Summer is over and school is back but you know what never stopped? The media! So we’re here to get you caught up on this past week’s events and the highlights from the Internet reactions.
1. Houston, Texas was hit by a hurricane, and the tragedy has brought about mixed responses.
People took to twitter to spread helpful tips for those in the flood, while others called out the responses of privilege from both people in the midst of the tragedy and Americans outside of it.
As another hurricane headed toward the United States, people also realized that the news, and the general public reaction, seemed to only center around the American cities that could be affected.
We’re sending our deepest sympathies out to every country affected by all the recent environmental disasters, and we urge those who are able to donate their time or money to those directly hit by these tragedies!
2. The city of Los Angeles voted to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day!
Paris Jackson shared her joy at the change:
Others thought that this was a good first step, but that more needed to follow:
3. Queen’s University student Chance Macdonald was originally charged with sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl, but the charges were reduced for some….. questionable reasons.
The charges, coming from a 2015 case, started out as two counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement. However, when brought to trial, they became one count of common assault, a charge he pleaded guilty to. When Macdonald’s lawyer shared that he was about to start an internship with Deloitte, and the judge heard that Macdonald also played hockey, he became more than lenient with the sentencing.
The judge held off the sentencing until after Macdonald could finish up his internship, an exception not commonly provided for those found guilty of assault… but I digress.
People had some questions for the citizens of Canada and the company that chose to continue to employ him:
Privilege, a common theme this week, seemed to have played some part in Macdonald’s sentencing. If the judge you’re standing in front of calls your assault of a 16-year-old girl a “fork in the road for you” due to the way you “excelled in athletics and academics,” something is on your side. And it’s not just luck.
4. L’Oréal dropped their partnership with Munroe Bergdorf, incidentally their first partnership with a trans person of colour, after Bergdorf used her platform to speak out about white privilege and the racism white people benefit from.
In a now-deleted Facebook post, Bergdorf wrote, “Honestly I don’t have energy to talk about the racial violence of white people any more. Yes ALL white people. Because most of ya’ll don’t even realise or refuse to acknowledge that your existence, privilege and success as a race is built on the backs, blood and death of people of colour.”
Shortly after, L’Oréal released a statement saying Bergdorf’s comments are “at odds” with their values, which is why they ended their partnership with her.
The response was immediate. People were quick to see through the coded language L’Oréal was using to hide their own discomfort with Bergdorf’s words.
Some responded to the way the media was covering the news, and how it speaks to a larger pattern.
Here’s hoping L’Oréal has learned something from the backlash—though the most we can hope for corporations to ever learn from incidents like this is that they’ll lose money if they’re racist! So maybe don’t do that!
5. News spread that there might be an all-female Lord of the Flies reboot and people were skeptical.
When directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel released the news that they were planning on writing and directing a new version of Lord of the Flies, this time with only girls, anyone who took a Grade 10 English class had to question what they were thinking.
While some wondered about the logistics of it, others thought that the context of the book made an all-women version impossible—including, in fact, the author himself.
A couple others took it as the perfect opportunity to crack some jokes:
They’ve got a point—doesn’t an all-women cast call for an all-women directorial team?
6. One poor aspiring poet got majorly roasted online—and whether it was warranted is up to the reader.
One Twitter user found his poems on Instagram, all typed out with a cigarette or two strategically placed on the page, found out he was (self) published and simply couldn’t believe it.
The merciless teasing began, complete with imitation poems written in a similar style.
Though on the surface it may seem to be a little much, the original sharer did point out that his work is published and therefore open to criticism, especially when that criticism is of the way he chooses to write about women. We’ll leave that up to you to decide!
7. Meme number 1 swept the Internet!
This one uses a stock photo of a boyfriend walking hand-in-hand with his girlfriend but turning around to look at another woman, while the girlfriend watches angrily. We’ll leave these here for your enjoyment:
8. Meme number 2 followed close behind!
This one began as a mockery of straight men tweeting about whether doing perfectly commonplace, everyday things “makes them gay”—a social commentary on fragile masculinity, if you will.
Twitter users thoroughly enjoyed this one—let’s hope those who tweeted the originals understand the irony of the new ones, and aren’t frantically explaining to their mothers that they had to quit their jobs and can’t take out the trash anymore because it may very well “turn them gay” and they just can’t risk it.
That’s all for now!! Here’s hoping next week brings a little less misogynoir and and a lot more memes.
(Cover photo credit: U.S. Department of Defense, Zachary West)