New Delhi: Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is famous for his bizarre tweets, shared a meme on Twitter Monday, apparently taking a dig at “woke people”. Woke refers to being aware or well informed in a political or cultural sense, especially regarding issues surrounding marginalised communities.
The billionaire posted a meme on the microblogging platform which reads “I support the current thing”.
The meme consists of the caricature of a person who is holding the national flag of Ukraine. Behind the person, several flags used by the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) community are depicted. Over the years, the LGBTQ community has used more than 20 different flags to bring awareness to their unique needs and experiences. Through this meme, Musk is apparently taking a dig at the people who show their support for a particular cause only when everyone is talking about it.
For instance, people around the world are showing their support for Ukraine, following Russia’s invasion of the country last month. The truth is that the Russo-Ukrainian War has been going on since 2014. When Russia began an open military invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, there was a major escalation in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Meme Depicts Different Flags Used By LGBTQ Community
Over the years, the flags used by the LGBTQ community have undergone several changes, and the meme shared by Musk depicts some of these flags. These include the “Progress” Pride Flag, which was created in 2018 by non-binary artist Daniel Quasar in response to Philadelphia’s updated pride flag. The Progress Pride Flag combines the colours and stripes from Philadephia’s version of the pride flag and the colours of the transgender pride flag.
In the background, one can also see the Pansexual flag. Pansexuality is the romantic attraction to people regardless of their gender. The Pansexual flag has three colours: pink, yellow, and blue. It is unclear who actually created this flag, but ever since it started showing up online in 2010, it has become a symbol of attraction to all genders.
An “Intersex Flag” has also been depicted in the meme. Intersex is an umbrella term for those whose bodies do not align with the gender binary of male and female, according to Planned Parenthood, a non-profit organisation that provides reproductive health care in the United States and globally.
Intersex activist Morgan Carpenter had created the flag in 2013. According to a report by American bimonthly magazine Seventeen, Carpenter said in an interview with Intersex Peer Support Australia that he wanted to create an image that people could use to represent intersex people without depending upon "what I think are often misconceptions or stereotypes".
One of the Twitter users asked Musk if he supports DogeGaySon, which claims to be the first LGBTQ token for all people, and is depicted as $GOGE. The user wrote that "$GOGE was created to unite humans throughout the universe, ensure freedoms, spread love, fight hate and global inequality, directly changing the world through the power of blockchain."
However, some Twitter users appeared offended by the meme. For instance, one user wrote that the post feels like a "breakdown", and stated that being LGBTQ+ is not a trend.
Less than an hour after posting the "I support the current thing" meme, Musk shared another meme which talks about the LGBTQ community. The billionaire is mocking Netflix through the meme, which states that the streaming service company is waiting for the Russia-Ukraine conflict to end, so that it can make a movie about a Black Ukrainian guy falling in love with a transgender Russian soldier.
In another version of the “I support the current thing” meme, the caricature is shown wearing a mask, and syringes are also depicted. This version of the meme talks about people who support vaccination, and ask everyone to get vaccinated.