To James White: Some Thoughts About Memes

All right, this is a video addressed directly to James White because he mentioned me in the dividing line and I just thought

I'd give him a window into my thinking because I completely disagree that my clown shoes meme accomplishes nothing.

And I think about these things very much and so I just wanted to explain that a little bit because I think this is actually a critical strategy that we need to understand more.

A lot of people on our side of this debate, and I'm still including you, James, in our side because I think you are, but a lot of people get it on our side.

And so this is just a friendly video, not angry, not mad, none of that, and all of that.

And actually I thought about putting on a shirt and tie because I've noticed that James often in the past when he's been in a controversy, like do you remember that time,

I believe he did it this time, that time when someone took his words about a black teenager and turned it into James White's a racist?

Actually one of my first videos that I ever did was responding to another

James White, a black James White, and another dude, what was his name? Oh, I forget his name, but it was a podcast called

The Urban Perspective and they were just raking Dr. James White, this guy, the white guy.

They were just raking him for being racist and I was defending Dr. James White because it was just nonsense what they were talking about.

Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. During that controversy, I believe he put on a bow tie and a shirt, like a nice shirt.

And I've noticed that when he gets into big controversies, he does that. The only reason I didn't do it is because it would have been like an homage to you because I like Dr.

James White very much and I respect him. But I felt like he might think I was mocking him if I did that.

And I don't want to be mocking you because that's not what it would be about. I actually find that endearing that you put on the shirt and tie when you're in,

I guess, shall we say, hot water. In any case, but honestly, no joke,

I owe Dr. James White a debt of gratitude. No question about it,

James White reminds me a lot of my own father, not just the way he talks and how smart he is, but also like his mannerisms.

Also the fact that you're both Star Trek nerds. I mean, I would imagine you're probably similar age, but you remind me a lot of my father.

I have a great father. But here's the thing, Dr. James White, you're just wrong on this one.

I think you're flat out wrong. In this video, he starts off talking about the importance of being slow to anger, slow to speak, take time to understand your opponent and things like that.

All things I completely agree with, obviously, I'm a Christian. And he uses my meme as an example of not doing that, how that's not helpful.

And I wanted to just address that because this is a new and legitimate way to communicate and we need to embrace it.

That's not the only means of communication and it's not the most important. It's not necessarily the most clear sometimes, but it is important.

And of course, we need to be able to speak to people today, not just speak to people the way they used to speak 50 years ago, you know what

I mean? So let's just play the part where he mentions me and I'll just kind of explain myself a little bit.

I'm not going to do this again, though, because obviously, when you reveal the trick, it loses its effectiveness.

So I'm not going to do this again. This will be the only time I explain my theory of memeing discussions.

Let's just let's just be honest. The tendency is to start breaking into tribes.

And circle the wagons and start shooting. And there was just a bunch of shooting going on yesterday.

A .D. Robles, I responded to a meme that he put out,

G3 getting ready to go on Twitter and it was a clown putting his shoes on. And my response was, stop it.

Just stop it. This is accomplishing nothing. It's getting us nowhere.

It's putting us backwards. Just stop with the memes and when

I responded to what Steven Wolf said, we'll start with that. Well, we've already started, haven't we? No, but we're going to we're going to stop right there.

So no, I'm not going to stop it and I'm I'm never going to stop it.

And the reason is, is because, you know, this is this is this is our problem, right?

Our problem is that we get these like little snippets in time and and Twitter, you know, immortalizes them forever.

And so like you get, you know, you know, a tweet that you that you post and you posted it in a certain context.

It was April 18th that I posted this or whatever day it was. I didn't look at it and it was in a specific instance, a specific time.

And if you rip it out of that context, it's very easy to say, you know, all you do is meme and mock like, don't you?

Why don't you take us seriously? Why don't you be slow to speak and slow to anger? And why don't you take time to consider what your opponent is saying?

And it's very easy to do that ripped out of its context. But the truth, of course, is a lot different than that, because that meme wasn't the only thing that had happened.

And we need to consider everything that happened, because for literally weeks at this point weeks, we've been enduring some of the most base level, just just just foolish argumentation coming from G3 about Christian nationalism.

I've seen things about, you know, who's going to be your pope, your Protestant pope? How are you going to organize the

Protestant magisterium? You know, obviously, the Mayflower Compact, that was unbiblical.

And, you know, what do you think you're saved by, by, by the ecclesial authority and the government?

And it's just, and it's just like all this stuff that, you know, we've heard it before. And the thing is, we hear it in many contexts, right?

Like, like, I've heard that I've talked, I've had personal conversations, you know, in real life and online, which is part of real life, by the way, online is part of real life.

I've had numerous conversations with people that are that are laymen like myself. And those are the kind of base level, you know, kind of objections that you hear.

And you know, when, when somebody that, you know, hasn't really thought this through very much or, or is talking to you in private, you know, you don't, you don't, you don't just like, you know, pull up your phone and pull up a picture of a meme and show them the meme.

Like that wouldn't, I showed you one of my text messages, that would be inappropriate. You have a conversation and it's, it's very calm and things like that.

But when G3 starts giving these, these kinds of takes that you, you know, they're smarter than that.

And in many cases, you know, for a fact, they're smarter than that. But you, you assume that these, these, these

Christian leaders have thought through some of this stuff at a slightly deeper level. And yet you're still getting all of that for weeks, at least two weeks, we've been kind of enduring these kinds of takes from G3.

It's, it's, it's very clear that, that they're held to a higher standard. So I think you need to respond slightly differently with a

Scott Aniel or, or, or a Owen Strawn or a Michael O 'Fallon than you would like a granny asking you about the

Christian, you know, response to government or things like that. And then, and then furthermore, for weeks, people have been saying to the same crew,

Hey, you know, you know, the, the two main books about Christian nationalism from our side right now, we don't talk about any

Catholic or Protestant, sorry, Popes or Protestant magisteriums. And we don't really believe you're saved by government and all of that.

But here's what we do believe. And I've seen it for weeks, people be corrected, sometimes in a very nice way, in a very winsome way, sometimes in a very aggressive way.

But, but I know they've seen these corrections because some of these people have even interacted with these corrections and they still come the next day with the same tired argument that they were corrected with before.

And they say, well, when's the Pope coming? When's the Protestant Pope coming? And it's very tiresome.

And so, you know, you got to wonder, so why are you continually bringing the same mischaracterization, the same nonsense again and again and again, and, and you get to this point where it's like, okay, so I can,

I can really ratchet this up a little bit and I can respond and I can call them to account for the, for the sin, because it is a sin to consistently and intentionally misrepresent somebody.

It's a sin. It's lying. And so I, you know, you can, you, you, I could do that.

I could get all serious and ratchet it up, or I can kind of try to calm things down a little bit.

Right. Because at the point when I posted the clown shoes meme, people were already freaking out about Stephen Wolf's tweet.

And we were being, me and my friends were being dragged as neo -Nazis, white supremacists, regular

Nazis, crypto Nazis, racists of, for a tweet that's just so innocuous.

Even if you don't agree with the tweet, even if the tweet is wrong, like he's factually wrong, let's just give it, give, give you everything.

He's factually wrong about what he said. It's still not a racist tweet. It's not that it's, it's, it's really not a big deal.

Right. To see like, you know, your friends get drug as like these, these are lies that are intended to destroy.

Like when somebody calls you a neo -Nazi, like I laugh about it and I don't really take it seriously. I'm not going to defend myself.

You know, it's just, it's just so preposterous and absurd. Like I don't even care, but, but the intention is there to destroy you.

Right. Because they know that, that in our culture, you know, if you're branded as a racist, neo -Nazi, whatever, that has a very serious effect, it could at least have a very serious effect on your life.

Those kinds of words are intended to destroy. And so you see this, you see the, the, the misrepresentation again and again, you've seen people approach it level -headedly with corrections, say,

Hey, that's actually not quite what we agree, we believe. And then, but you see that ignored routinely ignored.

And then you see your friends like, like you've tried to destroy Steven again, they've tried to destroy him again.

And my friends, again, I've, the people have tried to destroy me recently and, and, and ruin my reputation and call me a neo -Nazi white supremacist.

And it's just like, you could either respond in kind and ratchet up the rhetoric.

Some people have chosen to do that. And I, that's not my choice, right? Some people on our side have chosen to do that.

Or you can kind of lighten the mood and post a meme, a meme that is funny, arguably, arguably, and intended to sort of lighten the mood.

This is just, it's just too much. It's like you lighten the mood instead of going, you know, thermonuclear in reverse, right?

You tried to destroy us. You tried to recall us, you know, white Nazi, neo -Nazi, whatever, me and my friends, you're trying to destroy our reputations.

And if, if the worst thing that we've done in response is to post a meme, we can all laugh at,

I think we did a pretty good job. And quite frankly, the meme is very intentional and it's very, it's important to lighten the mood in this way, because there comes a point when you don't actually have to take people's accusations seriously.

Like maybe the first time I was called a racist, or maybe the first 10 times I was called a racist, like it affected me and I tried to defend myself.

But there's a certain point though, when the only response, when somebody calls you a Nazi is to laugh at them, to laugh them out of the room, to ask them, somebody called me a

Nazi the other day and I, and I didn't even understand it because he, he used like a code, I guess a

Nazi code to call me a Nazi and I didn't understand the code. But it was lightning bolts, right? And he said that I was a, you know, lightning bolts.

And when I found out what he was saying, that I was a white supremacist, I asked him, are you drunk? Just as a joke, right?

Obviously I didn't think he was really drunk. I mean, maybe he is, I don't know. How much you had to drink today, sir?

The only, there comes a point when a meme or, or, or laughing it off is, is appropriate.

These accusations so often are so absurd, are so absurd that, that to even dignify it with an actual response is, in my opinion, sometimes inappropriate.

But again, you can't rip it out of context because, you know, James here is making it seem like, like, well, why did you, like, you just, you just memed and that's it.

It's like, well, no, I mean, we've kind of been, we've been at this place for two weeks, right?

And it's just so amazing to me that, that, that, and he didn't say that the meme was divisive, but he was talking earlier about the rhetoric being divisive.

So I don't know if he had the meme, my meme in mind, as far as divisive. I know there were people that thought my meme was divisive, but it's just amazing to me that you, you have weeks and weeks of people misrepresenting your views.

And then you have swarms of people getting themselves, you know, whipped up into this, you're a racist, you know, mindset, this frenzy of trying to destroy good brothers, right?

Good brothers. And even if you don't think Stephen Wolfe is a brother, because I know a lot of people don't think that, right? But there are a lot of people around him that, that, that, that, that are good brothers that nobody disputes.

And it's like, to just, to just try to destroy them, right? And then somebody memes to kind of like calm down the mood a little bit, let's just laugh this off.

And the person who memes is the divisive one, the person who's absorbed insult after insult after insult.

And then he, he, he responds with a little zinger like, yeah, you know, like maybe don't be a clown tomorrow. Like, you know, like, like, like put it this way, nobody would hold it against me.

If I just wrote off G3, a lot of people are doing that. I just wrote off G3 and I said, these people don't care.

Like they, they just want to destroy. I just don't understand it. Why do they want to destroy me? I, I haven't done anything to them.

That would be, that would be, that would be, no one would, would be mad at me, but I'm committed to not doing that. And so we're going to laugh it off.

Look, there's an example, you say, oh, that can't happen. You know, you just, it's just, you're just going to ratchet up again. No, no, there's examples of this happening though.

Do you remember when, when cross politics said the thing about the transsexuals and the Baptists and you know,

Baptists were scandalized, of course, by it and I understandably so, look, I'm a Presbyterian and I understand the point they were trying to make, but I, I wouldn't have said it.

I wouldn't have said it, you know, but Baptists were scandalized and, and Baptists to their credit memed cross politic to death.

They memed them to death and rightfully so, because they said, look, whatever.

And you know what cross politic did? Did they, did they complain? Why are you so divisive? No, they laughed about it.

They said, you know what? Those are some good memes. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, they, they put a, a section in the

Fight, Laugh, Feast magazine dedicated to the memes created by that situation. I'm not a hundred percent on that.

I can't remember if it was in the magazine or somewhere else, but somewhere they drew attention to the people memeing on them for what they said about, excuse me, transsexuals and Baptists.

Memes are very effective. Memes are very effective and, and they should be deployed in the most effective ways that you can think of.

Now, obviously not, you're not always going to get it right and all of that kind of thing, but I don't hate

G3. I just stop, I want them to stop acting so foolishly like they have for the last two or three weeks.

And if you need, and if you need me to go through kind of line by line, I am planning on doing this. Just how twisted they've been in the last few weeks.

They've been very twisted. They've been self immolating, like, like people have reached out to me, like,

I love these guys. Like, why are they doing this? Why are, why are they saying you're, you want to install a

Protestant Pope? Like, I know you're not doing that. Why are they saying that, that they want you to think you, they think you're saved by the government or, or that's what nationalism is, is about saving you with the government and the law.

I know you're not doing that. Why is G3 doing that? People are asking me and I, and I said, you know,

I don't know why they're doing it. It's foolish. I love those guys though. I do. I don't hate them. I love them.

So instead of casting them into outer darkness, like they're so willing to do with so many of us, it's unbelievable how we've been treated.

Instead of doing that, let's just laugh this off and maybe we can have those discussions.

It's not like the internet is the only place to have these discussions, but on the internet you can communicate something through memes.

And what I was communicating with memes is that the last two weeks G3 has made a fool of themselves.

If you need me to say it directly, I'll say it directly. They've been making fools of themselves for the last two or three weeks on the issue of Christian nationalism.

It's so foolish. Owen Strawn's little thing about Stephen Wolf, you know, not thinking exegesis is necessary.

That's foolish. Even if you don't like the book, what Owen Strawn said is foolish.

And so if you'd prefer me to just say that rather than kind of calm down the mood and lighten it up and say, hey, you know, don't, please don't be a clown tomorrow.

How about that? How about we take one day where we're not clowns? I don't know.

I mean, I personally think that the meme was more effective at that. I don't take their accusations seriously.

The next time somebody asks me who, you know, you know, who the Protestant Pope should be,

I'm going to laugh at them again and I'm going to laugh at them and laugh at them and laugh at them and laugh at them until this is no longer an issue because that's very effective.

Now, if they're coming to me and they're serious about it and they're willing to have a conversation, they're willing to, to, to give, you know, give ground and admit that I don't believe that there's going to be a

Protestant Pope and things like that. We'll take that seriously. I won't meme on that. Why would I? But as long as they're going to be idiots, they're going to get memed.

It's very effective and it's just not going to stop. It's not going to stop.

The memes aren't the divisive thing. It's when people start trying to destroy your life by, you know, branding you with the

Scarlet R of racism. That's actually the divisive part. We're trying to actually have a relationship still.

I love G3, man. Virgil reached out to me and he invited me to the G3 conference and, you know,

I'm going to see if I can go. I'm a little busy during that time of the year, but, but, um, but you know, that's,

I don't have any ill will towards G3. I just want, they can be against Christian nationalism, but they've got to stop doing what they've been doing.

It's so, quite frankly, it draws more attention to our side of this because we look a lot more level headed in comparison.

People prefer memes to lies. People prefer memes to lies.

Our content has been getting a lot more traction because of what G3 has been doing. Joel Webbin just posted a tweet where, where he's had like a huge influx of Baptist followers because of what

G3 is doing. So like if they, as far as I'm concerned for my goals and my, my, my mission in the, on the political realm and things like that, keep doing it because it's helping us.

But, but on the other hand, I love those guys at G3. I do. I don't want them to self immolate.

Our allies are running thin, like I'm not your enemy, but if you want to treat me like an enemy, that's going to be on you and I'm not going to stop memeing.

It's a very effective method. And so, you know, you got to take these kinds of memes and you got to put them into context to understand why, why they're used, why they're deployed, why they're effective.

I don't think the, the hand wringing over you're being so divisive ripped out of the context of what's happening.

It really just doesn't, it doesn't do it justice, James, it really doesn't. Like it or not, memes are here.

You know what I mean? Like it or not, memes are here. And obviously we can't only communicate through memes.

That would be ridiculous. But I think we have to learn how to harness the power of memes.

And I feel like a lot of us do harness this power and that's, and that's a good thing. That's a good thing.

I'd rather have people that know how to use memes than people who have nothing to do with them because there's a whole segment of people that you can miss through not, through not memeing.

And I care about those people too. I really do. In any case, I hope you found this video helpful.

No ill will. I love the dividing line. I still do. People are asking me, you know, about it and stuff like that.

And I recommend it. I mean, that's really all there is to it. I've heard he kind of goes pretty hard at, at Steven Wolf.

I'll, I'll, I'll, maybe I'll do video content on that. I don't, I don't really know. We'll see.