Statue Down Statue Up meme format and political cartoon depicting a group of people tearing down a statue with another rising up from below ground.

Statue Down Statue Up

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Updated Apr 28, 2022 at 05:33PM EDT by Zach.

Added Apr 27, 2022 at 09:17PM EDT by Philipp.

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About

Statue Down Statue Up is a political cartoon by Pat Cross that depicts people tearing down a statue of Christopher Columbus while a statue of Karl Marx attached to its bottom simultaneously gets erected. Posted in June 2020 following the George Floyd protests, during which several statues of Columbus and other figures were torn down or vandalized, the comic has since been parodied online with versions in which Freddy Fazbear and other characters replaced Marx as an exploitable format.

Origin

During the 2020 George Floyd protests, several statues of Christopher Columbus and other contentious historical figures were toppled or vandalized by protestors, while many others were removed by cities under pressure from the public.[1] On June 18th, 2020, political cartoonist Pat Cross posted[2][3] a cartoon titled "Statue Down Statue Up" that depicted protestors tearing down a statue of Christopher Columbus, simultaneously erecting a statue of Karl Marx attached to its bottom. The cartoon received over 540 reactions and 460 shares on Facebook in two years (shown below).



Spread

On June 19th, 2020, Facebook page LATINAS FOR TRUMP reposted the image. On June 20th, Redditor[4] TheJord posted a screenshot of that post to the /r/TheRightCantMeme subreddit, where it received over 28,800 upvotes in two years. On June 21st, 2020, Redditor[5][6] goenyan and another unknown Redditor posted two earliest edits of the image, replacing the statue of Karl Marx with Reimu Hakurei from Touhou Project and Freddy Fazbear from Five Nights at Freddy's (shown below, left and right). The posts gained 160 upvotes in /r/2hujerk and 860 upvotes in /r/195, respectively, in six months.


LATINAS FOR TRUMP 19 jun. a las 4:02 p. m. β€’ LATINAS TRUMP ARE AMERICA GREAT AGA PATCROSSCARTOONS.COM 2020 COLUMBUS

The Freddy Fazbear edit saw viral spread online in the following months. On September 7th, 2020, Instagram[7] user youve.g0t.mail posted a cropped version of the image, with the post gaining over 14,000 likes in two years. On January 22nd, 2021, iFunny[8] user pattywagon007mk2 reposted the image, with the post being featured and receiving over 27,900 smiles. On January 25th, an unknown Redditor[9] posted a Political Compass meme based on the image that gained over 10,900 upvotes in one year.

Throughout 2021, more edits of the cartoon were posted online. For example, on July 15th, 2021, Twitter[10] user @lishainik reposted a Big Floppa edit that received 29 retweets and over 140 likes (shown below, left). On September 4th, 2021, Redditor[11] Mrenvyy captioned the Freddy Fazbear version, "Biden's America," with the post gaining over 4,000 upvotes in the /r/okbuddyretard subreddit (shown below, center). On December 3rd, 2021, Instagram[12] user arbychief posed a Halo edit that received over 7,600 likes in five months (shown below, right).


BIDENS'AMERICA COLUMBUS Freddy Fazbear

The image saw further use in memes in late 2021 and early 2022.

Various Examples



Snawmo Freddy Fazbear

Template



Search Interest

External References

[1] Wikipedia – List of monuments and memorials removed during the George Floyd protests

[2] Pat Cross Cartoons – Statue Down Statue Up

[3] Facebook – Pat Cross Cartoons

[4] Reddit – Based

[5] Reddit – Sitting Reimu Statue

[6] Reddit – Freddy Fazbear

[7] Instagram – youve.g0t.mail

[8] iFunny – pattywagon007mk2

[9] Reddit – Lib-left’s true agenda

[10] Twitter – @lishainik

[11] Reddit – fruth

[12] Instagram – arbychief

Recent Videos

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Recent Images 20 total


Top Comments

smolbirb
smolbirb

in reply to SSmotzer

i remember there was a weird period of time where a lot of artists portrayed the founding fathers as heavenly figures and christ analogies. it's super weird since I'm older now than when I first saw those images in elementary and middle school, knowing that the founding fathers had their own flaws and such. jefferson had slaves after all :/

+15
Gleaming Steel
Gleaming Steel

in reply to smolbirb

Jefferson was an interesting figure in that regard.

His first slaves were inherited as part of his relatives estates, and the majority after that were born to those slaves. The few slaves he bought were relatives of his own slaves, as he believed it was important to keep families together.

In 1807 he penned a law, passed by congress, banning the purchase of slaves originating from africa--effectively ending the U.S.'s involvement in the Trans-Atlantic Slave-trade, as over ~99.5% of slaves that came to the U.S. from africa did so by way of portuguese merchant ships.

He was also mildly racist by his time's standards (extremely-so by today's), believing that blacks:

"lacked forethought, intelligence, tenderness, grief, imagination, and beauty, had poor taste, smelled band, and were incapable of producing artistry or poetry"

But he also argued that despite all that, he believed that morally they were equal to whites and argued that intelligence is irrelevant to discussions of liberty, stating:

"but whatever be their degree of talent it is no measure of their rights. Because Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding, he was not therefore lord of the person or property of others. On this subject they are gaining daily in the opinions of nations, and hopeful advances are making towards their re-establishment on an equal footing with the other colors of the human family"

+13

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