Best Memes of the Year: Part 1

There is no guarantee I will continue to do this...but about a year ago I began collecting memes....

Memes, for me, are a constant source of enjoyment. They are this age's most efficient (and compact) form of satire and socio-cultural critique. They can also simply be incredibly silly fun. 

Meme's are like a multi-layered single-panel comic. Take one of the pillars of meme culture, the Condescending Willy Wonka, as an example:

The Healing Power of Comedy

Growing up for me was pretty rough. 

Yes, I am a white male and middle class, and I grew up a conservative Christian in peaceful, rural, Midwest America (in other words, everything was "easy" for me!), but everyday of my life, from the time I was cognitively aware until my early twenties, was lived in a state of constant fear. 

Unanswerable Questions #4: Louis C.K.

Here's to hoping Louie has the answers.

Unanswerable Questions--an ongoing segment here at PostConsumer Reports where I ask questions to people of interest who will most likely never answer them, simply because I do not know them and probably never will. Still, the questions come and I have got to ask them somewhere. I have so many questions. So so many...

Up today is comedian Louis C.K. who has season 5 of his FX show Louie debuting now. He's basically my favorite. If you have Amazon Prime you can watch the first episode of season 5 for free as well as all the previous seasons (it's also on Netflix). 

Just For Fun: Two memes featuring Mister Rogers and Will Butler

Happy almost New Year everyone (and happy 6th day of Christmas!).

Here are a couple of memes I put together, JFF:

And in case you missed them before, here are a couple of memes from the time I tried to turn myself into a meme:

You can view all of those memes here:

Making Myself Into a Meme

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and the Tragedy of Satire

Or, Dear Future: We're Sorry You Won't Find The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, or Mystery Science Theater 3000 Funny

5 things I'm wondering about the new Steve Taylor album Goliath

Steve Taylor & The Perfect Foil release their new album Goliath today (you can purchase it here on itunes and Amazon). I've very much been looking forward to this album since they announced their Kickstarter campaign last winter. But really I've been looking forward to this album for over 20 years. Taylor's released two songs ("Shortstop" from the Roaring Lambs album and "A Life Preserved" from the Blue Like Jazz soundtrack) since his last proper album Squint from 1993. This means us fans have been salivating unsatiated for years upon years, left perpetually mumbling to ourselves "When Steve, when?". I mean, Taylor even had the audacity to launch his own record label in the mid 90's (also called Squint) and did not even release one of his own records on it. The nerve.

Steve Taylor Helped Me Grow Up (and he used humor to do it)

Today the legendary Steve Taylor released his long-gestating new album Goliath with his something of a supergroup backing band The Perfect Foil (Peter Furler, Jimmy Abegg, and John Mark Painter) [you can purchase it here on itunes and Amazon]. Thus, it's obviously time to do some reflecting on Taylor's past work.

As a kid Rich Mullins taught me how to lose myself in the wonder of God but Steve Taylor forced me to grow into a mature Christian. And the funny thing is he usually did so by making me laugh.

Making Myself into a Meme

Here is the source material. Use it as you see fit.

Meme's are fun, yeah?

These little pictorial treasures we discover that make an appropriately funny sentence we attach to them even funnier, often allotting them a deeper meaning as well.

Why It's OK When Satire Makes You Mad

Or Why Satire is True Even When It's Not True

An Onion article, "New Study Finds Link Between Breastfeeding, Always Knowing What's Right For Everyone" ,has been making it's way around my Facebook circles this week, one that hits pretty close to home for me. Basically, it's an article skewering a particular set of young moms, those who are undyingly committed to breast feeding and as result make it their goal to tell every other parent they come across how they are doing parenting wrong.