Am I the only person in the universe who finds the pepper spray meme/appropriations tedious? At their best, they construct smart visual analogies (the image here from Birmingham is the only one I’ve seen that does this well). But most are simply fun with Photoshop. If I were teaching my visual politics class this semester, this would be the essay question on the final exam: Using the example of the UC-Davis pepper spray meme, explain what kind of rhetorical work visual appropriations do. Is appropriation by itself a good strategy of confrontation or resistance? Why/why not?

photo credit: via Joni Spigler on Facebook