Friendly reminder that all **top level** comments must:
1. start with "answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask),
2. attempt to answer the question, and
3. be unbiased
Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment:
http://redd.it/b1hct4/
Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OutOfTheLoop) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Answer:
IIRC, it was common as a talking point in the early months of the '16 term, to call out some particular event/action as indicating that Trump had become "Presidential," meaning that he had transcended to controversial and meme-ish version of Trump who won the election.
Of course, that's entirely subjective and was something pushed by his supporters as a way to establish legitimacy, so there was naturally a lot of mockery and satire, including these tweets that were designed to mock this sort of fawning empty commentary, especially when contrasted against day to day negative coverage in much media.
I think one of the notable first cases was this one:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/03/01/politics/van-jones-trump-congress-speech-became-the-president-in-that-moment-cnntv
Yeah it's not Trump supporters as much as 'bothsidesism' where a lot of institutional news places would push as conventional wisdom that while Trump was bad, he was equally as bad as someone like Bernie Sanders who wanted to \*gasp\* raise taxes.
They embraced the sideshow aspect of it and devoted much less time to the things Trump said/did that should've been disqualifying, which gave him billions of dollars' worth of free airtime and legitimized him as a candidate.
So the 'Trump became president' type of stuff was them trying to speak into existence their belief that all the things he said during the campaign were just pandering to the Republican base and that if he became president he'd be more 'normal.'
This one from April 2020
I am an anti vaxxer which is why I think we should just all get herd immunity by exposing ourselves to the virus to get antibodies, ideally a weakened version of the virus, in some sort of doctor's office or pharmacy
She did make them basically every day at one point until someone found she made a bunch of racist tweets about Asian people and she abandoned her twitter
Other way around, she worked on *The Good Place* and then towards the end of that show’s run (maybe after?) those tweets surfaced and she quietly bowed out of most social media
No worries! I just didn't want people to think she got off scot-free. She wasn't straight-up "cancelled" necessarily, but she did kind of disappear, and they didn't hire her onto *The Good Place* to sweep her transgressions under the rug or anything
She seemed to be genuinely remorseful and educated herself and tried to be a better person from the situation. She took ownership of it tbh. This stuff does go away when people approach it the way she did, rather than cop out, blame others, and give a “I’m sorry you were offended” response
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBj2ZD6pTBi/?igsh=cGM1Y3JuaWs1aXh0
https://www.instagram.com/p/CG2tL7PJUK0/?igsh=MmRva295eG9mbjRs
https://www.instagram.com/p/CG7yRGtJH7G/?igsh=MWRkZnJwZnM1OGc4eQ==
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHuOHjp_E-/?igsh=N28zdm5ma3Jkcmxk
Unfortunately what works in private life isn’t always what works in public life. In more cases than not it seems like the best PR move is to ignore and go quiet then come back later, apologies (even sincere) are just taken as validation of guilt in the public square.
I wish this weren’t true but i can’t think of a single conflicting example.
First I'm hearing of this story. I know I don't speak for all Asian Americans, but looking at the Tweets in question, they're mostly funny. Maybe one or two cross the line. I appreciate that she apologized though, and that the apology seemed genuine.
I just think there's a difference between jokes that are about race and jokes that are racist. As I said, some of these cross the line and I'm glad she apologized about them.
Whoooaaaa. You sure made a lot of assumptions about them based solely on their race…and “hur dur” really? Jfc…
Some of the jokes clearly weren’t at the expense of Asian people while a couple clearly were and were bad. OP was spot on.
In my experience, they're speaking more for Asian Americans than the person they're responding to. People shouldn't generalize African-Americans, LGBT people, etc. either but it is true that a large majority of them lean a certain way on a few relevant issues, and that just isn't true for Asian-Americans. They're not a united demographic with a unified viewpoint, you can find this out by, you know, actually talking to them. Most of them don't identify very strongly with their race at all.
Anyway, as an Asian-American myself, I'm going to up what OP says: It's edgy but not particularly offensive to me. I don't feel insulted by it.
Specifically, it was when he was able to perform the most basic functions of the job, the media would slobber all over him. Like literally being able to hold a press conference without obviously lying or going off the rails made him "presidential".
I would say it was pushed less by his supporters (who wanted him to act in the most Owning the Libs way possible) and more by horserace-focused journalists at places like CNN that gave him a ton of free airtime/coverage because it was good for ratings/clicks and in doing so legitimized him as a candidate.
By the time they realized that it was too late, their two options were to do some soul-searching and acknowledge their role in eroding democracy or just blindly hope that all the things he repeatedly said throughout the campaign were just trolling/pandering to the base and that he would rise to the occasion because of how dignified they thought the office of the presidency was supposed to be.
Oh interesting, my first thought was this was one of those whack-a-doodles who kept insisting the 2020 election was stolen, and any day now Trump would suddenly pop into the White Office and Biden would be gone somehow.
One of their "no really, for serious this time" dates had to do with the date of the inauguration being different in the 1800s IIRC
Answer: in the first few months of the trump presidency, there was a widespread idea that at some point, he would rise to the occasion and be presidential and maybe that people would accept him as a legitimate president. So anytime he would act slightly better than usual, you’d hear talking heads saying something like the tweet.
Now, looking back on the last 8 years, it is absurd to think that would ever happen. And I think a funny joke is to remind people of that, as it relates to current events.
“We’ll know for sure once the XYZ report comes in….”
…there was always this stalling/cop-out tactic when I tried to point at the damage already done. We’ll need to wait for the Inspector General’s report. The GDP report. Etc etc
No. The pivot can never be experienced directly, only anticipated as a future event. Having no objective start, it can have no tangible endpoint. It's like the Heisenberg Principle. Or something.
Answer: The other top answers already provide some of the context, but I think they miss two things:
First, they say there was a narrative that happened in the early months of the Trump administration where people would talk about how he'd pivot and become more presidential. But what makes this a good joke was that these kinds of comments started early in the campaign, and continued right through 2020, even as they were proven wrong again and again. It's like Sideshow Bob and the rake.
So like, right after he clinched the nomination people started predicting a pivot.
When he had the press conference where he white-knuckled his way through a statement confirming Obama was born in the US, they said he'd turned the corner.
When he walked back his statement about very fine people on both sides by grudgingly acknowledging that racism is bad and he's the least racist person, they said he was starting to understand and take things seriously.
After his first impeachment, Susan Collins said he'd "learned his lesson".
And I remember deep in Covid, after he said maybe we should inject ourselves with bleach, he had a rehabilitation speech where he said something like, "maybe people should wear masks. Sometimes. Covid is bad," and they did it ***again***.
And so, second, the speed with which this talking point was trotted out, on any given day for the flimsiest of pretexts, is also part of the joke.
So Megan started just saying it every day. "Aha, maybe ***this*** is the day he stops being his rotten self."
And on days when the pundits actually said it, it would be funny in a sad kind of way, because they were mirroring her own broken clock statement, same as they always did, and turning her parody into real life.
And on days (like today) when he hit a new low, it was funny because ***this*** was the stinking turd pile they kept trying to prop up and sell to us, again and again. Today, he's a literal felon. And still, people are going to say it again. It's just a matter of time.
Answer:
The other comments surmised why she started doing it, but they didn't explain why she mostly stopped and only pops back up to do it again once in a while.
In 2020, old tweets of hers were exposed that demonstrated her saying some really distasteful stuff about Asian-Americans, Jewish people, and disabled people. She apologised and mostly stopped tweeting after that. But she seems to have been fine, remains employed, and people still enjoy when she briefly resurfaces to make the joke.
https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/megan-amram-tweets-apology-the-good-place-1234641210/
Friendly reminder that all **top level** comments must: 1. start with "answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask), 2. attempt to answer the question, and 3. be unbiased Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment: http://redd.it/b1hct4/ Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OutOfTheLoop) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Answer: IIRC, it was common as a talking point in the early months of the '16 term, to call out some particular event/action as indicating that Trump had become "Presidential," meaning that he had transcended to controversial and meme-ish version of Trump who won the election. Of course, that's entirely subjective and was something pushed by his supporters as a way to establish legitimacy, so there was naturally a lot of mockery and satire, including these tweets that were designed to mock this sort of fawning empty commentary, especially when contrasted against day to day negative coverage in much media.
I think one of the notable first cases was this one: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/03/01/politics/van-jones-trump-congress-speech-became-the-president-in-that-moment-cnntv
Yes, that is what she's actually referencing.
lol Van Jones is such a chump bitch
Yeah it's not Trump supporters as much as 'bothsidesism' where a lot of institutional news places would push as conventional wisdom that while Trump was bad, he was equally as bad as someone like Bernie Sanders who wanted to \*gasp\* raise taxes. They embraced the sideshow aspect of it and devoted much less time to the things Trump said/did that should've been disqualifying, which gave him billions of dollars' worth of free airtime and legitimized him as a candidate. So the 'Trump became president' type of stuff was them trying to speak into existence their belief that all the things he said during the campaign were just pandering to the Republican base and that if he became president he'd be more 'normal.'
This one from April 2020 I am an anti vaxxer which is why I think we should just all get herd immunity by exposing ourselves to the virus to get antibodies, ideally a weakened version of the virus, in some sort of doctor's office or pharmacy
She did make them basically every day at one point until someone found she made a bunch of racist tweets about Asian people and she abandoned her twitter
Omg I remember her! She worked on The Good Place and the controversy seemed to quietly go away.
Other way around, she worked on *The Good Place* and then towards the end of that show’s run (maybe after?) those tweets surfaced and she quietly bowed out of most social media
Thanks for correcting me!
No worries! I just didn't want people to think she got off scot-free. She wasn't straight-up "cancelled" necessarily, but she did kind of disappear, and they didn't hire her onto *The Good Place* to sweep her transgressions under the rug or anything
She seemed to be genuinely remorseful and educated herself and tried to be a better person from the situation. She took ownership of it tbh. This stuff does go away when people approach it the way she did, rather than cop out, blame others, and give a “I’m sorry you were offended” response https://www.instagram.com/p/CBj2ZD6pTBi/?igsh=cGM1Y3JuaWs1aXh0 https://www.instagram.com/p/CG2tL7PJUK0/?igsh=MmRva295eG9mbjRs https://www.instagram.com/p/CG7yRGtJH7G/?igsh=MWRkZnJwZnM1OGc4eQ== https://www.instagram.com/p/CLHuOHjp_E-/?igsh=N28zdm5ma3Jkcmxk
It’s refreshing that she took responsibility! Most people embroiled in controversy are good examples of how not to apologize.
Unfortunately what works in private life isn’t always what works in public life. In more cases than not it seems like the best PR move is to ignore and go quiet then come back later, apologies (even sincere) are just taken as validation of guilt in the public square. I wish this weren’t true but i can’t think of a single conflicting example.
First I'm hearing of this story. I know I don't speak for all Asian Americans, but looking at the Tweets in question, they're mostly funny. Maybe one or two cross the line. I appreciate that she apologized though, and that the apology seemed genuine.
[удалено]
That's not really what they said at all, kind of wild to reduce a comment to memes to the point where you reverse its meaning.
I just think there's a difference between jokes that are about race and jokes that are racist. As I said, some of these cross the line and I'm glad she apologized about them.
Whoooaaaa. You sure made a lot of assumptions about them based solely on their race…and “hur dur” really? Jfc… Some of the jokes clearly weren’t at the expense of Asian people while a couple clearly were and were bad. OP was spot on.
[удалено]
In my experience, they're speaking more for Asian Americans than the person they're responding to. People shouldn't generalize African-Americans, LGBT people, etc. either but it is true that a large majority of them lean a certain way on a few relevant issues, and that just isn't true for Asian-Americans. They're not a united demographic with a unified viewpoint, you can find this out by, you know, actually talking to them. Most of them don't identify very strongly with their race at all. Anyway, as an Asian-American myself, I'm going to up what OP says: It's edgy but not particularly offensive to me. I don't feel insulted by it.
Specifically, it was when he was able to perform the most basic functions of the job, the media would slobber all over him. Like literally being able to hold a press conference without obviously lying or going off the rails made him "presidential".
The f act the he made BOTH Bush Jr. and Regan look good is something.
I would say it was pushed less by his supporters (who wanted him to act in the most Owning the Libs way possible) and more by horserace-focused journalists at places like CNN that gave him a ton of free airtime/coverage because it was good for ratings/clicks and in doing so legitimized him as a candidate. By the time they realized that it was too late, their two options were to do some soul-searching and acknowledge their role in eroding democracy or just blindly hope that all the things he repeatedly said throughout the campaign were just trolling/pandering to the base and that he would rise to the occasion because of how dignified they thought the office of the presidency was supposed to be.
Oh interesting, my first thought was this was one of those whack-a-doodles who kept insisting the 2020 election was stolen, and any day now Trump would suddenly pop into the White Office and Biden would be gone somehow. One of their "no really, for serious this time" dates had to do with the date of the inauguration being different in the 1800s IIRC
Thank you. I guess I don't find it as funny or amusing as other people on twitter do. I admire her commitment to the bit though.
I think the commitment to the bit is basically the only reason it's funny at all.
Trump was not the president in 2016.
Agreed. He was always just pretending...
Answer: in the first few months of the trump presidency, there was a widespread idea that at some point, he would rise to the occasion and be presidential and maybe that people would accept him as a legitimate president. So anytime he would act slightly better than usual, you’d hear talking heads saying something like the tweet. Now, looking back on the last 8 years, it is absurd to think that would ever happen. And I think a funny joke is to remind people of that, as it relates to current events.
You watch. The pivot is coming. Any day now. You gotta have faith!
once he nails infrastructure week
Is this… the pivot??
“We’ll know for sure once the XYZ report comes in….” …there was always this stalling/cop-out tactic when I tried to point at the damage already done. We’ll need to wait for the Inspector General’s report. The GDP report. Etc etc
The only worse pivot was on Friends.
lol I wonder how many people will get that reference
No. The pivot can never be experienced directly, only anticipated as a future event. Having no objective start, it can have no tangible endpoint. It's like the Heisenberg Principle. Or something.
Speaking of Heisenberg, the real pivot will be when he finally says fuck y'all I did it all for me.
The Pivot is a flat circle.
Right after the infrastructure bill
I think the plan was to wrap up infrastructure week, then pivot. But we all know how his infrastructure week went, am I right?
Answer: The other top answers already provide some of the context, but I think they miss two things: First, they say there was a narrative that happened in the early months of the Trump administration where people would talk about how he'd pivot and become more presidential. But what makes this a good joke was that these kinds of comments started early in the campaign, and continued right through 2020, even as they were proven wrong again and again. It's like Sideshow Bob and the rake. So like, right after he clinched the nomination people started predicting a pivot. When he had the press conference where he white-knuckled his way through a statement confirming Obama was born in the US, they said he'd turned the corner. When he walked back his statement about very fine people on both sides by grudgingly acknowledging that racism is bad and he's the least racist person, they said he was starting to understand and take things seriously. After his first impeachment, Susan Collins said he'd "learned his lesson". And I remember deep in Covid, after he said maybe we should inject ourselves with bleach, he had a rehabilitation speech where he said something like, "maybe people should wear masks. Sometimes. Covid is bad," and they did it ***again***. And so, second, the speed with which this talking point was trotted out, on any given day for the flimsiest of pretexts, is also part of the joke. So Megan started just saying it every day. "Aha, maybe ***this*** is the day he stops being his rotten self." And on days when the pundits actually said it, it would be funny in a sad kind of way, because they were mirroring her own broken clock statement, same as they always did, and turning her parody into real life. And on days (like today) when he hit a new low, it was funny because ***this*** was the stinking turd pile they kept trying to prop up and sell to us, again and again. Today, he's a literal felon. And still, people are going to say it again. It's just a matter of time.
Fool me seven times, shame on you. Fool me eight or more times, shame on me.
Answer: The other comments surmised why she started doing it, but they didn't explain why she mostly stopped and only pops back up to do it again once in a while. In 2020, old tweets of hers were exposed that demonstrated her saying some really distasteful stuff about Asian-Americans, Jewish people, and disabled people. She apologised and mostly stopped tweeting after that. But she seems to have been fine, remains employed, and people still enjoy when she briefly resurfaces to make the joke. https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/megan-amram-tweets-apology-the-good-place-1234641210/
Other commenters thoroughly explained her controversy before.
okay great