Slow Clap for Congress: Sarcastic YouTube meme

Micah sez, "Like a lot of people on Sunday afternoon, Baltimore-based software developer Chris Ashworth was frustrated with the way Congress had handled the important but often routine business of raising the nation's borrowing limit. 'When the debt deal goes through,' he mused on Twitter to what he describes as a fairly modest following, 'can we start a meme where we all make videos of ourselves slowly & sarcastically applauding our politicians?' That was the beginning of Slow Clap for Congress, what is at present a very basic website hosting Ashworth and a handful of other folks doing -- well, you get the idea. Slow Clap for Congress

The Internet is Getting Together to #SlowClapForCongress (TechPresident.com)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: congress • Funny • politics • video • youtube

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bruckelsprout

She was still way too enthusiastic.
- knoxblox
  
  Yeah, a little more anger than disappointment. I’d have preferred the congratulatory-handshake-psyche.
http://www.tropicalpenpals.com/blog Tropicalpenpals

I think most people are dismayed by governments around the world at the moment with the inability to deal with the debt issues.
http://nefariousnewt.blogspot.com NefariousNewt

Sorry, but an Internet meme will not cut it. Since Congress has skipped town for August, I suggest a Slow Clap Campaign outside every House and Senate member’s home district office.
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/ Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

Oh my gracious! This is my very own Angry Black Overlady! (aka: Angry Black Lady of Angry Black Lady Chronicles).

I blog at Angry Black Lady Chronicles along with a merry band of variously Angry Other People, and it’s really kind of hard for me to contain my joy at seeing ABL here!

I read Boing Boing every single day (and often mention y’all, here there and everywhere across the blogosphere &/or Twitterverse) but what with the day only ever having 24 damn hours, I don’t know that I’ve commented before. But this has brought me out of my shell! I think my giddiness could only be greater if it were actually me up there. (And hey, what up with that Boing Boing? I’ve got videos up, too! And in one I look like a long-haired semi-deceased Lobot! Ohhhh… You’re anti-Lobot, aren’t you).
- Guest
  
  I love you.
  - http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/ Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther
    
    And I’m certain that I love you too! : )
Jim Richardson

borrowing more money isn’t “dealing with the debt issues” it’s avoiding them.

Credit card maxed out? no worries, get another one! partay!
- bruckelsprout
  
  See? Macroeconomics is super easy.
- dculberson
  
  Your comment was so dumb and oversimplified that it forced me to click “like” on every other comment in this thread, all for want of a “dislike” button.
  - The Starkiller
    
    I think Jim has a very good point and I think that YOU need to think more about the issues involved.
    
    The USA is overborrowed and it’s government spends too much–it needs to cut expenses. Now where these cuts should be applied, my first choice would be defense instead of social security/medicare/medicaid. But cuts are necessary.
    
    This isn’t the 30s where a young unspoilt nation could grow and spend its way out of debt (even that is disputable: the USA was the only major economy to have not been damaged by WWII); increase debt by printing money and commodity prices (such as oil but also gold etc.) start shooting for the stars, crippling any recovery intended by printing money.
    - Thad_E_Ginathom
      
      There’s a very simple model.
      
      Taxes pay for public services.
      
      How come America (but not America alone) has such a massive problem with that?
    - grimc
      
      Uh, WWII happened in the 40s.
      
      Jim’s point is stupid.
      
      And much of this debt “crisis” would be solved by simply letting the Bush tax cuts expire.
    - dculberson
      
      The simple fact is that NOT raising the debt ceiling yesterday would have meant far worse things than raising it. Defaulting on our obligations would have resulted in such massively increased borrowing costs that we would have then had no way to climb out of debt no matter how much we cut our expenses or increased our income. It all would have gone into debt service and thus would have been even more thrown away than the money we spend on bombs – at least Americans are employed making bombs. Interest payments disappear into China.
  - Tdawwg
    
    I’ll take the “like,” thanks! Not “so dumb and oversimplified,” a good day for Tdawwg! :P
randomax

How about we start a “Fuck you congress to the depths of Hell” meme?

No?

Mebe?

To hell with it, I’m surfing for porn.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  How about we start a “Fuck you congress to the depths of Hell” meme?
  
  The videos would have to go on Xtube.
scifijazznik

Too kind a gesture. I was going to suggest everyone Goatse for Congress, but then I realized they’ve already pretty much had their way with all of us there. So I’m at a loss.
Tdawwg

Way to hold them accountable! Democracy inaction, oops, I meant “in action,” no wait, I’m confused. . . .

Jefferson saw this in heaven and hadz a sad.
Teller

Even though they have different intentions, the Slow Clap is indistinguishable from the Brubaker Clap.
http://twitter.com/enkiv2 John Ohno

Of course, now people will take the slow clap clips out of context and apply them to other things, as people are wont to do. At the very least, this will improve the available slow clap footage, and there will be fewer people relying upon Citizen Kane.
Rider

We still have no FAA so they are still failing miserably at the very basics of their of their job.
http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/ Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther

Well. I suppose if I were going to be truly bold in expressing my love for ABL & the blog over which she presides, I would have posted a link. Friend/blogger fail.

Here she is: http://www.angryblacklady.com/

(squee!)
Alex Ball

They need to convert the videos to animated gifs and then tile the page with a synchronised wave of sarcastic slow handclaps.
Rider

Can we stop referring to them as the Bush tax cuts. The Democrats were in control long enough to get rid of them. The point everyone keeps missing because people love pointing fingers is this, WE SHOULD HAVE NEVER GOT TO THIS POINT! Both sides need to sit down and fucking solve the cash flow problem.

You can’t lay all the blame on the Bush years, both sides have been engineers on this train at various points. There was ample time to stop this before it got to this point,
- silkox
  
  Nope, they’re the Bush tax cuts, all right. When they were passed they came with sunset provisions that made them expire at the end of 2010. Given what happened in the Bush years, there’s no reason not to lay all the blame there. We never should have got to this point, indeed.
paratroopa

Obama extended those Bush tax cuts – he even went so far as to explain why they were necessary for the stalling economy (which Obama now owns).

With regards to you people who are beginning to realize how ineffective Congress is: This is all the more reason Government simply must play a more limited role in our
lives rather than continually expanding. Government is a broken,
inefficient way of dealing with problems and should always be seen as a
last resort.
- silkox
  
  First, I would like to say that I have bookmarked angryblacklady.com, and I’m a new fan.
  
  Now I would like to say that Obama was blackmailed into extending the BTC by a fillibustering Senate, and had to make the best of a bad situation. I would also like to say that I sympathize with the man: during the space of the campaign, the job of President of the United States went from a place where he might do some good to a job anyone could be excused for turning down.
  
  And, paratroopa, it seems to me that what has made Congress so ineffective is that it’s under siege by teabaggers who threaten to hold their breath until they turn blue unless they get their way.
- ocker3
  
  Government != Congress. Government is the military, schools, hospitals, roads, police, etc. Just because the leaders are shits doesn’t mean all the staff are useless. The school I work at has leadership problems, but we still manage to get a lot of good work done, but we could get More good work done if we had better leadership.
millie fink

It really surprises me sometimes that BoingBoing attracts idiots. I mean, in this example–the debt ceiling has been raised nearly a hundred times before. It’s a mere formality, and most Americans have been snookered into thinking it’s suddenly the Big Deal that the teabaggers say it is. Government finances simply don’t operate like household finances! And having the Fed withdraw money from the economy, rather than inject money into it, is only going to make things worse for most Americans, not better.

Most reasonably informed observers realize all that. It’s not that hard to understand. I can only think that a lot of the pro-Teabagger sentiment (and it is sentiment, primarily, nasty feelings, instead of well-informed thought) expressed here is astroturfed sockpuppetry.

Who’s hiring you meatballs? And has anyone done a study of BB’s comments of that sort, to see how often these types comment otherwise, if at all?
- catgrin
  
  No idiots here. (well maybe a few, but not the majority)
  
  The debt ceiling is a totally separate issue from the budget which the Republicans insisted on selling as a bundled package. If the Rep’s weren’t trying to play politics and force votes in their favor, this could have been handled weeks ago with a vote on just the debt ceiling.
  
  The budget itself is a pretty big deal, and it was handled really, really badly. The result of their actions could destroy over another million jobs. That’s if everything goes right.
  
  Meanwhile congress is now out of session and with the FAA still unfunded thanks to an insistence that unions be broken we’re not collecting any taxes there either! A vote on that can’t even happen now until September when they come back to D.C.
  
  No one’s clapping slowly because they agree with the Tea Party. They’re clapping slowly (or asking to just say “”Fuck you congress to the depths of Hell”) because rather than perform that “mere formality” you speak about, congress decided to have a minor war about another issue and tie it to that formality which keeps our economy from collapsing.
  - millie fink
    
    No idiots here. (well maybe a few, but not the majority)
    
    Righto. I was talking about the ones who come out of the woodwork for political posts to promote Teabaggery, not the majority, which generally seems to consist of very smart people. Which is why I’m surprised to see Teabagger types reading BB at all, unless they’re being paid to do so, and to comment here.
    - catgrin
      
      Ah well, there will always be those looking to get a rise out of you. Extremists appear on pretty much every politically-oriented thread, no matter the site.
      
      Just be glad that at least in this forum (unlike our current political system) they can speak freely, but as they are an extremist minority, other than some minor irritation they’ll have no real effect on the lives of the majority. Take care :)
Teller

Since the President could have attempted, and perhaps succeeded, in raising the debt ceiling unilaterally, the rest of the melodrama smelled like election year teen spirit.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  If he had done that, you would have been screaming about autocrats.
  - Teller
    
    Bertrand Russell might have suggested: “If he had done that, people would have been screaming about autocrats.” I think the President didn’t try it because circumventing Congress would have had repercussions for 2012. The upcoming election infects everything Washington does right now.
The Hamster King

The problem is not “Congress” or “politicians”. The problem is an extreme right-wing political movement that is willing to threaten the United States with economic collapse unless its demands are met. And a dysfunctional news media that is institutionally unable to get past boilerplate tut-tutting about compromise. The sort of political naivete that produces sites like “Slow Clap for Congress” is part of the reason that the Republican swindle is able to continue. Well done, Mr. Ashworth. Your lazy false equivalence is another tiny step toward the bankrupting of America.
- millie fink
  
  Well done, Mr. Ashworth. Your lazy false equivalence is another tiny step toward the bankrupting of America.
  
  Right said. The corporate media’s insistence on not calling out the nuttery in favor of some false sense of “balance” is maddening, and a huge of the problem. It contributes to a sense that “big government” is simply dysfunctional, which plays right into the narrative promulgated by the extreme faction of it that’s especially causing problems, and ruining so many lives.