November 12, 2016

Misreadable protest symbology.

Click to enlarge:



Here's a link to the tweet. Here's the article explaining why what most easily reads as a reference to diapers is actually supposed to say: "safe." Specifically: I am a safe person. Or even: I am a provider of safety. As one safety pin wearer said:
“My #SafetyPin shows I will protect those who feel in danger bc of gender, sexuality, race, disability, religion, etc.... You are safe with me.”
Actually, if the point is to "protect those who feel in danger" — to deal with feelings as opposed to dangers — a symbol is good enough — but not if the symbol is misread. If a safety pin is to mean I am a baby or I miss punk rock, one might feel even more despondent.

If you go to that #SafetyPin hashtag, I think you might find most of the tweets making fun of it. Example:

65 comments:

Gahrie said...

I see them as identifying the crybullies on the Left.

Original Mike said...

"Here's the article explaining why what most easily reads as a reference to diapers. The safety pin is supposed to say: "safe.""

It says to me they're shitting their pants.

sinz52 said...

If you really want to show the oppressed that you will make them safe, take a selfie with you holding a shotgun.

MayBee said...

I have so many Facebook friends who are finding themselves very brave for wearing safety pins. I love them, but I am so embarrassed for them.

MayBee said...

I have one friend on Facebook who complained that her yoga teacher didn't even acknowledge this was happening. And my other friends, many of them yoga teachers, just couldn't believe that. Yoga is a time to heal, of course, and to put aside your attachments and your worries about the future and, apparently, indulge in your belief that anyone who doesn't vote like you is a terrible person trying to kill your friends. This is in a liberal city, of course.
You quickly see how this becomes a bubble mentality. Anybody not participating in heartbreak theatre is shunned as the odd person.

Quayle said...

Yeah, as a Mormon, I'm wondering how safe I'd feel with the wearer of the pin if the topic of discussion drifted into gay marriage and the question of what is or is not beneficial to the spirituality of a society, and who should decide such.

Pretty sure I wouldn't get that safe and accepted feeling from the pin person.

People who think to wear the pin should read the old Dr. Seuss classic "The Star-bellied Sneaches", because my sense is that it is a self righteous virtue symbol. It is intended as a sigh of being better than others.

rehajm said...

What surprises me is how quickly the meme began after defeat, as if they knew what was coming. Or do they do this for everything they find objectionable?

Otto said...

Now i know why i voted for Trump :-). That woman is a fox - wishful thinking for an alta cocka.

mezzrow said...

I misread misreadable as miserable.

Still works.

Original Mike said...

"It is intended as a sigh of being better than others."

Read this prescient article today (it was written last April). "The smug style in American liberalism". "Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What the fuck happened?"

Gahrie said...

What surprises me is how quickly the meme began after defeat, as if they knew what was coming. Or do they do this for everything they find objectionable?

Virtue signaling is the be all and end all of Leftist society. It is where all the various ribbon and wristband campaigns came from. The various symbols also act as their expression of medals earned in the fight against their foes.

mezzrow said...

Also, it's been done better...

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/09/30/article-2775659-21D231E300000578-423_634x1106.jpg

rhhardin said...

Safety pins are responsible only for the danger that they themselves pose.

They also spring open under load and become unexpected menaces.

MayBee said...

Do people on the left think Trump is really going to make Muslim people register because it was their hero, FDR, who actually did inter people?

MayBee said...

hardin- that's what I was thinking. One hard hug and that safety pin will spring open and hurt a hug-ee.

Original Mike said...

"They also spring open under load and become unexpected menaces."

You could put your eye out.

Mick said...

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
Samuel Adams

rehajm said...

One hard hug and that safety pin will spring open and hurt a hug-ee

Safety pins were huge with the punk rock set. Having them spring open during slam dancing and injuring others was a feature, not a bug.

Could there be a worse symbol for safety for anyone who experienced that period?

Mick said...

Liberalism is a mental disorder
---Michael Savage

Mick said...

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-11/paul-joseph-watson-crushes-hypocrisy-left#comments

robother said...

We should've known letting kids move back into the basement at 26 would lead to this: temper tantrums and changing diapers of 30 somethings.

MayBee said...

If I were a perv, I'd be wearing my safety pin all over the place.
"I'm wearing a pin! You are super safe with me! Step into my white safety van"

Comanche Voter said...

So behind the times! Disposal diapers these days (not that I have changed many on my two grandkids) are fastened with tape. Didn't these morons learn anything?

Darrell said...

I really wish Trump would make Paul Joseph Watson his Press Secretary. And let him rip.

gilbar said...

I admit that I'm out of touch; but are cry babies really so immature that that they think that loudly proclaiming their cry babyhood is a winning strategy ???
Oh, wait, we Are talking about cry babies.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I see it as silliness intended to make friends and nothing to get worked up about.

robinintn said...

Blogger Original Mike said...
"Here's the article explaining why what most easily reads as a reference to diapers. The safety pin is supposed to say: "safe.""

"It says to me they're shitting their pants."

Pantsuits!

Laslo Spatula said...

Original Mike said...
"Read this prescient article today (it was written last April). "The smug style in American liberalism"."

Thanks, Original Mike. Very sharp article.

I am Laslo.

Darrell said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d9lm-T87AQ

Same as Mick's, but to YouTube. For the timid.

MAJMike said...

In response, I may wear my old Nixon-Agnew pin.

AllenS said...

My Trump lawn sign stays up. Cry fools, cry.

Michael K said...

Depends in honor of their candidate.

MAJMike said...

Or maybe the Goldwater pin.

wendybar said...

For their diapers???

Paco Wové said...

"Facebook friends ... I love them, but I am so embarrassed for them... You quickly see how this becomes a bubble mentality"

This describes a depressing number of my Facebook 'friends' as well. Not the safety pins (yet); but the hysterics, the anger, the demands for a do-over. I roll my eyes and keep my mouth shut, as I do for all political comments; politics is not why I'm there. Someday I'll probably snap, though.

MathMom said...

This is Open Carry, only with "safety" pins instead of Glocks, people! It is meant to intimidate and scare those around the wearers.

These people are armed. If you cross them, they may hug you with intent to stab, or they may quick-draw their easily accessible pin, and stab you outright. They will poke you and keep poking until you submit, or until they accidentally poke their thumbs. I think we need legislation banning Safety Pin Open Carry. I think we need to register safety pins.

These pins could put an eye out!

stlcdr said...

External markers to identify who and what you are. Hmm.

Anonymous said...

I am really depressed that the 2020 Presidential campaign has started already. These crybabies are busily laying a firm foundation for the 2020 re-elect Trump campaign. Sigh.

Wince said...

Safety Dance

We can dance if we want to, we can leave your friends behind
Cause your friends don't dance and if they don't dance
Well they're are no friends of mine

...I Say we can act if want to if we don't nobody will

And you can act real rude and totally removed
And I can act like an imbecile

rehajm said...

I am really depressed that the 2020 Presidential campaign has started already. These crybabies are busily laying a firm foundation for the 2020 re-elect Trump campaign. Sigh

I fully expected to see "Election 2018" graphics on CNN this morning. They must still be working on it...

mikee said...

An illusion of safety is fine, until a real danger appears. I just hope the pin wearers realize they still should look both ways before crossing streets to make sure no cars are coming, and that if they play in traffic bad things might happen to them. I hope, but I am not hopeful.

James Pawlak said...

Yes---It is a diaper pin. The "changers" are too many university/college presidents and faculty.
Do they enjoy the smell?

Jersey Fled said...

As Quayle said, I'm sure their safe space does not extend to Mormons. Or Catholics or Jews or Evangelicals for that matter.

Just Muslims and those who are "spiritual, but not religious"

buwaya said...

Wear a cotter pin and mess with their minds.

tcrosse said...

Bitter Clingers advertise themselves.

jcr said...

If you actually want to protect people, you wear a sidearm, not a safety pin.

-jcr

Anonymous said...

it was their hero, FDR, who actually did inter people

On the short list for Best Typo Ever.

Bill said...

Incomplete toilet training is the root of the snowflakes' trouble.

MayBee said...

Oh hahahahaha!

here's the missing n

Seeing Red said...

These people want safe spaces, except in the bathroom.


My college daughter was followed into the women's room by a 6' bearded guy.

Paddy O said...

Not that this is applicable to Trump, but the safety pin symbol reminded me of this from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe:

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion."
"Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"
"Safe?" said Mr Beaver,"Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”

Ernst Stavro Blofeld said...

When I first saw that campaign I was convinced it was one of those 4chan pranks designed to make fun of gullible people. Like their claim that a software upgrade made iPhones waterproof, or claiming that if you were a Clinton voter you could text to vote.

Irwin Chusid said...

SJW = Social Justice Whiner.

n.n said...

Safety pins taken from recycled diapers that would have clothed aborted babies.

ALP said...

MayBee:

Your posts give me the impression you are a kind, thoughtful person. May I suggest you try the Facebook-free life? It kinda tears me up to see people subjecting themselves to that crap when keeping up with your true friends can be done via email. I left FB in 2010 - no regrets.

Social media is probably 80% of what is fueling this hysteria.

Marc in Eugene said...

I saw a couple of women earlier wearing safety pins and wondered what was up with that. Tsk. Sad, befuddled, frightened children. Pft.

I'm presuming that Lena Dunham collapsed in tears Tuesday night and has been inconsolable since, or else is out in the streets? Am only familiar with her via AA's posts.

Freeman Hunt said...

All conservatives of good will could wear them too. We're safe people.

Janette Kok said...

After I read about this, I ordered an American flag lapel pin.

fivewheels said...

"I will protect those who feel in danger..."

Yeah. So when a gang of thugs is beating a guy in the street in Chicago, shouting racial and political taunts at him, what is this girl with the pin going to do? Other than get a few kicks in herself.

Anonymous said...

But a Trump voter would *not* be safe with them. This is the same us v. them mentality that our hostess deplored in the article about the roommate.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

First, I LOVE the "First Family" tweet and photo. Love it! It's a fabulous photo, just terrific staging. The best, I'd say. I fondly recall my toy firetruck and toy CHP Jeep Both real steel back then you know, early '60's), but I'm sure Barron will look back with similar feelings at his toy limo and toy Ferrari.

Second, I have been wearing my McCain-Palin and my Sore-Loserman* shirts for the last few months. The comments varied depending on how the viewer interpreted them of course. I never explain. Explaining is for losers. Figure out the shirt/art/Tweet for yourself.

*I still have my BUSH-CHENEY yard sign from 2000 too.

Original Mike said...

"Thanks, Original Mike."

You're welcome.

ReformedRick said...

Instead of a pin to protect you, how about a gun? Oh yeah...forgot...gun free zone...sorry.

glenn said...

It will hold up their diapers. Sorry if somebody else posted first.

Nick Carter said...

We have several friends who have, altogether, sold over $8000 worth of handmade silver safety pins on Etsy since the election. Because plain steel safety pins just won't do...Certainly softened the blow for them (as they were not Trump supporters).