UC Davis Police officer Lieutenant John Pike is sure getting around the internet this week – photoshop justice is harsh. (Know Your Meme)

It is DEFENDED.

Xeni Jardin in the Guardian:

One way the internet deals with that kind of upsetting dissonance is to mock it. And that’s what the internet has done with Pike. The “casually pepper-spraying cop” is now a meme, a kind of folk art or shared visual joke that is open to sharing and reinterpretation by anyone. This particular meme has spread with unusual velocity – in part, I imagine, because the subject matter is just as weird as it is upsetting.

Even Kamran Loghman, one of the men who developed pepper spray as a weapon with the FBI in the 1980s, had a hard time reconciling it. “I have never seen such an inappropriate and improper use of chemical agents,” Loghman told the New York Times. And Loghman might add “insouciant” to that list of adjectives. I mean, look at the guy. He’s not braced for imminent attack by a foe; he does not move with tension as if navigating a hostile environment. He’s administering punishment, and his face says: “Meh.”

An investigation, to be led by former NY and LA police chief Bill Bratton, into whether there was police misconduct may take a while to reach a conclusion, but Photoshop justice has been delivered to Pike. And the expressions keep multiplying.

Of course: Hitler Reacts to Pepper Spray Meme

Categories: culture wars, ethics & philosophy, violence

Tags: authoritarianism, internet memes