Yeah... this isn't a meme, it's literally children being sold.
As I recall it, the family were facing eviction, and the kids were indeed sold, including the one she was pregnant with. A couple of them ended up basically being slaves on a farm somewhere.
I'll laugh at plenty of things I probably shouldn't but this isn't one of them.
My grandfather was sold into what amounted to slavery during this time period under similar circumstances. Many of these children were treated with incredible cruelty, then grew up and were shipped off to war. Mostly voluntarily, given that war was actually a quality of life improvement where they got perks like socks and food.
The consequence of edgy "ha ha slavery funny" humor. This is why punching down is never ok.
I must be misunderstanding, are you suggesting this lady sold her kids because of bad jokes?
Or what is the consequence you're talking about? The consequence of dark humour is seeing dark humour?
Well, I saw an opportunity to make a joke about the cost of housing.
I don't think it was hilarious but I chuckled and thought to contribute to our content desperate platform.
But yeah, I do like my humour dark.
People don't have to like it. Again, don't punch down it can have disastrous consequences for people who really don't need it.
I'm genuinely struggling to think of a non ridiculous chain of events that leads to disastrous consequences here.
This is not a meme, but a reminder of a terrible time and this particular event. Post it in a history community, but not here. Why would we find something so sad funny?
It is in bad taste. To say the least.
Yup, I messed up and didn't realize some folks wouldn't read the caption below.
Next time I'll have the caption included in the picture so as to avoid confusion.
The caption is there. But that doesn't even matter. That isn't the point. Point is the attitude towards the image, what it stands for and that it shouldn't be used like this.
Using images of people suffering to make fun of a current situation is insensitive and disrespectful to the people who were suffering at the time. It also trivializes the situation and makes light of something that is serious and important. Essentially it isn't ethical to use an image like this to make a point like yours.
It's similar to someone posting a picture of a starving child and captioning it with "how I feel when I'm on diet." It's inappropriate, disrespectful and offensive.
Frankly, this post should be deleted for the same reasons.
Despite the rustled jimmies in this thread, I don't really care what people post in a fucking 'memes' channel. However, you should know the caption does show up in sync and doesn't make it any better. This might help clear things up:
Must depend on appearance settings. I'm using boost on Android as well and I saw the title
Yes. Here's a link to the Wikimedia page of the photograph.
The picture was taken August 5, 1948, for The Vidette-Messenger.
I think that's actually a pretty common practise. Rich people barely have to see their kids at all!
I wish I could go back in time, "buy" those kids and raise them in safety and comfort. This is not an okay "joke" OP, and I see people are finally starting to realize what I realized in 2017 after watching that shitty movie "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" that literally drove me to insanity.
A lot of people don't care about children, instead seeing them purely as a burden unless the child is forced to work. It's disgusting and rooted entirely in overly conservative values.
Many who don't fit into the above category are simply sexist and hate kids as being the result of either "being a traitor to your gender" (if you're female) or "pussy whipped" (if you're male).
This seems to have been the majority view since at least 2015, though I only noticed it when I realised children were being cast exclusively as villains, victims of the villains, or heroes who are forced to "grow up" over the course of the story. If proof is needed, I can provide a list of not one, not two, not three, but 33 different stories that do this and almost all of them are either made in the 2010s or became popular in some way in the 2010s.
It's also 2023 and I'm sick of pretending what happened didn't happen just because the internet doesn't like hearing about it.
It feels like lemmy users are too shy because of reddit popularity.
I see you've never heard of the 90%/9%/1% rule of social media users.
90% are lurkers. 9% are intermittent posters. 1% are heavy use posters.
It's not that people are shy, it's that literally with a fraction of the userbase Reddit has, that 10% that actually makes posts is just a smaller number of people.
an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread by internet users, often with slight variations.
Idk bud it matches the meaning of modern memes decently enough
Stupid easy to adapt the sign into a meme format if you wanted to
Stupid easy to adapt the sign into a meme format if you wanted to
I actually tracked the original photo down, and this picture was changed. The original text wasn't "4 children for sale" it was actually "Hey lemmy users , lemmytors or whatever, lemmy is desperately in need for commenters. Can't expect to compete against reddit comments. They have thousands of users and and a few of their comments are bound to become super popular just because there are so many of them. It feels like lemmy users are too shy because of reddit popularity. For instance in this case don't tell me you didn't wonder whether the photo was real or not and then got afraid to just ask."
So this is a meme
The photo first appeared in The Vidette-Messenger of Valparaiso, Indiana on August 5, 1948. The children looked posed and a bit confused as their pregnant mother hides her face from the photographer.
The caption read: “A big ‘For Sale’ sign in a Chicago yard mutely tells the tragic story of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Chalifoux, who face eviction from their apartment. With no place to turn, the jobless coal truck driver and his wife decide to sell their four children.
Mrs. Lucille Chalifoux turns her head from the camera above while her children stare wonderingly. On the top step are Lana, 6, and Rae, 5. Below are Milton, 4, and Sue Ellen, 2”.
Family members accused the mother of being paid to stage the photo, which may have been part of the story, but unfortunately, she was dead serious about selling her children. Within two years all of the children pictured, as well as the baby she was carrying at the time, were sold off to different homes.
This photo has also circulated on Reddit and elsewhere for years so most of us have probably already seen it and were aware of the true and dark history surrounding it.