Is This Pigeon Meme a Think Piece?

What does the pigeon meme tell us about the internet — and ourselves?

The thing that should jump out at you about the pigeon meme is that it’s obviously not a pigeon. It’s so clearly not a pigeon that the man asking the question “Is this a pigeon?” should be met with laughter or ridicule or an aggressive exaggerated eye roll. What he should not be met with is sympathy or understanding. If you’re a grown-ass man, you should be able to understand that a butterfly — despite having wings — is not a pigeon.

The image comes from an episode of the obscure, early-’90s anime series Brave of the Sun Fighbird and features Katori, a character who one might assume is a man but is actually, according to Kara Dennison, “a space alien thing who possessed an android in order to interact with humans.” (That would explain the stupidity.) Dennison, who used to spend much of her time fan-dubbing (producing unofficial translations of anime for English-speaking audiences), explained in a blog post that she was the one who created the infamous caption.

I then proceeded to forget all about this show because I subtitled about 56 dozen things…