Mastodawn

Strictly from an abundance of caution, I will have another beer.

Su_G 3d ago

One beer should never be allowed to get lonely. 🙂

Don Gray 2d ago

@Su_G @GeePawHill And one is the loneliest number.

I'm told by some respondents that "alligator auschwitz" is better.

1) Why are you fucking meme-ing concentration camps?

2) Why you think everybody knows what Auschwitz was?

3) Why I spozed to think you know the difference between Auschwitz and, say, Theresienstadt? Why I spozed to think you know who even invented concentration camps?

I ain't lookin' to be clever and cool, and I am definitely not looking to be funny. I'm lookin' to tell the simple and plain truth.

There's more important shit than internet memes.

GeePawHill 2d ago

me: I don't think we should be making memes about concentration camps.

bros: This is a much better concentration camp meme!

Every single day I am reminded of how our educational systems have failed at building reading comprehension.

Internet Rando 2d ago

@GeePawHill true, however, as the proliferation of television made possible for the first time for Americans to see (and eventually oppose and stop) the Vietnam war, the proliferation of memes is helping spread awareness of fascism rising in America, and, I hope, they will contribute to stopping that spread. Memes are just units of ideation, packetized storytelling.. let them spread and educate, and punch Nazis!

indi 🪡3d ago

@GeePawHill I remember reading, though I can't provide a cite, that desantis wants to open another one. So, Ochopee Concentration Camp. Will have to be specific about which one in Florida.

Edit: here's one: https://www.fox13news.com/news/desantis-reveals-plans-second-ice-detention-center-florida

DeSantis reveals plans for second ICE detention center in Florida

Gov. Ron DeSantis revealed for the first time on Wednesday that his administration is working on plans for a new ICE detention center at Camp Blanding—Florida’s National Guard training headquarters located southwest of Jacksonville.

FOX 13 Tampa Bay

@GeePawHill “Alligator Buchenwald” doesn’t have the same ring.

@beckett I am not looking for a "ring".

@GeePawHill A concentration camp is just a step away from a death camp. The Nazi camps killed as many people with disease, starvation, and brutality as in the gas chambers. The comparison is apt.

@beckett I'll wait for you to answer the questions before I respond.

ceartas 2d ago

@GeePawHill @beckett

Theresienstadt is/was a part of Auschwitz, and was also the name of a ghetto in Czechoslovakia, I think. This is Mastodon, not Twitter. Why do you suppose your audience is so ill-educated about the holocaust? I’m not in favor of giving a concentration camp a cute name, but when government officials are naming it Alligator Alcatraz, calling it out as Alligator Auschwitz seems apt.
#antifa #AntiFascist

canleaf08 ⌘ ✅3d ago

@beckett @GeePawHill A concentration camp is a death camp. Trump and his goons at the ICE will kill a lot people. And it took 6 months to reach that point. We were at name calling for the past 25 years. We were at demonizing of trans people and they are now after other minorities. They started to falsify passports. They will put a lot of regime opponents into these camps. The US is no longer a trusted resource. They will lie about the victims, burn them and put them into unmarked graves.

@canleaf @beckett The American put hundreds of thousands of Japanese immigrants and citizens in concentration camps.

They were *awful*. It was *awful*.

But it was neither a labor camp nor a death camp.

We do not need more counter-lies, let alone those expressed as memes. The simple truth is bad enough.

@canleaf @beckett And I should be clear. I understand your fear. It is terrifying. I love you and support you. We can both readily agree that a concentration camp is a very short step away from a labor camp, which is a very short step away from a death camp.

Not tryna be all "calm down". I'm not calm, at all.

Tryna be "fight lies with truth, fight meme-lies with truth".

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/07/08/alligator-alcatraz-official-name-florida-immigrant-detention/84502452007/

Dadbod AntiFa 6h ago

@GeePawHill Turns out that “Alligator Alcatraz” is the *official* name of the new death camp in Florida.

Is Alligator Alcatraz the official name of the Florida immigrant detention center?

"Alligator Alcatraz" is the name posted in front of the hastily converted immigrant detention facility in the Florida Everglades.

USA TODAY

@GeePawHill
1) Trump and his gang are literal Nazis. They are building concentration camps. Is not a funny meme.
2) More or less than knowing what Alcatraz is? Some people aren’t going to know either.
3) A USan who doesn’t know about the Nazi death camps and genocides has been failed by the education system. Possibly intentionally.

@beckett 1) Not quite an answer. A non-funny meme is still a meme.

2) *Most* Americans aren't going to know either, I'll give you that.

3) Yes, definitely intentionally, and that is why a clever assonant meme is just more of the same, only on "our" "side" instead of "their" "side". Inevitably, when I pick up the enemy's weapons I become the new enemy.

@GeePawHill What’s your take on it?

@beckett Not sure what you're asking. My original post was a crack at my take on it.

Rob Williamson 3d ago

I think there's a legitimate case here. See what you think:
1) a concentration camp is really being built, memes spread and persist effectively, so meme'ing the concentration camp is an effective way to counter the lie that the camp is a prison.
2) because of the scale of WW2. This may be a mistake. Perhaps too many people have forgotten.
3) doesn't matter. The popular knowledge is that Auschwitz was a concentration camp, and alliteration helps the meme. The Spanish invented CCs.

zbrown 2d ago

@eswag @GeePawHill Auschwitz-Birkenau was an extermination camp

Rob Williamson 2d ago

@zbrown @GeePawHill

It is also absolutely correct to say it was a concentration camp, because it was. It later became an extermination camp. Before either, it was a military base.

Furthermore, in conversational English, the term extermination camp is synonymous with the term concentration camp.

Mario Guerra 2d ago

@GeePawHill They were a reality decades before Nazis. Leopold the Second, king of Belgium. Don't ever forget that. And because there is one full-fledged concentration camp in Florida, I'm completely avoiding the USA.

Mario Guerra 2d ago

@GeePawHill Or Sachsenhausen. Or Leto, in Czechia, torment of the Roma people. This one. A mere cardboard reconstruction in an historic museum in Pisek, South Bohemia, had me in tears. So now, I will not have a foot in USA territory. For the same reason.

C++ Wage Slave 2d ago

Anyone who doesn't know what happened at #Auschwitz should follow

@auschwitzmuseum

The unspeakable enormity of what happened there, still within living memory, might wake people up to what has now begun in the US, which must be resisted at every turn.

After the Second World War, people said "never again". Let's keep the promise that our grandparents made.

Jimmy 2d ago

@GeePawHill I guess that's why no one is calling it Allligator Thereseienstadt. Auschwitz is iconic enough that the majority of Americans recognize it as a symbol.

Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs 2d ago

@GeePawHill It was the British, btw. No, we aren't proud of it. #lang_en

GeePawHill 2d ago

@ellenor2000 I'm aware. Doubt most of the meme-rs are.

Karen Conlin 3d ago

@GeePawHill I've seen many calls for this to happen.

I don't see many stopping, which bothers me.

And calling it "Alligator Auschwitz" is just NO. FUCK NO.

It's the Florida concentration camp.

Knut 🏳️‍🌈 🇳🇴🧸2d ago

@GramrgednAngel @GeePawHill oh the liberal political correctness outrage for today. No. It's "Alligator Auschwitz" and calling it anything other than that severely minimizes what it is.

Karen Conlin 2d ago

@praetor @GeePawHill I will not sully the memory of the victims of Auschwitz. Bye.

justbob 3d ago

Same with homeless camps ran by orgs. They are homeless concentration camps yet they keep pushing them and people are okay with it.

Jo with elbows up & chin up 3d ago

@GeePawHill also this…
From Andrea Pitzer
https://youtu.be/stOiKF1Nzuk?feature=shared

She has other relevant videos too as an expert on global concentration camps.

Why I don't call it "Alligator Alcatraz" or that other thing

YouTube

Mustardon 3d ago

@GeePawHill
DeSantis Concentration Camp
It should be named after the highest ranking local fascist.

Lstn2urmama 🇨🇦3d ago

@GeePawHill it's even WORSE ... it is a HUMAN STOCKYARD ... because alligators and

pythons skins are more valuable to BILLIONAIRES and TRILLIONAIRES than HUMANS... 🚨☠🚨☠🚨

Grimm

3d ago

@GeePawHill
I am in no way the first to point this out but Alligator Auschwitz is the preferred reframe.

@GrimmReality I don't think so, tho I'll give you that it's better than using their name.

Doug Baker - Elbows Up!3d ago

@GeePawHill #aligatorauschwitz

Áine 3d ago

@GeePawHill i feel like a big reason why it isn't being taken seriously is because Trump is rarely taken seriously. either people just make him into a meme or they outright fearmonger about him and there is 0 in between. he is a human being who is choosing to inact horrible horrible violence because Russia is paying him obscene amounts of money to. he's an incredibly horrible person choosing to do incredibly horrible things.

ꜱᴛᴇᴇʟ ʀᴀᴛ ɢᴀᴍᴇʀ 3d ago

never use the words of the enemy

@iveyline 3d ago

@GeePawHill Which will likely flood and drown all its prisoners when the next hurricane hits.

Byron Servies 3d ago

@GeePawHill As a regular donor to the Heart Mountain foundation (heart mountain.org) a Japanese interment camp, I agree.

(Grumbling) “Mazar fakar”3d ago

@GeePawHill I’ve posted about calling it Auschwitz, not Alcatraz.

For me, it’s not about creating a meme. It’s redirecting THEIR attempt at making Alligator Alcatraz cool, make it a meme. To me, calling it Auschwitz is an anti-meme — see this thing you are trying to make cool? It’s evil, as evil as what the Nazis did.

@MrBirch I understand. I feel differently. I think counter-memes are memes. I want a world in which memes are funny & interesting, but telling the truth matters more than being clever.

James Cameroun 2d ago

@GeePawHill @MrBirch exactly. Hard to see how making memes to say is truth is better than, well, saying the truth. The problem is, to say the truth, one has to be specific. And when one use memes, they doesn't have to be specific, they can always go "it's just a manner of saying that...". Plus, as far as Auschwitz is concerned, people take it for granted that everybody (including themselves) knows what it was bcse they know what it's called. Understanding is not innate. One has to study first.

(Grumbling) “Mazar fakar”2d ago

@ratel @GeePawHill I agree these are difficult, complex topics that ideally shouldn’t be memed.

We are fortunate in that we can engage in these deeper discussions and find nuance. However, that puts us in the minority. Most people need a hook to grab their attention, esp. in the distracted culture phones and social media have created.

The power of a meme is to evoke a sentiment without any further explanation. The great memes just work. We need those tools as well, to fight the idiots.

James Cameroun 2d ago

@MrBirch @GeePawHill I think the opposite. For decades we – as a society – have been indulging in some kind of implicit agreement with history: "ok we don't forget, but on the condition that when talking about it, we do it on our terms". In most cases the result is pure entertainment. While such approach ensured we couldn't forget about certain words, it did little to help actually understand what's behind them Far from being a small step in the right direction, it's a prison for the mind.

Andrew 3d ago

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/10/right-progressive-societies-joke-glastonbury-starve-benefit-rod-liddle-lewis-schaffer

The joking name of Alligator Alcatraz is deliberate.

How does the right tear down progressive societies? It starts with a joke

Whether it’s bloodshed at Glastonbury or starving people on benefits, their ‘irony poisoning’ seeps obscene ideas into the range of the possible, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

The Guardian

@Shivviness Yes. That is why a counter-joke rename is a useless response.

Toni Aittoniemi 3d ago

@GeePawHill Postmodernism actually hit harder on the right ever than they criticise the left about it. Just too dumb to realise it.

Alligator Austwitz.

Eleanor Saitta 2d ago

@GeePawHill
The Ochopee Concentration Camp will do nicely.

Nini 2d ago

@GeePawHill Even Alligator Auschwitz isn't right, you're still playing their game by utilising the alligator part and they want people to be eaten by wildlife. Call it the Dade-Collier Concentration Camp or the Everglades Concentration Camp, their childish name for it is invalid.

Would say to call it the DeSantis Camp but then how likely this'll be the only one he'll have in the state?

Tofm2 2d ago

@GeePawHill Concentration camp i agree

Tom Walker 2d ago

@GeePawHill As a non-American, "Alligator Alcatraz" sounds absolutely horrific and not a meme.

I don't quite get the whole US discussion about it, which seems to imply that a very large number of people find the name "Alligator Alcatraz" amusing or fun, so a harsher name is required.

It's already a very, very harsh name!

Karl Heinz Häsliprinz 2d ago

@tomw @GeePawHill My TikTok calls it Alligator Auschwitz...