In the absence of anything like a reasonable government response following the tragedy of the Parkland shooting, Americans have scrambled to take matters into their own hands. In some cases, like the teenage survivors agitating for reform, we see a glimmer of hope for actual change. In others, of course, we have far less helpful suggestions for how to move forward.
The most frightening suggestion is that teachers, who we guess have to squeeze in tactical exercises between early childhood education classes during college training, should be armed. This dystopian vision, unfounded as it is by boring old “scientific study,” has a lot of eager supporters.
Take, for example, Twitter’s Doofus Of The Week, a user with the no-nonsense handle “ProudAmericanSoldier” who took to social media in full military cosplay to assert that he would “PLEDGE TO WORK FOR FREE for any school to help secure the children [sic].”
The man’s tweet, serving as a perfectly ridiculous encapsulation of the absolutely fucking nightmarish prospect of a fully militarized school system, has garnered a big response from all corners of the internet.
Some, of course, simply want to zoom in on the mental image of a middle-aged man dressing up in full combat gear at home.
Others, though, have recruited from the wide ranks of pop culture to create the remixes ProudAmericanSoldier so rightfully warrants.
The absolute best of these really gets to the heart of the issue, reminding us of the bravest fictional character to ever “go to Army.”
The rapid birth of a whole new subgenre of tweets suggests not just how incredibly goofy the original message and photo are, but the mind-bending absurdity of America’s latest gun control debate. When we have people honestly suggesting the nation’s educators start packing flashbang grenades, the looking glass is already miles behind us. Luigi with a vacuum cleaner, in the end, seems pretty reasonable.
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