CASUALLY PEPPER SPRAY EVERYTHING COP

By: Haavard Engedal

CASUALLY PEPPERSPRAYING EVERYTHING COP became popular after an incident at a UC Davis Occupy protest, where a group of student protesters forming a human chain link were (casually) pepper sprayed by police officer John Pike.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/occupy-protesters-beaten-pepper-sprayed/story?id=14990310#.T0_Ni3KP3gA

The original photo of the incident, shot by Louise Macabitas, was posted on Reddit on nov 19th 2011, the day after the event took place.

Altered versions of the image then surfaced quickly, and the next day several versions could be found on Reddit, Tumblr, etc.

The altered photos quickly bacame a phenomenon, and were picked up by newspapers all over the US. On november 21st, Washington Post made the article "Pepper-spray cop works his way through art history":

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/pepper-spray-cop-works-his-way-through-art-history/2011/11/21/gIQA4XBmhN_blog.html

Google insight shows us how this meme quickly gained popularity, but then dropped again. Still, there's a bunch of You Tube videos regarding this incident, and many of them have over a million views.

I think the reason why this became so popular - besides the obvious fact that the pictures are really funny - is because of the symbolic value. The image really portrayed the polarized conflict that the Occupy movement is all about, with "innocent" protesters being suppressed by government forces. It also worked as a anti-police/anti-John Pike campaign, by spreading evidence of his misconduct all over the web.


Here are some more notable examples:

I'll let this Fox News video (which again led to a new meme http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/204/842/35c5qw.jpg) wrap it up: