uh question, when you reply to comments why do you always put pictures of women?

Not always! But, I do like to use women in memes when I think to. My totally unscientific survey says women are under-represented in memes — and when they are in memes, they’re often portrayed in an unflattering light. A reflection of sexist stereotypes at large. Just search “feminist” or “blonde” in templates and you’ll see what I mean.

Other than that, I just like using templates made out of new photographs that I brought to Imgflip rather than stale and cliché memes. My way of being different.

oh, for a moment I thought you were one of those absolute rats who use women as sexualized objects lol

Women are beautiful, but they’re also more than their beauty.

As long as we always remember that, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sharing gorgeous photos of them. They posed for them, after all. They put them out there for fans to see and share.

If female dress was ever policed to this extent then we’d quickly move to a Taliban or Handmaid’s Tale society, where women’s rights are hardly respected. In fact, women are *more* oppressed in societies where they can’t show skin.

I personally disagree with this, because it is worse to force women to show skin. In other words objectifying is worse, but both are still bad. And we should acknowledge that male supremacy is still a thing in many places.

The issue is people don't remember that, because of these images. These images are apart of why people see women as objects. I understand the point you're making, but I still think it's not necessarily helping the case.

I don’t agree with the skin thing — skin is skin, it’s our bodies and we ought to feel comfortable in them, or we’re not living our lives to the fullest. Body positivity, in or out of clothes, is the cure to body-shaming, which is another thing that (especially) women have to put up with in society.

So if a woman wants to go to the neighborhood pool, or the beach, or dress up as a model in a bikini for photographs, that’s her right, and I feel we ought to uphold it.

I am a straight guy and I’m likely to find that hot and attractive, but my own feelings are less important than her own freedom to choose her dress, whatever her reasons. Whether she aims to make modeling her career or is just out to soak up the sun. It’s not my business to judge.

I understand your point, don't get me wrong I agree with most of it. But as a lgbtq women, who like yourself finds women attractive (I'm omni) I still think we should make sure women aren't just fine with it, but fully want these images on the internet before we share them.

It's alright to share and post these images with the person's full consent, no matter if they posed for it or not. People can pose for lets say a picture with their friends, but that doesn't mean they want it all over the internet.

All I'm tryina' say is that there's a difference from somebody wanting these pictures posted everywhere, and somebody just wanting to dress that way. And it is easy for one to feel objectified by these pictures, especially women.

Now we’re getting into interesting territory of what we might consider to be the “ethics of memeing.”

I’ve thought about this myself. It seems reasonably clear to me that if a woman is: (1) A celebrity, (2) Posing; (3) In a professional-quality photograph, then it’s reasonably likely that she intended for that photo to be shared. Indeed, I get most of the images I post off of celebrity fan pages. Sometimes the photos come directly from their Instagram or Twitter account, which they or a personal assistant curate themselves.

That said, not every photo I (or other memers) post meets all those criteria. In the boobs stream and other such streams, most of the women aren’t recognizable to me and aren’t already famous.

Do they aim to possibly one day *become* famous actresses or models by taking these photos? Or did they just mean to share them with friends on social media? It’s usually not clear.

It’s also not clear that, even if a woman poses for a photo, that she would necessarily consent to having text written on it or other alterations.

Worth noting that people who are depicted in photographs are the automatic holders of the “copyright” of the photograph. (The person who took the photo also might have a copyright). So, if someone objects to being in a meme on Imgflip, they can presumably contact the site with a copyright infringement request and have it taken down.

Frankly this isn’t limited to women, either. There are ethical issues involved in posting *any* man or woman who “becomes a meme.”

Think about Bad Luck Brian. Why did he become the internet’s face of Bad Luck? Do you think that’s how he wants to be remembered in life? Well, now it’s too late. Everyone’s seen that image.

Most of Imgflip is theoretically built upon a foundation of other people’s images being used in a way they didn’t necessarily agree to. That’s a difficult philosophical problem. If the mods cracked down on every meme that didn’t have the subject’s explicit consent to the alteration, then the website would be 99.99% gone.

There's a difference from a picture of a fully clothed kid and a nude person. This isn't really fully a matter of copy right, but more so of the person themself.

Lets say in a private chat, perhaps with one's partner they send a picture of in this case, boobs. Now if their partner, without the person sharing the photos consent, shove that picture all over the internet. Does that seem okay to you? Do you not think that would be objectifying to the person who just got a private picture shoved all over the internet?

Oh yeah, no doubt, that’s basically revenge porn. A no-brainer. Not that there’s “porn” on Imgflip, but if it came to my attention that a woman didn’t want her bikini photo shared here, I’d report it to mods or take it down myself if I had that power.

But setting aside women and sexuality for a sec, my point is broader than that — if *anyone’s* photo is here without their consent, ought it be taken down? I think so.

oh, well that was sorta the whole point I was making. I'm not very smart and have issues explaining myself sometimes, sorry to waste your time lol. And thank you for putting in the effort to try and turn imgflip slightly more to the leftist side of things. not the hero we deserved, but the one we needed.