Garrison Davis
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Users, mostly male, saw the penguin as a powerful rebuke of secular modernity.
They interpreted the penguin not as lost, but as a free thinker.
To them, he was rejecting the colony.
In today's terms, that means rejecting secular postmodern orthodoxy and marching toward a greater purpose."
So, though Herzog in this documentary refers to this penguin as deranged, as a meme, users identified with the penguin as a symbol of masculine rebellion against what they view as mainstream culture, and the solitary trek up the mountains as a metaphor for the struggle of individual greatness.
Clips of men on outdoor adventures and climbing mountains Zarathustra-style with the caption Be the Penguin spread wildly online, the most popular reaching 4.2 million likes, and other penguin-themed videos getting hundreds of thousands of likes.
The Herzog penguin meme piggybacked and partially merged with an older right-wing penguin-based meme video from two years ago of a drag queen asking a kid about boys wearing makeup.
The kid responds that boys can't wear makeup, so the drag queen asks the kid who told him that, and this confused child looks around and sees a cartoon penguin on the wall, points to it, and says, that penguin over there.
What do you think about men who wear makeup?
This video and this figure of the penguin has since been used as a symbol for masculine resistance to the LGBTQ agenda.
And this new penguin meme pertains to tap into a uniquely masculine urge, as explained by this TikToker who racked up 42,000 likes.
On January 23rd, the Department of War rapid response account posted, be a warrior, embrace the penguin, with an AI-generated image of five men wearing the uniform of each military branch walking towards the mountains alongside a penguin.
Secretary Kennedy posted a Make America Healthy Again edit of the penguin meme with the organ music over an AI video of RFK Jr.
and a penguin walking to the mountains.
On-screen text reads, The mainstream made us sick.
Choose the healthier path.
The Health and Human Services government account, quote, tweeted this video with the caption, locking in after watching that penguin edit, unquote.