this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
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Political Memes

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This will be another reason for the traitors to piss and moan.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 117 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] SassyRamen@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago (5 children)

I wanted to see if I could find this as a poster, but it only comes in 11" x 10" 😕

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 28 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Looks like the original was a 12x18 book cover in 1949:

https://www.dc.com/blog/2017/08/25/superman-a-classic-message-restored

You might be able to take the 11x10 version and get it sized up at a print shop!

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[–] wheezy@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (6 children)

Just print it yourself. Tons of poster printing services online for cheap. I used PosterBurner last time and it was good. But probably others are fine. Not a promotion. Just what I used.

https://huggingface.co/spaces/gokaygokay/AuraSR-v2

Can use this website to upscale the original image so it's higher resolution.

Huggingface has all the AI photo upscale models so check out others if you don't like the results.

Some others below.

https://huggingface.co/collections/John6666/spaces-for-image-upscaler-upsampler-resizer-66823815bdfb5af9bf875f84

Don't use the "upscale your image for free" sites because they're just garbage ads on top of these open source models.

The poster website will say what minimum resolution they need to print usually. So just scale it until you reach that. Zoom in to the photo though and make sure no weird artifacts appear. They'll be more obvious once printed.

Good luck!

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[–] But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Reminds me of this video made by the department of war after WW2. Americans today should watch these videos

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Americans today should watch these videos

There is a vast, deep ocean of things Americans should be strapped into a chair and forced to watch. We can start with motherfucking saturday morning cartoons where they clearly showed who the bad guys are and what it means to be a bad guy.

I am utterly baffled how we all grew up watching the same damn shit and took such vastly different messages from it. Were there kids booing every time the turtles beat Shredder? Were there kids getting pissed at Mr Rogers for saying everyone should respect each other?

[–] SacralPlexus@lemmy.world 16 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I first noticed this a few years back when I started to see “The Empire Did Nothing Wrong” on bumper stickers. Sure it seemed like a joke at the time but I was confused that so many people thought this was a statement worth putting on their vehicle. I mean, pretty early on in the OT, Darth Vader uses the Death Star to murder an entire planet so surely no one was serious, right?

Whoooo boy have I learned a lot about my neighbors’ values since then.

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Let us remember that the entire "The Donald" meme subreddit was entirely satirical when it was made back in the early days of his first campaign. It was people posting memes of Trump as the Emperor from the fascist human empire in Warhammer 40k. (Which is also an entire related topic on its own)

What happened pretty fast is people who didn't get it was satire started coming in absolutely LOVING the worship of the golden clown and started posting unironic memes of Trump riding tanks and carrying eagles and shit. They eventually drove out the people who were there for laughs and it became one of the largest subreddits and a huge chunk of his online support came from that subreddit before it was eventually banned for all the reasons you would expect.

I think we have vastly overestimated people's capability to discern media, we have vastly overestimated our population's capability to rationalize and reason things out. We have a massive segment of the population that has cognitive dissonance baked-in to their very being.

Seriously, I had a whole ass mental breakdown when I started realizing just how bad it is. Most people are on autopilot and just react to stimuli. No brain use. They're fucking CLAMS.

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, being able to plan and do more than just react is apparently a shockingly low percentage of our population.

They have a couple "truths" they tell themselves and hope everything else just falls into like or will complain to someone else to do something about it so that it does. Listen to the hymns in a church some time and listen to how people talk about God. Its very lazy

[–] ameancow@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Religion has been a thought-stopping tool for literal millenia.

The digital age and age of mass media does the same thing but with limitless reach and focused power to rob people of their most precious ability, the ability to make judgements and comparisons and use mental language to make abstractions to better understand topics more complicated than where the next meal will come from.

[–] tmyakal@infosec.pub 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

When I found out about the 501st Legion, I was absolutely baffled. George Lucas dressed the bad guys to look like Nazis, and now fans were dressing up as the bad guys because they love the movies so much? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Then Captain America came out and people started dressing as Hydra agents, and I was like, "Oh, they're just straight-up okay with Nazis. Got it."

[–] 5too@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I had the impression the 501st was a different beast from "The Empire Did Nothing Wrong" types. I thought the point of them being stormtroopers was so everyone else had someone to heroically oppose? Their charity events seem to focus on things like kids shooting them with dart guns.

I'm not saying they haven't been co-opted since I learned about them several years ago; but last I knew, they were happy playing bad guys to let other people be good guys.

[–] spicehoarder@lemmy.zip 6 points 4 days ago

"We can learn a lot about people's intentions just by how they interact with fictional media." A statement I would have ridiculed people for a few years ago. But it's true and it's sad that we even have to now.

[–] Wolf@lemmy.today 6 points 4 days ago (8 children)

I mean, cartoons from when I was a kid were problematic in different ways.

G.I. Joe taught me that the U.S. Military were the good guys and 'Cobra' were the bad guys. While I'm sure Cobra was probably bad, I'm not so sure about the first part. Also, guns are less dangerous than pepper spray and never lethal. On the other hand it also taught me that no matter how hard the GI's fought against the bad guys, they would never stop them for long or truly defeat them, so I guess that it wasn't wholly inaccurate.

Ducktales taught me that miserly Billionaires that hoarded vast amounts of wealth were lovable good guys actually.

I'm not even going to get into what Thundercats taught me.

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[–] gramie@lemmy.ca 50 points 4 days ago

Convicted of multiple crimes.

[–] hOrni@lemmy.world 40 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's not like he raped a minor or something like that.

[–] SassyRamen@lemmy.world 28 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (5 children)

Yeah even ol' Lex ain't that bad. Fucking orange faced pedo rapist traitor convict. I hope he gets what's coming to him. Then we need to make America great again by charging and outlawing all MAGA officials and "policies" edit: spelling

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[–] toppy@lemy.lol 8 points 4 days ago

Lex luthor looks much healthy compared to real life criminals. Like trump and his friends are unhealthy compared to lex luthor. And lex luthor is smart and knows what he is doing. Unlike trump who does whatever he thinks, without consulting anyone regardless whether the decision taken will affect the economy, etc.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Lex wasn't on the Epstein files at least.

[–] SassyRamen@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Well why won't he release the Ra's al gul files then? 🧐

[–] ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 14 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

On one hand, I'm very pleased with what seems to be a good and relevant message in mainstream media. I haven't watched the film and I doubt I will, but I support it wholeheartedly if it is about what people online say it is.

On the other hand, it's kinda sad that the best and most digestible recent Western production displaying prosocial values is a comic book film. 😓

[–] Protoknuckles@lemmy.world 27 points 4 days ago

Comics are our modern day myths. It's not surprised the most digestible messages would be through them.

[–] Wolf314159@startrek.website 25 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Tell us more about how sharing values through narrative and myth is sad.

[–] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think, if we are taking the message at face value (which might not be the best idea with a religious dude, but whatevs), it's not sad that it is being shared through narrative and myth, but that this is the best we can find with values we care about.

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[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Comic books, more often than not, have always been pro-social values, and largely pretty progressive. The movies water some of that down sometimes, but it's always been there at the core.

[–] tmyakal@infosec.pub 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

One of my favorite moments in comics comes from the 1970 Green Lantern / Green Arrow run. Green Arrow rescues a kid from getting run over by a train, and rather than celebrate the victory, he laments that the city didn't have a park where this kid could play safely. He considers running for mayor, and the rest of the Justice League talk him out of it.

As a kid, it was the first time I saw a comic look at the reader and say, "Yeah, these capes really are just fantasy. If you want the world to be better, you can't leave it to other people."

[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

The Green Arrow was always a leftist activist analog. The problem with a serialized shared universe that parallels the real world is that you can never actually fix the problems that exist in the real world or else you lose that connection to it, but that also generates frustration too.

Like "cool" you can punch all the bad guys in Gotham, but why aren't you eliminating poverty? Why aren't you reforming corrupt the local government and police force? You fight alien invasions, but what have you done about ethnic cleansing and genocide? What about nuclear proliferation?

It was kind of nice in Superman (2025) that they actually had Superman dip a toe into addressing large scale real world issues with the invasion he stops and then deal with the aftermath of it. But that was about as complicated as we're likely to see that real world parallel get unless they just turn the new DCU into a wholly different sort of world, a near utopia but police by the whims of a handful of ultra-powerful metahumans.

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

"Truth, Justice and the...what?!"

[–] kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Funnily enough, the "American Way" bit that the average non-comic book reader thinks has always been a part of Superman's motto, and that conservatives whinge about when it's not in there, is not only not a part of the original motto (which which was just "Truth and Justice"), but has actually rarely been a part of it, and almost never in the actual comics.

The first use of it came about in 1942 during WWII in the Superman radio show. This is after the US finally entered the war and basically all media became hyper patriotic. It should be noted, though, that there was a comic strip titled “How Superman Would Stop the War” in Look magazine from Feb. 1940 in which Superman carried Hitler and Stalin to the League of Nations HQ to be sentenced for war crimes. This comic earned Superman's creators hate mail and death threats for suggesting we should be involved in the war at all. So, American hypocrisy was, of course, alive and well.

Similar to that wartime patriotism, during the height of the Red Scare in the 1950's, the Superman TV show starring George Reeves reused the tagline to play up the American-ness of Superman.

It wasn't used again until 1978 with the Superman movie starring Christopher Reeve. This is probably where the tagline really cemented itself into the general consciousness of the country due to the movie's popularity with a wide audience. But even then, it wasn't used again until 1988 in the Ruby Spear's Superman animated series (not to be confused with Superman: The Animated Series from 1996) and one line of dialogue in the Superboy TV show.

And even after all of that, it had not appeared A SINGLE TIME in the comics books until it appeared on a patriotic cover in 1991, 53 years after its first usage. And even in that issue, Superman is not an America-centric character, but both demonstrates and verbalizes his commitment to helping and representing the entire world, not just the US. He rescues a foreign president and says, "I believe in everything this flag stands for. But as Superman I have to be a citizen of the world. I value all life, regardless of political borders.” 20 years later, he actually formally renounced his American citizenship, saying, “‘Truth, justice and the American way’––it’s not enough anymore.” This received much controversy, as you'd expect.

But there are many other variants on the tagline and those variants, collectively, are far more common than the "American Way" variant. “Truth and justice" (Fleischer animated shorts, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman) “truth, tolerance and justice” (Superman serial, starring Kirk Alyn) "truth, justice and freedom” (The New Adventures of Superman) “truth, justice and peace for all mankind” (Super Friends), “truth, justice and a better tomorrow” (Superman: Son of Kal-El), etc. Even some tongue-in-cheek references to the controversy like “Truth, Justice… and other stuff” (Smallville), and “Truth, Justice… and all that stuff”(Superman Returns).

And none of it was ever meant to be anti-American. Several writers have chosen to use the the American Way tagline in recent years in the comics, and there has been zero pushback from DC for it. But it is not the standard and should not be treated like an expectation.

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