this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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[–] durruticore@hexbear.net 27 points 1 week ago

TL;DR: Yes.

I have mixed feelings about all the memes. I agree with you, and I also feel there's a fringe part of all the memes that actually glorify what he did in a veiled way, but there are also a lot of memes that point out his links to the rest of the American bourgeoisie

[–] Sulvy@hexbear.net 25 points 1 week ago

Yes, but its also pretty funny

[–] barrbaric@hexbear.net 25 points 1 week ago

I think the thing that normalises the horror more is the fact that all this info came out and now nothing's going to be done about it because those in power are more or less fine with their fellow bourgeois being pedos.

Imo the memes are a result of this: powerless people trying to cope with the horrors in ways that are available to them.

[–] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 21 points 1 week ago

I did not fully appreciate the depths of the depravity

[–] microfiche@hexbear.net 18 points 1 week ago
[–] MarmiteLover123@hexbear.net 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The conspiracy dredge that the files attract is far more harmful to the seriousness of the situation/Epstein's crimes than off colour humour. It's almost impossible to know what's real or not with regards to the files now (unless you're prepared to read for hours about his crimes, which I have zero desire to) with conspiracy theorists blowing every single thing up.

[–] RiotDoll@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

can you justify your position here?

I tend to follow parapolitics/"conspiracy" stuff - i am seeing a lot of people who were being actively gaslit about it, completely validated.

not all conspiracy is "anunaki blood rituals to disguise the flat earth".

Sometimes it's having a mountain of evidence some group did something that never quite coalesces into a sure thing.

You spend some time looking at that material but maintaining skepticism, you notice two patterns - fantasy conspiracies - these are often emotionally driven affairs, with strong narrative throughlines, and obvious conclusions you can draw. There are more tells, but this is something like Pizzagate, for example.

A pizzagate type narrative would be a shitcoat. You take a true thing - there is a massive pedophile conspiracy involving powerful people. Then you make it ridiculous.

This sucks all the air out of the room. It kinda is the exact thing that whips you up into being mad about conspiracies.

But then there's like, "The CIA has clearly done something, they have oblique documented references, there are witnesses in the right time and place, there is some amount of material evidence..." - there's usually no story. No narrative. Nothing juicy - just this powerfully nasty outcome that's implied but not quite confirmed.

And I know a lot of people who follow the latter kind of conspiracy who are extremely validated right now.

[–] The_hypnic_jerk@hexbear.net 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They're probably talking more about right wing conspiracy than vindicated leftists. Parapolitics is not synonymous with (capital letters) Conspiracy Theorists

[–] RiotDoll@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

i'm really used to their conflation, sorry

[–] The_hypnic_jerk@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago

It happens everywhere else, just not usually in these circles. I am saying probably though, can't speak for the OP

[–] ZWQbpkzl@hexbear.net 12 points 1 week ago

Epstein was always steeped in memes. Its the Dem media machine trying to control the narrative into it being exclusively about trump (and maybe even Russia (not Israel)) that's the problem.

[–] Torenico@hexbear.net 11 points 1 week ago

I don't want memes about Epstein, I want the blood of those in the files.

[–] JoeByeThen@hexbear.net 10 points 1 week ago

I recently watched one of my niblings doomscroll past an animated (I think?) YouTube short about how to escape Epstein's island. So, yea. internet-delenda-est

Seize the opportunity - every meme you see, add a panel on to it of angry mobs flying the red banner and ripping these monsters to pieces.

[–] mickey@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

I can't really say because I haven't run into this much yet. I will say that with the Diddy stuff the way it seemed to nearly instantly turn into a punchline really sanitized the criminality of it. And going back to an older example the way p***-bear was a running gag on 4chan was bigly normalizing.

[–] WhatDoYouMeanPodcast@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think the operative phrase here is too much. It reads to me the same as asking if humans breed too much. Like too much for what? For sustainability? That's a question with an answer. The question about whether humans are going to breed is like "of course!" we just love it, don't we folks a-little-trolling . We're going to do it the amount we do it. 6 year olds joke about Epstein. 16 year olds have probably gone viral using AI to make Epstein/Diddy/Kirk/Trump jokes. We're just going to do it. The superstructure is like an eldritch beast that consumes content. If you got on camera and cried your eyes out pleading for us to stop, a music producer is going to sample you into a dubstep song.

[–] Dort_Owl@hexbear.net 7 points 1 week ago

I mean I've been on the internet long enough to know that obviously, but damn it's bleak huh.

Shits fucked.

[–] gingerbrat@hexbear.net 6 points 1 week ago

Yep, I think so too

[–] corgiwithalaptop@hexbear.net 4 points 1 week ago

I do think people get Epstein Brained. Ill leave it at that.

[–] StillNoLeftLeft@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It seems to just have become a spectacle and also the way the media just focuses on Epstein and not the connections, implications of those connections and the wider structures this group operated in puts the focus on this one guy only, on purpose. This kind of shifts the focus to a very ruling class friendly place where it all just becomes an exhausting and depressing spectacle of bad with no solutions anywhere.

If we'd have journalism we might have articles on why the women in the former Soviet Union were in such a precarious situation to be exploited and how people like Epstein and many others like him utilize that, how that is tied to geopolitics, the economy and power and domination and so on and so forth. Or we might get articles on pathriarchal violence, it's ties to capitalism and domination. But we get none of that, we get the fast moving spectacle where nobody has time to stop and think.

I think the memefication of it just reflects this and it isn't just in this case, it's a kind of ironic resigned response of "it is what it is, but what can you do".

[–] Salem@hexbear.net 2 points 1 week ago

The public has become accustomed to delegating responsibility and action to public officials. No storming the palace or swarming the capitol with mass movements, everyone's a free rider and those who are not are effectively marginalized.

I read an article over a decade ago "Are Americans a broken people?" that is an interesting read