more primal and raw, separated from the layers of irony and knowing absurdism that define modern meme culture. It truly is a beautiful thing.
