Bill Cosby meme
By Maya Dusenbery • @mayadusenbery • 9 years ago

Bill Cosby asks Twitter to “meme” him and Twitter shames him over rape allegations

Last night Bill Cosby made the huge mistake of unveiling a #CosbyMeme Generator on his website and inviting Twitter to “meme me!” As one Tweeter notes, here’s apparently what he had in mind:

But what Twitter delivered was something quite different. There were some reminders about the many, many rape allegations against Cosby:

And some commentary about the rape apologism that keeps us looking the other way:

And even some definitions — a tad lengthy for a meme, IMO — of “rape culture”:

Given how a culture of victim-blaming underpins that rape culture, it gives me a sort of perverse pleasure to say: Cosby really was asking for it. Though let’s not forget — if public opinion (on Twitter at least) really has turned against Cosby, it is, per usual, pretty damn long overdue.

St. Paul, MN

Maya Dusenbery is executive director in charge of editorial at Feministing. She is the author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick (HarperOne, March 2018). She has been a fellow at Mother Jones magazine and a columnist at Pacific Standard magazine. Her work has appeared in publications like Cosmopolitan.com, TheAtlantic.com, Bitch Magazine, as well as the anthology The Feminist Utopia Project. Before become a full-time journalist, she worked at the National Institute for Reproductive Health. A Minnesota native, she received her B.A. from Carleton College in 2008. After living in Brooklyn, Oakland, and Atlanta, she is currently based in the Twin Cities.

Maya Dusenbery is an executive director of Feministing and author of the forthcoming book Doing Harm on sexism in medicine.

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