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We're joined by writer and podcaster Huw Lemmey, author of "Bad Gays: A Homosexual History", to discuss his recent substack essay on the Cry Laugh Emoji, and its links to British 'banter' culture and cultural encouragement of cruelty. We discuss how concepts of accepted cruelty as social relations became digitally mediated, and how the cry-laugh emoji embodies the worst elements of it, as well as a broader, political effort to enshrine dehumanisation into policy-making. We discuss how and why the emoji is used, why it clogs up our facebook feeds, and why, regardless of who wins or loses an election, it's ultimately the cry-laugh emoji that rules over the British Isles. 
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Read Huw's essay on substack here: https://t.co/1MoivjXLVp
Follow and listen to Bad Gays pod, here: https://twitter.com/BadGaysPod

Comments

Allen

Yeah, I agree w/Phoebe: who couldโ€™ve possibly predicted that many decades of the British media and political class dehumanizing migrants, refugees, Muslims, Roma, Jews, poor people, people who arenโ€™t white in general, etc. would lead to generations of bigoted everyday sadists?

Elsie Hupp

I feel like one difference between the US and the UK is that โ€œLondoners are rudeโ€ doesnโ€™t have quite the, uhhhhhhh, same connotations as the phrase โ€œ((((((((coastal elites))))))))โ€. (Correct me if Iโ€™m wrong.)

Ben

Immediately made me think of toxic masculinity from the initial description give on the show of the cry laugh emoji.

Nemo

the closest equivalent would be either "metropolitan elites" (used frequently from 2016 by pro-Brexit types) or "North London" as a pejorative, which was prominent when Ed Miliband was Labour leader. the 'rude Londoners' thing is probably closer to stereotypes of New Yorkers