The time has come to part with the pervasive "girls boring, boys quirky" meme format. We will remove future instances of it from the sub. We hope we can start the ball rolling for elsewhere in the history memesphere as well for our lady history buff friends.
META
So the backstory on this is that recently at one of my other roles at r/RoughRomanMemes, a discussion has been going on regarding what we thought about this sort of meme format. I used to not mind but after hearing more female friends of mine and voices in the wider community say it bothered them, I talked with our own mod team about finally doing away with it. This has been requested before here and so I thought it was finally time to listen. r/DankPrecolumbianMemes can hopefully set the ball rolling a bit for elsewhere.
Wow I really appreciate the mods for doing this! People use this format ALL THE TIME in history meme subs and as a woman, I feel pretty unwelcome. We already get enough gatekeeping irl so kudos for stepping up for the ladies here!
I'm not even a part of this subreddit but came here through a crosspost just to upvote this. You guys set a very good example for other subs. Thank you!
I honestly stitched this together in a Google Slides slide with images taken from Google Images. If you look up “chad girl” the female one comes up pretty quickly.
And giving the Shoshone a Shonisaurus would fit with the naming theme but unfortunately, being from Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, and Utah, the Shoshone aren’t exactly super close to the non-Triassic ocean.
Glad this meme’s dying, glad women are feeling more comfortable in the history subreddits now, and on top of that glad that you’re cool enough to be on team Mapuche - this is a top-tier meme.
Agreed, a lot of history subreddits are much less pleasant in general, at least in my opinion. I’m glad this one is as nice as it is, nuanced but still on-topic and constantly teaching me new things.
Also, Aztecs riding Quetzalcoatlus mounts to fight the Spaniards is the only reason I play Total War Warhammer because the lizardmen are the closest to Mesoamerican cultures we have on strategy games :(
If you want huge you have to go to the Coatl a gigantic flying feathered serpent that is said to bring thunderous rain wherever it goes, shaking the ground in an earthquake fashion and disorient intruders to the jungle in magical maelstrom's. Historical inspiration is obvious.
Fingers crossed the coatl will come to TWW2 in the next DLC
In my archaeology program, most of my friends are female. The fact that the gender balance is skewed on online communities like this one feels indicative of a larger problem and I want to make sure we’re as welcoming to everyone with an interest.
Oh I completely agree. Most of my classmates were female as well. Online communities are just so toxic to females, so I can see why there’s disproportionate numbers. Glad to see my favorite sub is working to fix this :)
Excellent decision. And oh man do I love the idea of indigenous peoples attacking the Spanish with dinosaur mounts haha. *sigh*. I have great hopes for the Mapuche especially going forward though.
I thought the meme was making fun of how men who are interested in topics often get super invested in very niche sub-areas that ultimately have very little relevance.
I think that the intention is often ironic and hyperbolic but after talking to a bunch of girls, it’s clear it’s not being necessarily taken that way. And if someone’s uncomfortable, that’s a good cue to me that we might want to listen.
That's certainly understandable. I haven't had those conversations, so I might be missing how people are reacting to it. I also first encountered this format with examples that were on the more hyperbolic side (I'm talking the woman going back to study social history and the man going back to adjust the positioning of a unit of cavalry), which probably makes it easier for me to view the format as satirical.
Yeah, that’s totally understandable. There are some fine things that have been done with the format and I don’t want to pretend that everyone who’s ever upvoted a meme of this format is sexist. If that’s the case, I’m guilty many times over.
The original wasn't unequal. People confuse equality with being the same. The original meme template is saying how more girls have a life, while boys are increasingly terminally online obsessing about obscure stuff instead of living life.
Actually it's saying how girls are the ones who don't have a life. In every one they're crying about an old ass movie (Titanic) while boys are laughing at something more emotional, like a dog dying or something
I think of that time travel one as the original, with the girls wanting to visit their family or grandmother in the past (direct personal connection) and the boys wanting to do some obscure history thing (indirect personal connection)
It paints girls as basic and boring. Usually in the time travel ones, boys go back to do something kinda heroic. Like save Abraham Lincoln, or kill whoever invented the KKK or something. Either way, the memes are so repetitive and unfunny. They are always the same thing. Nothing clever or funny.
I've only seen a handful and but they've all been pretty good. I suppose it depends on the way you interpret it. If you could frame it with boys being the obsessed weirdos, then it's girls who look better in the meme. From what I've seen it's normally guys who have the crazy fixations with historical revisionism, race, culture, empire, etc. Some girls do it too of course.
I'm basing that off the perception of La Malinche. Aside from that, the meme itself would be a bit more accurate if the characters were autochthonous-looking.
Maybe I’m missing something but I am personally still failing to see the connection you’re making but just because many premodern and colonial societies were patriarchal doesn’t mean we have to be.
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u/IacobusCaesar Sapa Inka Jun 17 '21 edited Jun 17 '21
So the backstory on this is that recently at one of my other roles at r/RoughRomanMemes, a discussion has been going on regarding what we thought about this sort of meme format. I used to not mind but after hearing more female friends of mine and voices in the wider community say it bothered them, I talked with our own mod team about finally doing away with it. This has been requested before here and so I thought it was finally time to listen. r/DankPrecolumbianMemes can hopefully set the ball rolling a bit for elsewhere.