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Collected Item: “Govern Me Harder Daddy”

Give your story a title.

Govern Me Harder Daddy

What sort of object is this: text story, photograph, video, audio interview, screenshot, drawing, meme, etc.?

Instagram post

Tell us a story; share your experience. Describe what the object or story you've uploaded says about the pandemic, and/or why what you've submitted is important to you.

This is an Instagram post by jakewienhold. The picture posted by this user shows an NPC accepting all the COVID restrictions. The NPC is the grey character. The NPC itself is a meme that got popular in the late 2010s and has continued to have popularity into the 2020s. NPC stands for "Non Playable Character." The term has its origins in gaming where characters that have a pre-written script and can't go beyond that are an "NPC." This term has gone beyond gaming and has been used to refer to people of any political stripe as an NPC as an insult. It insinuates that people who would follow herd mentality for any cause have no thoughts of their own, like an NPC in a video game.

The context of this picture shows an NPC having multiple vaccines injected in, while wearing a mask and a ball gag. The vaccines are referring to the COVID vaccines that some places have asked for people to go beyond two and get boosters. To critics of this, they see this as a ploy by big government and pharmacy to gain more money at the expense of the health of the people, as it is a common belief among the critics to claim that the vaccines are not safe. The mask has been a common trend during the pandemic, and is commonly used by critics to show that people following the rules imposed are being submissive towards the government. The ball gag is an extra thing that was added to show submissiveness and has some sexual connotations. The barcode on the forehead is a mark of being branded by the government and being tracked by said government. As with the things explained of this image, majority of the criticisms of the pandemic are based on the government response to it. For how much it limited some people's ability to make money or get things done that they needed to do, a lot of that anger is toward those governments limiting those freedoms.

Use one-word hashtags (separated by commas) to describe your story. For example: Where did it originate? How does this object make you feel? How does this object relate to the pandemic?

NPC, NPC meme, conspiracy theory, meme, vaccine, mask, government, government trust, criticism, HST580, ASU

Who originally created this object? (If you created this object, such as photo, then put "self" here.)

jakewienhold

Give this story a date.

2022-01-29
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