Gay memes 2019
No wonder, then, that some people claim that Garland herself threw the first brick. For example, part of the mythology of the Stonewall riots is that the death of Judy Garland less than a week before those pivotal nights in June contributed to the event’s aura of desperation and defiance. While the meme can center a range of figures, including LGBTQ-rights pioneers, it makes sense that gay icons are most often featured. Paraphrasing Kenyatta Cheese, an expert on meme culture, Kitchener wrote that memes can “offer particularly deep insight into human behavior,” because “the versions that go viral reveal what exactly strikes a chord with us.” So it is with the brick-throwing joke: For many queer people, it transposes a key historical event into the present, and its playful tone injects joy into a sobering historical moment. Memes are a kind of map to internet culture because they crystallize what certain online communities find important, as Caroline Kitchener noted for The Atlantic. So did Nicki Minaj, the cast of Glee, Nicole Kidman’s wig in the 2018 film Boy Erased, and Lady Gaga’s wail in the chart-topping A Star Is Born single “ Shallow.” (You might see someone say that Kylie Minogue threw the first cowboy hat or that Stevie Nicks threw the first curse.) While this meme might just seem like an anachronistic gag, it also functions as a meaningful way to celebrate a variety of gay icons and the distinct resonance they have for their queer fans. You might even notice, more specifically, that your favorite celebrity holds that revered place in queer history: Mariah Carey threw the first brick. Fifty years after the Stonewall riots, if you scan certain quarters of the internet-Gay Twitter, Reddit threads-you might see that the brick-thrower question has taken on a fascinating life. Though the brick has achieved legendary status, there’s little historical consensus on who, if anyone, actually threw it. The ensuing multi-night riots have since become a potent symbol of queer liberation. Other onlookers followed suit, lobbing whatever they could get their hands on-coins, rocks, glass bottles-to protest the harassment that queer people had long suffered at the hands of the state. One of the most enduring questions about the Stonewall riots is, Who threw the first brick? According to what has become a sort of origin myth, someone flung a chunk of masonry at police officers as they hauled revelers away during a routine raid of the Stonewall Inn, a Greenwich Village gay bar, in the early-morning hours of June 28, 1969.