October 25, 2008
Hitler is a meme
Yeah, it’s Hitler. Yeah, it’s funny. Yeah, those things aren’t supposed to go together. But I think this is a terrific piece. Brilliant, even.
Now let the pre-emptive defense begin [SPOILERS AHEAD]: Would the Internets have brought down Hitler? Nah. But that’s the overstatement that makes this video provocative and funny. And the statements revealed by the overstatement I think are true: The Internet is able to trivialize everything, for better and for worse. E.g., The connected culture of the Internet makes it harder to take demagogues (or at least a certain style of demagogue) seriously.
Or, as Barry Goldwater once didn’t say: Trivializing the self-aggrandizing is no vice, although aggrandizing the trivial is not much of a virtue.
FWIW, I can’t find a way to take the reference to “6 million views,” with its obvious call to the 6 million members of my family who were murdered, that isn’t disturbing.
