9/11: Forbidden Thoughts

people will always find humour in the most unpleasant of situations. I read a review of a book by a holocaust survivor which seems to be chockful of really dark humour (and not Life Is Beautiful style shite either).

I didn't think the article was meant to be funny, though the it did have funny parts.

In mid-October 2001 I was at a get-together where a couple guys I knew were expressing fear about the purity of the cocaine they had purchased. They were really worried that the Taliban was going to put Anthrax or poison in the U.S.' drug supply, and they were trying to figure out how to test it for purity. Their fear seemed genuine and strong.

My secret "forbidden" thought was that I was seeing a major, meaningful historical moment, and like someone in the Salon piece said, that finally something non-banal was happening.

i don't think that's such a "forbidden" thought. everyone knew -- that day -- that 09.11.01 drew a line between the sunny 90s and the darker new century.

The bad part was that it was kind of thrilling. That was not my overriding feeling that day, but it was there, and I really pushed it away. I know that is terrible, but it's true, and I know I'm not the only one who felt that way. Everyday life for people like me is pretty banal, and big shake-ups can be fascinating.

I overheard a more "forbidden" reaction a few weeks later at a get-together where everyone was, of course, talking about 9/11. One jackass' main concern was that the Taliban had spiked the US's cocaine supply with poison or Anthrax.

i think that those cokeheads main concern should be that the US cocaine supply is tainted with levamisole hydrochloride, which can cause immune system collapse.

should *have* been, sorry.

my 9/11: forbidden thot is that the whole subject is incredibly boring and i never want to hear anything about it ever again

really

question mark

yea rly. and maybe my "boredom" is just a way of deflecting anxiety or something, i dunno, but i'm just not interested. if i pick up a novel, no matter who it's by, and see a blurb on the back noting that it "wresteles with the legacy of 9/11" or whatever, i immediately put it down and move along. shit makes my eyes glaze over, like sports scores or soap opera digest.

My forbidden thought, 9/11 is all about American exceptionalism.

Yes, the death toll was very, very large for such a brief event, and the collapse of the WTC was unprecedented, in that 110 storey skyscrapers had never been destroyed before, mainly because there were so few of them. But viewed as a civic disaster, or as an attack on civilians, or as a deadly event, or through any gneralized lens or frame of reference, it is just one amid dozens and dozens of similar events in the past century.

What makes it so obssessive to modern Americans is that we do not expect to be attacked by our enemies in our "homeland". It is nearly unthinkable. This is also at the core of the Cold War hysteria, once the Russian Reds had The Bomb. And why we spend so fucking much on "defense".

The entire Eastern hemisphere has suffered so many wars, disasters and hatreds that they must find our reactions to 9/11 somewhat incomprehensible.

yeah my forbidden thought follows the line of jesse's in that i had the "thrill of the nonbanal," but even more than that i sensed a weird and perverse kind of disappointment when i realized it wasnt going to get worse, that no more planes were gonna crash and the immediate drama was over.

u are all disgusting human beings obv

maybe not so much a forbidden thought as much as an observation; as someone who works in documentary TV, it really seems like 9/11 is the "boy meets girl" for the entire genre. i.e. "what's our story angle gonna be about these cheese crumpets?" "well i had a shop on wall street on 9/11..." "WE'VE GOT A STORY!"

but even more than that i sensed a weird and perverse kind of disappointment when i realized it wasnt going to get worse, that no more planes were gonna crash and the immediate drama was over.

I actually felt the same thing, and I suspect a lot of people did even if they wouldn't admit it. really well put.

like, I wonder even if some of the more war-mongering types I've encountered, who had really strong reactions - even though they didn't personally know anyone who died nor ever spent time in NYC - were really just trying to hang onto the strong emotions they felt that day.

but even more than that i sensed a weird and perverse kind of disappointment when i realized it wasnt going to get worse, that no more planes were gonna crash and the immediate drama was over.

I actually felt the same thing, and I suspect a lot of people did even if they wouldn't admit it. really well put.

Completely know where you're coming from, i couldn't believe what i was seeing, but was kinda disappointed when it ended so quickly.
I still look for new footage and i'm equally as shocked when i see something new even though it's been such a long time.

my first reaction to the planes hitting the towers was one of amazed amusement. i marvelled at the spectacle. was suprised how much it looked the same as what it would have looked like had it been a movie. then i thought about what it meant and what had actually happened - i didn't actually know what the WTC was but i knew an airliner and a tall building would certainly have a large number of people within them - and was bummed. watching the constant coverage i soon grew bored, just speculation and endless replays, telling you less than nothing. i went and played counterstrike.

I immediately thought about how this might benefit Bush. not really an appropriate time for partisan fearmongering, but I hated him even then.

I remember saying something like "we're fucked" b/c W. was our president. At that time I wasn't even paying much attention to him, but I guess it would be hard to not at least be aware that he is a fuck-up.

Is it surprising to anyone else how there are pretty much NO photos or videos of body parts and other carnage? Sometimes I think that it's a case mass self-censorship (I mean that in a good way).

There are photos of body parts and carnage. Believe me, you don't want to see them.

I worked at a photo agency at the time (just down the street from the towers as a matter of fact).
What a human being looks like after falling 100 stories is nothing you want in your mind.

wait wait wait, when did HOOS return?

I'm just surprised that those photos haven't leaked and become more widely available. Not that I want to see them.

Now that I think of it, another "forbidden" thought I had on 9/11 was a curiosity about the carnage.

HOOS was zorn_bond.mp3 and is now back under his old name temporarily

DUMPLINGS! - just out of curiosity (not to be a dick, honestly), but did you forget you had posted the Taliban-spiking-cocaine story in the thread revive when you mentioned it again 40 minutes later? I ask because I did the same thing the other day and it struck me as a sort of exclusively ILX-related symptom

I don't know why it capitalized your name that way. I didn't write it that way, with the exclamation point. Weird.

basically there is no way i ever want to see anything more about 9/11 footage-wise and i'm leaving the actual carnage to the imagination forever. not a fan of fiction or cinema or music that "grapples" with 9/11 either or inserts it in as the big foreboding event to come or the event from the past driving the narrative.

Omar just summed it all up for me.

also when i have seen footage on tv in recent years, they always--no matter what it is--do something like show the plane flying towards the south tower and then fade or freeze before the impact, or show a person slipping or jumping from an open window and then doing the same thing. that kind of refinement weirds me out.

WTF. When I posted it the second time I thought I had only been thinking about it or that I had said it aloud to someone earlier. I'm pushing 36 here, so cut me some slack!

On ILX the word DUMPLINGS! automatically gets capitalized and exclamation pointed. That's not a joke, it's true.

well it's actually a joke too

Omar is OTM, but I can't stop imagining what happened inside the towers. I think a lot about the stockbroker checking his e-mail in his corner office, glimpsing out of the corner of his eye an airplane flying across midtown Manhattan. I try to put myself into the shoes of someone who 60 seconds later became human remains on a sidewalk and conjure up what their last thoughts may have been.

These people are like JFK. Fifty years later, there will be talk and movies and discussion and rude gifs4you, and Kennedy's the only one who has no idea what happened next. The Pentagon, Flight 93, Bush, Anthrax, Iraq, Afghanistan, no Cokes on airplane flights.... all those people in the first tower knew was that their lives were about to end. And then nothing.

It's like I'm writing horrible slash fiction in my head, which I figure qualifies as a 9/11 Forbidden Thought. But I can't help it.

yeah, PP's first paragraph applies to me, too.

I remember saying something like "we're fucked" b/c W. was our president.

i went through a roller-coaster on this emotionally. the day of the attack, i wished that clinton was still president (especially watching the footage the next day of him comforting people in NYC). a few days later, i was impressed with how GWB handled himself -- perfect for the moment (arm draped over the firefighter, megaphone in hand, talking to the crowd). then, there was the unfortunate next 7 years of his tenure.

WTF. When I posted it the second time I thought I had only been thinking about it or that I had said it aloud to someone earlier. I'm pushing 36 here, so cut me some slack!

I'm 35 and this just happened to me a couple of days ago as well. I don't know what to make of it.

Anyway - I remember on that morning I has just arrived to work in Midtown Manhattan and after they closed our building, I had to walk home to Brooklyn (along with hundreds or thousands of other people). At some point I realized I was walking alongside someone I admired from a band I liked. I got kind of excited for a couple of minutes, then I felt really guilty. Whenever I hear that band, ever since then, I can only think of that morning.

My other memory was stopping somewhere near the Brooklyn Bridge and buying a smoothie from a shop that was open. I also felt guilty about that.

A celeb sighting in NYC on 9/11 would be sort of surreal.

vaguely vaughn meader moment - i was working at wuxtry, this record store in town, and i remember this local synthpop band 'i am the world trade center' were supposed to play a show that weekend, and we were talking and wondering 'so...what are they gonna do?' and our boss suggesting ppl should go to the show and throw paper airplanes at them and this is pretty definitely the first time i was able to laugh 'at' 9/11. this would've been on 9/12.

After going through the initial shock/sadness/rage -- not just at what happened, but also at the coming racist bullshitstorm headed towards people of Middle Eastern descent in the US -- I was glad that I'd bought an import copy of Mercury Rev's All Is Dream the previous Sunday (it was released in the US on 9/11), so that I didn't automatically associate those songs with 9/11. But I do anyway.

This isn't really a "forbidden thought" but I just want to write down somewhere that in spite of all my good sense I've been having this terrible, anxious, irritable feeling all day and thinking "something bad is going to happen" without realizing what day it was, and I even had this very bizarre moment at my daughter's preschool orientation where there was one dude who for some reason just looked slightly shady and undadlike to me and I had this dumb thought "maybe he has a gun" and then my veins started pounding and I could feel heat coming off my neck.

I think actually the Syrian refugee stories are affecting me as much as anything (though it's all connected), just keep thinking about the tenuous nature of our society and all that fun stuff.

i work less than a mile from the WTC now, really hope i don't run into a single commemorative thing all day tomorrow, and really think the USA needs to get the motherfuck over it after 14 years.

i've also convinced myself that going down to Brooklyn Heights that evening and breathing in the dust eventually gave me cancer, so there's that.

I keep thinking about how the onslaught of "I had just stepped inside after walking my dog when suddenly I heard the news" posts are about to pop up again tomorrow and cringing.

I actually forgot all about 9/11 and not a single person I know has mentioned it.

I mean er, I forgot thats what today was.

I keep thinking about how the onslaught of "I had just stepped inside after walking my dog when suddenly I heard the news" posts are about to pop up again tomorrow and cringing.

If people still need to work through shit 14 years after the fact, I'm not gonna shut them down. I was 900 miles away in Nashville where nothing happened and I still think about that day all the time.

Everyday life for people like me is pretty banal, and big shake-ups can be fascinating.

Truth. The huge electricity shut-down/blackout of 2003 was a pure guilty pleasure in that way. I was grateful that there hadn't been a attack or a massive loss of life so I could just enjoy the hell outta the disruption.

That poor Columbia crew. I remember watching that white streak across a blue sky one Saturday morning and thinking, Motherfuck, they got that one too.

And then when it turns out that it wasn't terrorism, just a 20-year-old space plane on the wrong side of its warranty, everyone just went whew! and went about their lives. But no one temporarily banned the word "space" from sitcoms or took Ziggy Stardust off the radio like they did in '86.

If people still need to work through shit 14 years after the fact, I'm not gonna shut them down. I was 900 miles away in Nashville where nothing happened and I still think about that day all the time.

― Johnny Fever, Friday, September 11, 2015 8:16 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

People can do what they gotta do, I'm not going to attempt to tell them they're silly for it or try and stop them from doing it. I just won't read them or participate myself because to me, it's tiresome. doesn't mean I wasn't transfixed with fear when it happened and that I don't still lament the trickle down effects of what happened years later!

I'm certainly not claiming victim status or ptsd or anything, generally I am
pretty nonchalant about the day. And I regret our response to it more than I regret the event itself. But I guess deep down something about it scares the crap out of me, return of the repressed etc

I think for me 9/11 (combined with the disastrous) and Katrina (combined with the disastrous response) are these twin events that also coincide with my dad having health problems and losing his job (even though I was in my 20s and not dependent on him) that just generally upended my sense of ease in the world, building into the financial crisis.

Basically living in W's America really undermined my illusions of security.

Anyway, here is a creepy memorial from Somerville NJ that I often think of:

http://img.groundspeak.com/waymarking/large/26a51946-d1f2-45a3-a131-d04918d8de35.jpg

This is probably terrible, but my abiding memory of 9/11 is some kid in front of me in the queue at an independent dvd/video rental business in Dewsbury saying "Fucking 'ell, t'news is going to be on all neet now!"

I am so fucking happy Facebook didn't exist on 9/11

even without it, being in college in FL I was daily pelted with

1) the fake Nostradamus quotes that *predicted* 9/11 getting circulated
2) the assloads of chain emails I got about upcoming 'terror' attacks ie at the mall
3) people saying Afghan citizens weren't innocent because they should have overthrown their government
4) everybody predicting WWIII

https://scontent-lga1-1.cdninstagram.com/hphotos-xaf1/t51.2885-15/e35/11899615_1488864238080626_1386440220_n.jpg

Apologies for the size. This is from The 80s: A Look Back at the Tumultuous Decade 1980-1989, published in 1979.

i don't think that's such a "forbidden" thought. everyone knew -- that day -- that 09.11.01 drew a line between the sunny 90s and the darker new century.

don't really think everyone knew this. i didn't. i thought people would be freaked out about it for a month or so and after that it would no longer be something that people thought of as a big deal. i told a friend this and he was like "you're crazy, this is a major historical event" and in retrospect my friend was right and i was wrong. i was almost 100 miles away from new york and it felt like a pretty normal day. in retrospect you read articles that say "amazingly, there were some people so inhuman and weird that they just did their job as normal that day" but that's what i did and so did everybody else at my job. so maybe that was my forbidden thought, not having a lot of thoughts.

I recall feeling like it was a definite "line in the sand" type day mostly because it felt so open-ended, it felt like it could be the first in a line of succession of attacks against us. the word 'surreal' was used a lot that day and I remember being terrified that we'd be attacked again in coming weeks or that the attacks would be used to justify some heinous behavior on our end (and we know how that turned out).

work was still on (I was off, but I stopped in to get my schedule), but the play I was doing at the time cancelled rehearsal and I think school was closed. I recall being pleasantly relieved that there was no follow-up attack within the month, there was so much disinformation going around.

http://i61.tinypic.com/2gv3khd.jpg

I think those of us in NY are going through the motions now with commemoration. 10 years was something, and 20 will be something less.

In terms of forbidden thoughts: I had dreams for months after of looking out my window (29th floor, FIDI) and watching buildings crumble without explanation. In my dreams, it was sort of inevitable, and sort of epic to see towers come down everywhere - almost like something that made me sad, but that I knew was coming. The Villalobos remix of Shackleton's Blood on my Hands seemed to, eerily enough, capture this dazed sense almost exactly. It wasn't unexciting - when I was quickly walking uptown from Reade St to Central Park that morning, there was part of me that hoped for many more strikes. The Empire State Building seemed like a natural candidate, and I kept it in view while listening to radio reports on my walkman (and yes, this was Walkman era).

Some time in the year after 9/11 I remember being on an NJTransit train with a young co-worker who happened to be Pakistani and I guess we were having a little too loud a conversation about Bush and I said that Bush "basically got lucky with 9/11" -- oh man you could feel the hardness of the stares.

lmao maresnest

https://celebrity.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/melissa-joan-hart-blasts-9-11-news-coverage-if-kardashians-can-be-covered-24-7-why-can-t-the-victims-get-one-day-160055763.html

Actress Melissa Joan Hart — a staunch conservative who has appeared on Fox News — called out the network, as well as CNN, for not having continuous coverage of the Sept. 11 memorial on Friday, the 14th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

Making a good point, Hart, who does a lot of work with military wives, said that one calendar day should be dedicated to the victims, especially since we live in a time when 365 days of the year are devoted to the Kardashians.

for some reason this strikes me as the most annoying opinion imaginable

lol what a dolt

I don't profess to speak for any of the families of the victims buuuuuut I'd wager not all of them necessarily want what Hart is demanding.

also fuck Clarissa, she should live inside Kim's ass

also, MSNBC already does a real-time rerun of 9/11 every year, which I find pretty distasteful and pointless and creepy. i mean, anyone is free to go on youtube and watch the networks as it happened.

doc's waiting room tv had a History channel thing abt 9/11 yesterday & everyone was watching it & there was this one dude who *stood* & watched it & i just wanted to run out of the room

i don't mind the memorials & remembrances & i still get legit upset thinking abt the people & rescuers in that building

...but there's something about the *idea* of 9/11 & everything packed into that idea that just feels so fetishized now, people go right back there in a heartbeat, camp out there & idk it creeps me out a little now

Emotional pornography

and my other forbidden thought is comparing the national shame of domestic terrorism ie Oklahoma City bombing

no 4.19 memorials or a twenty year special, 168 lives lost there, no war to show for it. those ppl were all just going to work too, i wish we honored them more than they are

idk apples to oranges but it sticks in my brain sometimes

on one hand 9/11 seems recent but on the other hand, it's been 14 years. 14 years after pearl harbor WW2 had been finished for ten years and the korean war had come and gone, too. people still cling to it because it was just such a fucked up event psychologically, combining 3 or 4 major nightmarish fears into one horrible mess.

true

i didn't know exactly what had happened till after the school day was over, but i remember a kid in one of my classes who had seen the attacks on the news saying "another plane crashed into the other tower while they were filming it. it was awesome!"

so "it was awesome!" was basically the first thing i heard about 9/11 and it still sticks with me

9/11 I was slow to react to, given that it was really the first time I started paying attention to current events (and well politics in general). I was so aloof and sleepwalking through my high school years that even when OKC happened, I knew it happened, but I couldn't have even recited the events even two years after it happened.

I also had to digest it fast because I slept through it (it was my only day off from school/work), only to be told what happened in a 2 minute summary by my mother.

I think my guilty thought was "how much is this going to fuck up the way we live for the immediate future?". Obviously I grieved for the people who died and I was terrified as hell (I remember being afraid to drive to Arby's to get lunch!). but I remembered wondering about how the landscape was about to change.

I think the rampant thought policing that some were guilty of (including my father) made me feel guilty for taking any pleasure in those ensuing weeks. It felt like no matter how far from the event we got, someone was always saying "how can you think of <object> when two of our buildings just fell?". we cracked innocent jokes on 9/11 not because we found it silly but we were scared and trying to cope.

Nowadays, it just feels overblown to me. I don't agree with Morbs that America should just "get over it" per se, but outside of a moment of silence or w/e, I don't get the watching hours of 9/11 themed programming or having ceremonies every year. Yes, it was a big deal, but largely because we'd been shielded from events like this that are a daily reality in other countries (although this was a pretty large-scale effort by any measure, obv).

I also resented the "9/11 brought the country together" narrative and talked of the unity of the nation in the days following. I felt like any 'unity' was short-lived. I really felt like it brought a lot of ugly out of the civilian population - what with the civilians who committed "revenge" murders against people they thought were Arabs in the days following, people who used it as excuses for xenophobia, etc.

like we were all back to hating each other's guts by the weekend!

Everyone pretty otm.

At a free library in a newstand in Chicago once I found a pamphlet containing the testimony of mastermind of the whole thing (KSM) and it was weird, he seemed to see himself as somewhat stylized after the American forefathers. He thought of the American Revolutionary War freedom fighters as admirable historical figures.

al-Nami obvs, and maaaaayyyyybe al-Ghamdi, but the rest of these dudes? I mean, you can kinda see why they ended up hijacking a plane.

9/11 is a marking point before which 1984 seemed like shocking dystopian fiction and after which like passe retro futurism. All kind of inalienable rights and foundational truths being casually tossed in the trash, publicly, and if you didn't like it, you weren't a real American.

"Team America World Police" and "Fahrenheit 911" were both left wing band-aids but I think ultimately did more harm than good in normalizing the new America. Nowadays "Murica!" is a ironic/kitsch embrace of that post-9/11 hipster nationalism, enabling a generation of leftists to shrug their shoulders and put it out of mind. The right continues to lead the Zombie US towards their self-conceived Judgement Day while the left holds a "I'm with stupid ->" poster.

the left doesn't seem able to muster up much of a reaction to the right, it seems to begin and end with reposting john stewart oliver daily show rants on facebook and saying "this." There's not enough anger.

Anyway 9/11 is odd bc it's not something that frightens me as possibly occurring again, it just lives in my memory as this really horrific one off. And also as the window of opportunity the US had to prove we weren't douchebags but then of course we blew that opportunity good.

we should never ever ever "get over it." that's a fucking awful thing to say.

u must be new here

http://thatgrapejuice.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/dj-khaled-that-grape-juice.png

"Team America World Police" and "Fahrenheit 911" were both left wing band-aids

Yeah the movie that posited Michael Moore as a suicide bomber trying to kill the only people protecting America, and Alec Baldwin, Matt Damon et al. as members of an all-powerful actors' cabal called "F.A.G." was a left wing band aid. Good job apprehending culture as usual, Bruneau.

I watched the second plane hit live, I had came back from an open day at a university, it was afternoon britishes time, my first reaction was woah awesome until i thought oh yeah skyscraper and plane there must be so many dead then II felt p remorseful

Haha yeah team america world police is an apology for US foreign policy. found it pretty funny but vile politically. Not for nothing is south park republican a thing on the internet

I never took Team America that way.

Like, the whole "dick-pussy-asshole" speech has been quoted ad infinitum by glibertarian and right wings warmongers since the movie came out.

I see your point. At the time though (I've only seen it once, in the theater, on release) it felt like an antidote to self serious Mission Accomplished nationalism.

otm w glibertarian

In another interview, Parker and Stone further clarified the end of the film which seems to justify the role of the United States as the "World Police."[33]

Because that's the thing that we realized when we were making the movie. It was always the hardest thing. We wanted to deal with this emotion of being hated as an American. That was the thing that was intriguing to us, and having Gary [the main character] deal with that emotion. And so, him becoming ashamed to be a part of Team America and being ashamed of himself, he comes to realize that, just as he got his brother killed by gorillas — he didn't kill his brother; he wasn't a dick, he wasn't an asshole — so too does America have this role in the world as a dick. Cops are dicks, you fucking hate cops, but you need 'em.

as with most movies, the filmmakers' insights don't really matter to me

nor do the stuff dumb idiots take from it. some people probably took "slavery, fuck yeah!" at face value, too.

I watched the second plane hit live, I had came back from an open day at a university

exact same for me, don't suppose it was uuuuuh actually i've forgotten, strathclyde i think?

Anybody else get recurring bomb threats at their college in the days after? We had at least two in our library

No I actually still drove to school that morning and every class was just 4 or 5 students and the teacher looking sad and cancelling class. I ended up hanging out with my best friends and we went bowling and I'm not sure if that place was closed or not but it is always good to be with the people you love in the face of such horror.

we should never ever ever "get over it." that's a fucking awful thing to say.

I think as we've killed a few hundred thousand people who had nothing to do with it in response, we should PARTICULARLY get the moth-er-fuck over it.

It is the killing that we should get over.

so true, and out of respect for lost lives I will not trench that

I also resented the "9/11 brought the country together" narrative and talked of the unity of the nation in the days following. I felt like any 'unity' was short-lived. I really felt like it brought a lot of ugly out of the civilian population - what with the civilians who committed "revenge" murders against people they thought were Arabs in the days following, people who used it as excuses for xenophobia, etc.

like we were all back to hating each other's guts by the weekend!

― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Saturday, September 12, 2015 4:54 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This reminds me that shortly after the Iraq war began I went to work at a small newspaper in New Jersey, and I learned of but was unable to write about a little french cafe that began to suffer from harassment and reduced business during the "freedom fries" episode -- eggings, people yelling shit out of car windows, etc. The owners were an American Vietnam Vet and his Vietnamese wife.

(was unable to write about because the owners didn't want any more attention and I couldn't really write the story without being able to quote them anyway)

oh christ, the "Freedom fries" debacle.

it really was a drag to be alive in the US in 2003-2004.

Yeah, I mean it's really as much or more that kind of shit vs 9/11 itself that shook my sense of security in the world, sort of like realizing you're on a ship with no captain and no course.

Coalition of the Willing would make a good Depeche Mode album.

Would not like Australian PM John Howard's solos on that

It's going to be a real drag to live in the US from 2018-end

we'd have ya but I'm worried you might be a little too catholic tbh

we should never ever ever "get over it."

I'm not sure what it would look or feel like to obey this dictum, but it strikes me as unnecessarily absolute, especially since the ceaseless wars, the Patriot Act, the xenophobia, and all the other 'responses' to the attacks have affected my life much more directly and much more negatively than the original attacks ever did.

Thinking of 9/11 makes me rather wish that our leaders had showed a lot more wisdom and far less naked political opportunism afterward. Maybe if we finally "got over it", we could disengage our emotions long enough to walk back a few of the stupider, uglier and more harmful consequences of that day.

oh christ, the "Freedom fries" debacle.

it really was a drag to be alive in the US in 2003-2004.

― Hammer Smashed Bagels, Sunday, September 13, 2015 3:20 AM (Yesterday)

yeah the lead-up to the iraq invasion is the single most horrible time in recent history for me, just an endless stream of idiots defending the indefensible basically everywhere you looked, ppl you'd normally think of as sensible and decent buying into the bush horrorshow. and all these years later i still run into ppl who are like "well, they attacked us first!"

it was a dark fucking time

remember that time george w bush won an election because he was the ceo president who just needed to delegate effectively because we were approaching the end of history and permanent prosperity? that was awesome.

it's disconcerting for me personally cuz on a personal level things were p great for me between 2000-2008 (marriage, first child born, busy w cool stuff etc.) but then on the macro level everything was such a colossal fucking bummer

I participated in 2 anti-war protests on campus in 2003. The level of vitriol spewed at those participating was nothing liked I'd ever seen. Strangers came up and screamed at us. Everywhere I went, some friend or acquaintance was talking nasty rhetoric about "anti war protesters" without realizing I was one. I was depressed knowing that the war was going to fuck both our country and Iraq up in terms of lost lives and destroyed economies, and nothing anybody was going to say was going to change it.

The delusions of pro-war supporters amazed me. I was at work at a retail store the day Saddam was caught and everybody kept coming up to me, excited, that we caught him. A radio deejay talked about how she was finally convinced the war would end (when by that point he was a figurehead and little more).

the freedom fries thing was insult to injury. You got your war, now you're bringing xenophobia and nauseating nationalism into it over fabricated wounds.

If there was ever an option to have lived in a cave with a fully furnished fridge, air conditioning, and no phone or television, 2003-2004 was it.

i had some horrible piece of shit middle aged woman go off at me on a flight from SF to London around this time because she (correctly) sensed i was anti- the war and went on this crazy bizarre mental voyage that meant i was anti-war because it was cool and the cool kids hated her in high school and they were all anti-vietnam and they were on drugs and so on and so on. she was sat next to me, and we only interacted because i showed this dumb piece of shit how to make movies come on the screen and she saw the book i was reading or something and started just being really vile and personal and nasty and i lost it and told her she was an awful piece of shit and that i could not talk to her any longer and just put my earphones on and ignored her for the next ten or so hours. like i was about to scream at her. it escalated so quickly, and i don't think i was to blame.

from SF!!

http://s17.postimg.org/6rkr08lpb/Screen_Shot_2015_09_13_at_11_07_23_PM.png

Islam is a cult that does not co-exist with other muslims. Can't argue with that logic!

never trust a Geer

yeah im really upset we didnt kill all 1.5 billion muslims 'while we were there'

odds are p good that this is the type of guy who when challenged even weakly, starts backpedaling and shouting things like "AIN"T I ENTITLED TO MY OPINION"

someone set us up the 9/11

hand me the 9/11

No one remembers the Lusitania.

let alone the maine

The Guy from Devo Is Sorry About His Twin Towers-Shaped Wedding Cake, Which He Says Was a 'Set-Up'

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CO8eE-vW8AAmeuE.jpg

(Yes, those are box-cutter party favors.)

respek knuckles for the supremely bad taste of that

I get sick each year of everybody recounting where they were on 9/11. it feels like morbid pageantry

facebook friend was all "so can we be real about 9/11 not being a terorist attack now" and unironically talked abt jet fuel cant melt steel beams

for a minute i felt like a grossed-out david attenborough

"defriend"

I am so glad FB didn't exist on 9/11

the other 'forbidden thought' (which I"m sure I probably posted in years past) is everybody remembering the "solidarity" we felt in the aftermath. it was a mirage - everybody was back to fighting and being dicks within a week, they just maybe thought an extra .03 seconds before flipping you the bird.

in a way it kind of helped accelerate the polarization of the parties.

Wasn't like that in New York - goodwill extended well into 2002, maybe up until the invasion of Iraq.

I posted a joke on Facebook this morning based on the fact that 9/11/01 was also the release date of Nickelback's Silver Side Up album, but took it down after about 10 minutes.

People still talking about 9/11 I guess

when 9/11 happened, Bush had approval ratings in the 90s. despite not being popularly elected, and the turmoil that surrounded his election, the country more or less backed him up. they trusted his judgment. they wanted him to succeed. even the most trenchant Democrats were not willing to tear him down.

now contrast that with what you know in your heart would have happened had Obama been President on 9/11. half this country would have blamed him for it, either by suggesting incompetence or even collusion.

most likely collusion. fuck you social media.

shame on me i guess i didn't really give much of a fuck about W bush one way or another until AFTER he invaded Iraq

the other

People still talking about 9/11 I guess

― slathered in cream and covered with stickers (silly), Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:54 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

because it still feels like yesterday in many ways. the 9/11 era hasn't ended. we're still mired in the middle east, it's more unstable than ever, ISIS has outpaced Al Qaeda, people feel more vulnerable to terrorism. the payback/relief/release that we've been waiting for for fifteen years hasn't come yet. everything is worse than it was on 9/11. the psyche of the country is so fractured and schizophrenic - trump is assisted suicide.

update on idiot fb "friend"... I couldnt stand just unfriending or hiding so posted a comment like "You have got to be fucking kidding me with this bullshit" and the meme of matrix morpheus saying jet fuel cant melt steel beams

he deleted his whole post, comments and all

:D

good. jet fuel can't melt steel beams drives me fucking nuts. stuff like that and the walmart coke case memorial feel like a kick in the head. i know this happens in time (thinking of a photo i saw of a inflated waterslide designed as the capsizing Titanic), but so soon...

I get sick each year of everybody recounting where they were on 9/11. it feels like morbid pageantry

― Neanderthal, Sunday, September 11, 2016 2:52 PM (yesterday)

i don't mind hearing these stories from ppl who were actually in new york or d.c. when it happened, but i get a little sick of the "i was 17...i was working at radio shack, we just watched the news all day...never forget!!" posts from ppl who weren't anywhere near the attacks and didn't know anyone involved, and who seem weirdly eager to think of themselves as part of "the story" of 9/11, as if they could somehow elevate themselves into it just cuz they were alive when it happened and watched it on tv just like everybody else

also find myself wanting to respond to some of the "never forget!" posts i see on fb by asking if we couldn't take a moment also to honor all the ppl who died (and are still dying, every week) as a result of our miserable response to 9/11, but fb disputes are one of the worst ways to spend your online time

huh, so salon was cancerous shit back in 2002 as well

"i don't mind hearing these stories from ppl who were actually in new york or d.c."

Before It Was Cool

great point about "morbid pageantry," although I was relieved that this year there didn't seem to be much discussion on social media, or people posting pictures of the towers exploding. probably because it was sunday. for people who lived in nyc and dc at the time, it really does still feel like unfinished business. it just burns me every year, i get really fucking sad/angry if i pay attention. luckily yesterday i just checked out and didn't pay attention to the internet.

Someone I was hanging out with yesterday was complaining about businesses that hadn't half-masted their flags. I had to be like "it's FUCKING SUNDAY."

as a non-american the idea of businesses flying flags at all is just as weird and upsetting as not half-masting them tbh

Stay Puft

How do you know where to buy cars in your land?

http://geneseesun.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/102214flag02.jpg

http://www.kvewtv.com/media/photologue/photos/cache/flag_2_display_large.jpg

http://sfcitizen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/7J7C8675-copy.jpg

Or buy delicious food?

http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/da73682eab694b7b95efb12658cfe818/us-flag-flying-together-with-mc-donalds-fast-food-restaurant-flag-ayr759.jpg

http://l1.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/7k7j0eJpdc3BJrrYY9a_Bg--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9MzAyO2g9NDUwO2lsPXBsYW5l/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/Reuters/2013-11-20T002336Z_1_CBRE9AJ013M00_RTROPTP_2_USA.JPG.cf.jpg

http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/browbeat/2014/05/01/taco_bell_seasoned_beef_explainer_why_fast_food_chains_should_add_more_filler/72763825-new-hyde-park-united-states-a-united-states-flag-flies.jpg.CROP.promo-mediumlarge.jpg

"i don't mind hearing these stories from ppl who were actually in new york or d.c."

Oh, man, I got in an argument on FB last year about something to do with profiling Muslims or somesuch with a right-wing aunt of mine, and one of her comments was, "Well, you'll feel differently when the bodies are on your doorstep." I rpelied, "On Sept. 11 my office was one Metro stop from the Pentagon. A co-worker of mine watched Flight 77 crash into it from the freeway. You live in Painesville fucking Ohio. I've been closer to the bodies than you will ever be."

The sanctimony about 9/11 from the jingoists is a never-ending source of disgust to me.

An Aunt making shitty comments on Facebook you don't say!

For real what is with Aunts, those cartoon minions and social media? Move over, daytime television.

http://i.imgur.com/HOJgY1P.jpg

jesus fucking got to be kidding me christ.

Despicable Me was released in 2010 -- how old was Bob when it was filmed?

Phil D -- call me curious but what exactly did said right-wing aunt say in response to that, anyway.

Never Forget The Six Minions

Ned, she said absolutely bupkis. Even my right-wing relatives know when they've been checkmated. Not that it changed her politics any, but she at least knows not to treat me like some naif.

Van Gogh's 9/11 is oddly beautiful
https://deepart-io.s3.amazonaws.com/cache/c9/5f/c95f8a1e6880f10446a250ad10618f71.jpg
https://deepart-io.s3.amazonaws.com/cache/61/38/6138975d087461136c28eaab6f6aee48.jpg

deepart to honor the departed

omg

a girl i used to date is like 2 ft away from sincere affirmation that jet fuel can't melt steel beams in one of her fb friends' comments

When all this first happened there was a lot of unedited audio and video floating around the net that's probably since been heavily redacted.

My friend N made a cool electronic/noise piece of music, that had a sample in it of a guy screaming "OH GOD NO". I got him to play the full audio he'd sampled it from and it was this obnoxious, angry trader from one of the stockmarket firms up on the top floors, who had called 911 and was abuseively demanding people come rescue them.

... until the building started to collapse, while he was still on the call, and he screamed that out, til the call cut out.

The forbidden thought here being I couldnt stop thinking about it and wanted to keep listening to it. It made me feel weird.

(its possible I misremember some of the content btw, I couldn't bring myself to listen to something like that anymore but for months after all this happened I became obsessed with rewatching footage and reading survivor stories).

oh god, i know what you're talking about. it's horrific. i saw it paired with video of the tower collapsing. easily piece of 9/11 documentation i've ever come across.

i just remembered that i learned the word "debris" on 9/11

Sanders-supporting dude in my feed who is all "I'd rather Trump win than Hillary" dropped some heavy tower 7 conspiracy science over the weekend

Makes me kind of glad everyone I know pays zero attention to politics.

every once in a while i drive myself a little crazy thinking of the alternate history where after 9/11 the U.S. military is speedily sent to the Middle East to help build hospitals, schools, dams, and water treatment plants. it is, perhaps, the most forbidden thought of all...

'Where were you on 9/11' stories are a lot like dream accounts, or stories about kids; everyone wants to tell them, but nobody wants to listen to them.

t-bomb

Was scrolling thru fb and one of my distant cousins posted this super eye catching pic of towers on fire taken from Brooklyn Bridge, all iconic an shit, and it was SO jarring and unnecessary. Followed by 50 "I was on my way to work in Muskegon, Michigan, when I heard the news on the radio" posts, and I succumbed to a fit of pique and wrote an irate follow up like "I was in New York Fucking City." What IS it with people halfway across the country?? Nm I know what it is but ffs

My 9/11 story is almost so banal that I could probably write it as a sort of deadpan humorous short story. I was in New Brunswick, NJ and my housemates and I actually sort of hesitantly drove to a supermarket to buy some water and food (I think at the urging of one of my housemates' parents?) while feeling completely ridiculous and not actually afraid, and later after a bar trip I wound up in bed with my ex. I also watched the TV news in a lebanese cafe because I didn't have a TV.

I do have one embarrassing 9/11-related memory though, which is that I wrote a very earnest, hand-wringy op-ed for a student newspaper about how maybe there was too much doubting of the government going on at such an urgent time. Yeeeuch!

hardly anyone was in dallas when kennedy was shot by aliens. same sorta thing really. i was definitely devastated in philly and remember every emotionally excruciating inch of that day pretty clearly.

i had to work all day. it sucked. i felt so sick. and i remember glaring at people coming in to buy cigarettes or whatever if they were laughing with a friend. or if they were just acting normal in any way. it reminded me of when i was working and my mom called me to say that my sister had died and i still had to work all day after talking to her on the phone. i was too fucked up to call my boss and tell him i had to go home.

that's my anecdote! i shared it here instead of facebook. you are very welcome.

(i also broke the news to tons of people who came in the store that day who somehow hadn't heard about it and none of them could really believe me...)

This thread is always a heavy read, then and now.

What were you doing when you found out about the WTC?

this is crazy from one of those ILX threads:

NEW YORK, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York on Tuesday morning, causing huge explosions and killing at least six people, television said.
CNBC television said there were at least a thousand injured.

https://www.depop.com/en-us/bigmatt300/phat-pharm-twin-towers-short

Seems as good a place as any to post this from Chris Korda, the transgendered founder of the Church of Euthanasia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vorisrBfdTs

The forbidden thought here being I couldnt stop thinking about it and wanted to keep listening to it. It made me feel weird.

― Stoop Crone (Trayce), Tuesday, September 13, 2016 12:03 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I listened to this audio just now out of curiosity and it positively terrified me....

Theres something visceral in his screams that are just ... I cant.

i almost got into a fight at a cuban restaurant on the night of 9/11 when some kids were laughing at the falling man and saying "who's so stupid they jump out of a building"
fwiw, i was downtown and watched the second tower go down from west 4th and 7th ave. i have some stories but so does everyone.

In a few centuries, give or take, this is going to be the beloved holiday figure who gives children gifts. pic.twitter.com/cTwHbAzRTr

— Jacob Bacharach (@jakebackpack) September 11, 2017

Saw this on LinkedIn and thought it was a parody.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJccPTdUEAI2lqv.jpg

Lol amazing revive and follow

O_o

holy shit at that linkedin post

It never occurred to me before that some people's idea of heaven would still have capitalism in it

Angels gotta eat

Jesus

It never occurred to me before that some people's idea of heaven would still have capitalism in it

Have you been to New York?

I gotta admit i get sucked into it in NYC.

i was a Gold member on Marriott due to work trips and my Times Square hotel gave me a key card to the Executive Lounge and I came a little

I sorry I shared that

you and Ted Cruz commemorating 9/11 in the same way

ha hahaa uughgh ew.

Lol sic

Never forget

hell yeah

it never occurred to me before that some people's idea of heaven would still have capitalism in it

― ultros ultros-ghali, Tuesday, September 12, 2017 11:04 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

favorite post of the week

nine eleven

you know the voice you just read that in

ludacris

https://i.imgur.com/63mKF9S.mp4

https://i.imgur.com/EWlQMik.gif

Pretty sure I saw 9/11: Forbidden Thoughts among the erotic kindle novels listed on Amazon

heh heh 'twin towers' heh

is there a real time ILX 9/11 thread? i remember reading through the something awful one and finding it interesting

yeah, there were a couple:

https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=1723

https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=1724

v strange and eerie to read these now

i tried rereading some of the election night 2016 thread a while back and had to stop because it was giving me a mild panic attack

I went back to the very top of the Onion thread and realized it was started by Ned the week after 9/11.

wow, disturbing stuff. i also re-read the 2016 election thread... i don't think many nights are as etched into my memory as that one unfortunately. probably because i was 12 or 13 for 9/11?

Weird timing, I re-read this thread over the weekend

Ilx is watching you

The weirdest ones are the 2008 primary threads, hard to wrap my head around that being 10 years ago

My life held such promise (j/k it didn't)

I started looking at those threads and it's too fucking traumatic. What a horrible, nightmarish day.

Almost makes you believe jet fuel really could melt steel girders.

Yeah we had a whole series of threads. ILX had the perverse advantage of being up and running when just about every news site as such had crashed. I pretty much was on there all day with the exception of going into work and back.

Same.

Was I here? All I remember was crowding in the break room on base and we were trying to figure out who were getting to go to war with. And marching in formation everywhere with extra dorks on duty with loaded weapons because we were at FPCON Delta.

I think I remember posting on ILX in 2001, but not much for those five months I was stuck in Texas, one of which was September.

I'll admit I was partly looking at those threads to see if I was posting here yet, but think I joined some months after.

I just pulled some people out of the WTC towers and saved their lives (193 new answers, last updated September 11th, 2001)

― and what, Sunday, May 27, 2007 7:06 AM (eleven years ago) Bookmark

I wasn't here that early.

Re forbidden thoughts: I just finished an otherwise very good book (which I won't name because to do so would be spoilery) and discovered that the author decided 9/11 was the perfect way to end the story and provide her protagonist with spiritual catharsis. Damn near ruined the thing for me. I had thought we were past that, especially in an otherwise hilarious novel that's all about solipsism, voluntary withdrawal from society 'cause people are annoying idiots, etc., etc.

The good old 'surprise, it's 9/11!' twist ending

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fawxN4fhA2Y

lol what the shit

I think I know what book unperson is talking about:

https://i.imgur.com/dYNj21W.jpg

Last 17 years would’ve gone much better if we as a nation had just taken 9/11 in stride

i was thinking that very thing the other day!

Sry dude it’s forbidden

fuck, we better turn ourselves in asap i guess

I am almost positive I was already lurking here at the time. Weirdly my most distinct board-related memory is Ned starting the "bless the Onion" thread. It was one of my first days of high school.

fucking up the Middle Eastern countries the administration wanted to fuck up anyway is kinda taking it in stride

I didn't find ILX till the fall of 2002. also during my first days of high school.

I wasn't on ILX until 2005. In 2001 I was hanging out on the now-defunct Salon Table Talk forums. For a while one could still read the real-time WTC stuff there. I did, once or twice, and the memory is vivid.

Of course I was also in a 3D world sitting in Arlington, Va. a mile and a half from the Pentagon. Parallel with the online flurry of revelations, real people kept coming into my office and giving breathless mostly-true updates. The amazing thing for me in retrospect was the slide from "wha? wtf? that was a strange accident" to "ok not an accident" to "omg this is a horrible human tragedy" to "o wait maybe these three other things are related."

Seems like that progression unfolded over several hours, with waves of information, whereas with a "Kennedy was shot" it was one thing to react to and all else was details about that thing.

I remember a woman crying next to me saying, "things just keeps happening, is it over or are there more things?" So it had a different trajectory from a single-point disaster like the Challenger or whatever.

I wasn't here that early.

Re forbidden thoughts: I just finished an otherwise very good book (which I won't name because to do so would be spoilery) and discovered that the author decided 9/11 was the perfect way to end the story and provide her protagonist with spiritual catharsis. Damn near ruined the thing for me. I had thought we were past that, especially in an otherwise hilarious novel that's all about solipsism, voluntary withdrawal from society 'cause people are annoying idiots, etc., etc.

On MYORAR

"things just keeps happening, is it over or are there more things?"

A couple of hours would go by and all of a sudden, the networks would have footage from a different angle to show 1000 times.

When they started showing the one from street level, where the second tower gets hit and a guy on the sidewalk casually glances up at it, one of the salesguys walked by and went, "WAIT! DID ANOTHER ONE JUST HIT?"

i was in community college at the time and i actually ended up going to school anyways for some reason. there were very few people there and the prof dismissed class.

pretty sure i was on ILX at the time. i was convinced it was WWIII. spent most of the day just comparing it to Pearl Harbor over and over. we didn't do that but what we did was just as shitty. Trump is basically the physical manifestation of how the US treated the world after that.

Your thoughtless erasure of Obama’s two terms is noted for the record.

oh im totally including all of his drones and artlessness spying and torturing in all of that

warantless

pretty amazing tho how i erased Obama's two terms by talking about an event that took place before them. so sly of me.

Lol I forgot I was talking to a mastermind

The imdb plot summary of that Remember Me movie is so sly.

A romantic drama set in New York City during the summer of 2001, where Tyler, a rebellious young man, meets Ally through a twist of fate. Her spirit helps him heal after a family tragedy, though soon the circumstances that brought them together threaten to tear them apart. Written by Anonymous

Love those romantic dramas set in New York City during the summer of 2001.

I was in high school. I excused myself to use the bathroom and walked past a bunch of teachers staring at a TV with their hands over their mouths. I remember hearing "how are they gonna get out of there?" When I returned to class I kinda froze at the front and said "uhhh guys, I think a bomb went off in New York"

xp I actually watched that whole movie. If I remember correctly, they tried to be a little sneaky in opening the film in 1991, and then flashing forward "ten years later." But I'm pretty sure it was obvious that it was coming. I love that chalkboard shot: "SEPTEMBER 11, 2001! DO U SEE NOW??"

if you wanna talk about a rollercoaster of a day, check out this dude:

My brother was at a bowling alley in western mass and he sent me this iconic photo of a dude who bowled a perfect game on 9/11 🙌🙌🙌 pic.twitter.com/6srCon1KMa

— jake bender (@JakeSBender) June 29, 2018

ugh

I’m glad there haven’t been that many movies or books or TV shows about 9/11 or use it for dramatic effect / suspense. Obviously there are lots, but not as many as I expected in the immediate aftermath.

Something that’s going to be really tough to deal with in the coming years (and the rest of my life) is how it will become trivialized and no longer taboo, as someone said upthread years ago. That awful “jet fuel steel beams” thing is only the beginning. Inevitable but really shitty nonetheless.

xp

lol @ bill moro's perfect game

Other 9/11 related plot twist movie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Stop_%28film%29?wprov=sfla1

xxpost: yeah, one of the weirder and sadder things about getting older is realizing that traumatic events you've lived through have become kind of a joke. i remember my entire high school observing a moment of silence after columbine and having a long discussion in class about it, and now there are kids who weren't even born then who post dylan klebold memes on tumblr.

Yeah. I’m sure I’ve said this before itt but it really hit me a few years ago when I saw a picture of a water slide shaped like the capsizing Titanic at a state fair or something. Jet fuel/steel beams and “Bush did 9/11” I really fucking hate, but I have to admit I find photoshopped images of the Twin Towers with bloodshot eyes getting ridiculously stoned extremely funny. Or the photo of Lower Manhattan after the collapse, just being devoured by dust and debris, and the caption “NEW YORK LEGALIZES MARIJUANA.”

Many of us did things like that to cope, i think

Last 17 years would’ve gone much better if we as a nation had just taken 9/11 in stride

― devops mom (silby), Tuesday, July 24, 2018 1:19 PM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've ranted about this before but the cruelest irony (if thats the right word) is the US had just elected an unqualified moron CEO president but it was not that big of a deal to some folks because it was the end of history.

"oh you're lying, it will just be the news on tv all fucking night now" was a response I heard to 9/11 in a Dewsbury video tape rental shop back then. he would have done a better job than Blair.

I love that chalkboard shot: "SEPTEMBER 11, 2001! DO U SEE NOW??"

"Now kids, let's settle down. I know everyone's excited because the president's down the hall..."

Many of us did things like that to cope, i think

― fuck the NRA (Neanderthal), Tuesday, July 24, 2018 5:05 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, for sure. but we're passing into an era of young adults who have no memory of 9/11 or weren't even born yet. so it's just another joke, and besides Columbine, i can't think of another tragedy that has as much documentation and media to be used for, well, memes and bullshit. it's gonna suck but so it goes

yeah, one of the weirder and sadder things about getting older is realizing that traumatic events you've lived through have become kind of a joke

They wheeled a TV into my eighth grade classroom so we could watch the Challenger launch. That was a Tuesday, and on Wednesday we were making "Need Another Seven Astronauts" jokes in the cafeteria.

For posterity, the greatest of all 9/11 memes. RIP Dime.

https://cdn.bandmix.ca/bandmix_ca/media/79/79028/256434-l.jpg

the hulk hogan ones are my favorite

yeah, one of the weirder and sadder things about getting older is realizing that traumatic events you've lived through have become kind of a joke. i remember my entire high school observing a moment of silence after columbine and having a long discussion in class about it, and now there are kids who weren't even born then who post dylan klebold memes on tumblr.

well in this case Columbine isn't really a "traumatic event" in the sense it was at the time. back then I remember a lot of people just being in shock at the idea that someone would even think to shoot up a school. the thought had never crossed our minds. and now, welp

yes, for sure. but we're passing into an era of young adults who have no memory of 9/11 or weren't even born yet. so it's just another joke, and besides Columbine, i can't think of another tragedy that has as much documentation and media to be used for, well, memes and bullshit. it's gonna suck but so it goes

― flappy bird, Tuesday, July 24, 2018 5:45 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, and I don't really disagree with u here

the hulk hogan ones are my favorite

I have a very New York-centric friend with whom I've had a long jousting match about how New York-centric she is. "The true New Yorker's secret sense that people living anyplace else had to be, in some sense, kidding."

On that Very Bad Day, her husband saw things happening at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania and said - I quote - "there goes everybody else, trying to horn in."

that is amazing

now THAT is a good fuckin 9/11 forbidden thought

Yes, it took me a long time to be able to darkly laugh about that but I do now.

after the initial event the thing i most remember is seeing fear mongering and paranoia all over the media. the local news would tell you IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING and to stock up on duct tape.

we were soon introduced to color coded terror grading system and the TSA, which made traveling in/out of the USA suck 100X worse for all time. of course the people that trained and harbor the individuals behind these attacks were well financed, those countries continued to receive money from our representatives, even though they were harboring and funding the very shit we were fighting. you want to talk treason.

to add insult to injury this was soon after George W and Florida Russia'd our election in slow motion with hanging chads. i remember reading shit about corrupt private voting booth operators 10+ years ago. it has been practically demonstrated in realtime over months that the US voting system is a joke for well over a decade.

but nobody cares cos the democrats, and of course that is something you should never do, criticize the democrats. the sad thing is they were wrapped up in this too. the media as well, selling us lies, leaking stuff, peddling this wonk loving horse race, people thinking they are participating in history by watching their leaders fuck fuck them over on live tv. 10 years on, after seeing crooked people get away w shit as a matter of business, no wonder there is so much apathy.

Mueller is supposed to be the hero going to save people and he was involved in the Iraq War bullshit in the first place. it is hilarious people think he is on their side.

i guess turning it into a joke has been a way to compartmentalize. what else are you going to do if the person who is going to be president had her handy dirty w that shit? you have to pretend it's a weird, abstract thing, not a real event. you have to conceptualize it like it's another object in your ideological chess game. it is imaginary playing pretend bullshit. people remember and care deeply about this and it influences the way the world is. you don't think the news telling people to watch out for terrorists, they could be anywhere, for 10 years, has a hand in making people xenophobic? wake the fuck up

the NY Times was caught spreading the WMD lies, no wonder people don't trust the media. Trump is profiting off this, he didn't invent it.

otm

Do you just save up these monologues for a rainy day or

god i just remembered when the troll Giuliani was on SNL in a cross dressing sketch and there was a patriotic moment with some NYPD cops he still making mad money off this almost going on 17 years now

Do you just save up these monologues for a rainy day or

i don't like talking w people that are negative and don't want to talk about the subject at hand but would rather engage in some pathetic duel of wits. hence i don't participate much in threads bc i will see the name of someone and think, they will not even offer their opinion on the subject, they will merely insult me, why even bother. why even try to explain myself when you are not explaining yourself. i do not need to justify posting on this board to you. hence me not participating in most discussions. the reason i am posting is to post my reflections on 9/11 and the ensuing years. it is a reasonable thing to post an opinion on a message board about a topic. why do you post? what do you get out of zinging me for my posting frequency or lack thereof? honestly don't worry about writing back cos i will probably not read this. it does not matter what you think, because you are already hostile, questioning my right to post, or my reason for posting. why don't you just offer your opinion of the topic at hand?

i always forget about the color coded terror grading system. like it wasn't creepy enough going to an airport post-9/11 without hearing that shit. glad they at least retired that system.

I went to the Bay Area a month later. My friends staring agape at the Berkeley fire trucks going down the street with American flags hanging off of the back. "What is this world coming to?"

We were following some car down the street that had a very reverent portrait of George Walker Bush taped to the back with some words on it. "What does it say?" a friend asked me. I squinted and maybe slurred back that it said Justice Prevails.

"WHAT?" she shouted, laughing. "What?" I asked in response to her reaction.

"It says, 'JUST AS WELL'?"

they retired the system? it was still in airports last time i've flown.

the TSA was crazy. this was a true corruption of national values, having your personal space violated, in the name of state security. this was the stationing of British guards in your house, but this is public and embarrassing and possibly even a violent or triggering experience. this was like something you learned about your country even in rural Georgia in the 80s, this was a fundamental freedom just pushed aside in the blink of an eye.

wiki says the program ended back in 2011. i can't remember hearing the "code yellow" etc stuff in an airport in a while.

I've never heard a Third Amendment argument against the TSA before tbh

they definitely don't have the color terror warnings in my airport anymore, because there used to be a really annoying message that the same voice repeated once every 5 minutes, indicating what terror level it was at, and I haven't heard that message in years (and I fly a lot)

DHS got rid of the color codes in 2011

https://www.dhs.gov/national-terrorism-advisory-system

xpost ya its usually the 4th amendment for TSA. the 3rd has something to say about privacy/surveillance rights, wiretapping, listening devices, leaks, etc.

i love the erotic thriller pitch vibe of this thread title

he gripped my member, now erect as those magnificent towers once were...

"what should i pull? tower 7, maybe?"

'Mmm, your jet fuel is just about hot enough to melt steel, lover.'

we're getting into jg ballard territory again

Honey you need to warn me if you're going to crash into Tower 2

Lads.

^ take to 'post lads itt' thread imo

Already posted my World Face Sitter puns there, have nowhere else to go.

lol

catch me and wifey snowballing, now THATS blowback

The fuuuck

boy that's reallly doing it wrong

how is that 9/11 related? were you doing it in the towers?

really not looking forward to a bunch of people who weren't even in NY at the time recall what cereal they were eating when they saw the plane hit tomorrow

My secret "forbidden" thought was that I was seeing a major, meaningful historical moment, and like someone in the Salon piece said, that finally something non-banal was happening.

― DUMPLINGS! (Jesse),

Would love a few banal decades right about now

remember last weekend when 3000 people died of covid again, just like every other weekend

avoiding reading everything for my own sanity but
the US cocaine supply is tainted with levamisole hydrochloride, which can cause immune system collapse

I misread this as hydroxychloroquine and I’ve got an eye twitch now

Honestly it’s pretty incredible how successful the 9/11 hijackers were, 19 of them made life permanently worse in about a million ways for everyone in America, led to the waste of trillions of dollars in warfare, and thereby radicalized who knows how many people in the Muslim world and permanently diminished America’s international reputation.

i was reading an article about first responders who now have early onset dementia and thinking that no event in history may have gone as well for the planners as 9/11. not only did they successfully hit the towers, the towers collapsed (unplanned), unleashing enormous, lingering toxic clouds that have essentially continued to kill people or, in these cases, rendered their brains unworkable, for 20 straight years.

Not liking all these online calls for a 'return to a 9/12 society' from those who: (A) weren't around yet; (B) were little kids at the time; or (C) were grown then but have selective memories blocking out how awful and depressing 9/12 was too.

I remember being annoyed later in September of 2001 that nobody seemed to be over it yet, I was 12 though

I guess when it comes down to it, it was all of us who did 9/11

The real 9/11 was all the 9/11s we made along the way.

9/12 and Sept 2001 = glued to tv news in anticipation of the next devastating major news event to be announced on the hour every hour

My rhyme: 'when Saudis attack, lash out at Iraq'

A forbidden thought from the UK in the form of a (rubbish) date format joke...

"Remember, Remember the 9th of November"

Deflatormouse OTM

on the day I saw this kid getting told off by a Canadian video shop clerk for expressing his forbidden thought: "oh no .. it's just going be the news on telly all night now"

My TV blew up on Thursday and a new one won't be delivered until Monday, so I'm going to completely miss 9/11 weekend. Imagine my sorrow.

Man sorry to hear the terrorists got your TV

I feel like one of the biggest things 9/11 did was allow conservatives to show their asses for 20+ years. the Republican party was already full of pieces of shit and had been for decades, but now they had carte blanche to advance their Islamophobic platforms in the name of "terrorism", and got to finally enact some of the more Orwellian legislation they'd always wanted to.

It really began the end of my optimistic phase of life, and was when I first realized what a dumpster fire our country was. prior to that, I was 20 years old and had led a charmed life and had these naive beliefs about our country and people in general.

I still know people who talk about the kindness they saw after 9/11. idk what country they lived in. oh, ok, a few people were nice to each other at a potluck? a few friends buried their grudge because of 9/11?

I saw Sikh men being murdered and beat up because they "looked like Muslims", I saw friends and family screaming "NUKE 'EM" at the television and demanding we drop a huge bomb on Iraq/Afghanistan. people were dog shit after 9/11.

and agree with everybody upthread, I was pretty terrified in the weeks after. for a variety of reasons. 9/12 wasn't bliss.

I finally dug into the Wayback Machine and found the comment I submitted to the Village Voice critics' poll, which ran in February 2002:

I didn't like thick-necked arena-rockin' yahoos on 9/10, and I didn't like 'em any better on 9/12. I don't give a shit about Springsteen or U2 or Paul McCartney, and watching the Twin Towers fall didn't make me like their music any better. Rock as expression of nationalism: no thanks. The larger idea of "pop community" is bullshit, too. Music at its best is a one-on-one pleasure. You and the record. That's why the Walkman was and is the greatest thing ever to happen to music.

remember last weekend when 3000 people died of covid again, just like every other weekend

A tweet sent on the @AP_Planner account about Saturday, Sept. 11, being the anniversary of a Nickelback album was deleted. The tweet was in poor taste.

— AP Planner (@AP_Planner) September 11, 2021

Happy anniversary to the absolute best 9/11 tweet of all time pic.twitter.com/sqGjXYpVz6

— Guy Freire (@guy_freire) September 11, 2021

14yrs ago terrorists attacked killing 3000 of us Like 12/7/41"lives in infamy" so will 9/11 2dayJapanese friendly Jihadists want kill us

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 11, 2015

if it had been about 'the blueprint' it would have been fine

xxp

is the "Come From Away" musical very famous? The forbidden thought in Newfoundland is being sick of how nice we were to diverted passengers, as though other places would've had them starve in the streets.

sick of *media retellings of how nice we were

20 years ago, then 12-yr old daughter asked me in fear, “will they do to Muslim people what they did to the Japanese?” #911Remembered

— lisa lowe (@driftinghouse) September 11, 2021

She really asked that, did she? On that very day?

Smart kid

my son also had some very astute insights at the time, but I told the late period embryo/borderline foetus to stfu. btw in the 9.11 race at the Yarmouth track tonight there is a greyhound running called Greencraft Jet @ 5/1

Blackrose Oily won the 9.11 at Yarmouth... makes u think!

as though other places would've had them starve in the streets

tbf I had the same reaction to the immediate post-9/11 "New Yorkers are the best people" / "New York is the greatest city etc.," because, like, those pansies in Baltimore or Berlin or Buffalo would have simply crumpled

i'm mad that Giuliani got cultural manna for simply doing his job as fucking mayor during a crisis.

if only 9/11 had managed to interrupt his kill all underclass black people agenda for more than five minutes and a day ...then this cunt would have been a truly great mayor.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/9696ee544061a02f73b932e55945028b/23fb1c8453ed0584-18/s1280x1920/6ad4f33101beb3768d132c476a112fb12b2334ec.png

That's why the Walkman was and is the greatest thing ever to happen to music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWR1h-5EzUo

this is the thread to share about how when they showed the second tower fall during class in my sophomore year, one girl was like "i saw more people get sad when aaliyah died" and i feel like enough time has passed that i can share this with the internet

we need a resolution!

are you that somebody (who planted and detonated the explosives that took down tower 7)?

i'm mad that Giuliani got cultural manna for simply doing his job as fucking mayor during a crisis.

― Duke Detain (Neanderthal),

Yeah that pissed me off at the time. What did he even do, shoutout first responders in press conferences?

And he used that manna to help get Bloomberg elected which was the fucking worst.

All I can think of: he spoke in sentences; George W. Bush didn't? And he loved the camera?

It gave him a redemption arc at the end of his administration.

Idk what's worse between Giuliani's vision of NYC as a fascist Disneyland or Bloomberg's vision of NYC as Dubai-esque playground for wealthy foreign investors. Bloomberg was more successful in executing his vision so prob him.

Cuomo can FOAD too

What, you people complaining about a giant Olive Garden in Times Square?

There is absolutely nothing in Times Square that would appeal to a NYC resident so yeah, nice job Mr. Mayor

On the 20th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the @nytimes ran only two stories, both on page 22. pic.twitter.com/brhD2y7uY9

— Kurt Andersen (@KBAndersen) September 12, 2021

tbf, I wonder what kind of 20th anniversary coverage they got in Honolulu.

Florida c'mon man pic.twitter.com/HU4y2rxgFG

— Boston Leggings (@online_shawn) September 6, 2016

Amazing the amount of people in the replies who think that's a perfectly fine tribute and are aggrieved anyone would think otherwise.

Epic Bad Taste

https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2020/09/NINTCHDBPICT000607674796.jpg

bigger version of the painting

I mean it IS fine in that it is not extraordinary

9/11 is performative sorrow for white people pretending that they have been harmed

Atty general for Texas tweeted that out today.

I don't know what the context of white dudes drinking out of red cups before 9 o'clock on a Tuesday morning, but it was a weird tweet nonetheless.

Their last kegger

1) i’m definitely over random ppl just posting tourist photos of themselves visiting the WTC ~whenever~

2) i’m at the point where i want every rando to stfu & leave space for ppl directly affected to talk or post photos if they need it. rest of world, just fuckin can it for ONE DAY.

Oh my, speaking of randos who might need to stfu

I’m not sure I have ever seen someone give a speech at a formal occasion as drunk as Rudy Giuliani is right now at the 9/11 dinner. pic.twitter.com/54G5oCuBe3

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 12, 2021

And another thought about @EmmaRaducanu and #leylahfernandez: neither had been born when 9/11 happened - underlines why memorials, like today’s are so important. #USOpen2021 #911NeverForget

— Jon Sopel (@BBCJonSopel) September 11, 2021

There was a 10-minute "a point of view" from David Cannadine on Radio 4 once called "anniversary cornucopia" and it was just a series of "observations" of exactly this sort, honestly one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.

A new challenger enters the ring

Tulsi Gabbard- I posted the most fucked up 9/11 post

Marjorie Taylor Greene- hold my beer pic.twitter.com/FRXhi83Wur

— TulsiGabbardIsABigot (@NThis81) September 11, 2021

On this anniversary of the release of The Two Towers I did the My Freedoms Donut Challenge where I gorged on a dozen Krispy Kremes in remembrance of all the martyrs being forced to vaccinate by Senile Joe. Never forget, 7-11.

On the third anniversary of Good Burger I ate a very bad burger

"a way to suffer and reflect on heroes" for October politics thread title.

Putting the cross back in crossfit

During a moment of silence for 9/11, a woman started shouting and had to be kicked out of the Triller Fight Club Holyfield - Belfort event.

Language is NSFW.pic.twitter.com/zsIfDv6j0R

— The Big Lead (@TheBigLead) September 12, 2021

the Wolf of Wall Street fought Evander Holyfield?

"Sell me this ear..."

I foresee the traditional Moment of Silence being supplanted in America with the Moment of Incoherent Bellowing, it's just how we demonstrate our reverence now

Eventually "Amen" will be replaced by "fuck yeah, bro" in most churches.

This day will forever be remembered, to those who lost loved ones my condolences. #bransoncognac #lecheminduroi pic.twitter.com/V9cN02Xigd

— 50cent (@50cent) September 11, 2021

pure class is that lad 👏👏👏

tbf I had the same reaction to the immediate post-9/11 "New Yorkers are the best people" / "New York is the greatest city etc.," because, like, those pansies in Baltimore or Berlin or Buffalo would have simply crumpled

― Richard Marxist (Ye Mad Puffin),

Fwiw I think New Yorkers' ability to pull together has been exaggerated, or at least is not something unique to NYC, that most everyone else does just as well or better.

New Yorkers are the people who won't be put off by public displays of neuroses, like some might be perturbed if as a total stranger you were to complain to them in an aggravated way about your frustrations with the publuc transit service, they may even fear your hostility could be turned against them. But not a New Yorker, we are more likely to appreciate the display of solidarity.

I feel like in NYC it's pretty much acceptable in most circumstances to interject in an overheard conversation that total strangers are having if you are passionate about the topic and/or have something to add. I explained this to a friend from Holland who was visiting and he was absolutely horrified.

There are just certain behaviors that I feel wouldn't fly anywhere else, but that seem perfectly normal to me. In some places people would think i'm nuts, and they wouldn't be wrong but it's nice that i'm able to get along to whatever degree of getting along this is.

Rudy rolled into the 9/11 dinner drunk out of his mind tonight. Here he is giving his Queen Elisabeth impression, and assuring the audience he was never with a young girl and Prince Andrew. pic.twitter.com/U40YSzS34X

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) September 12, 2021

Navy flag, American flag, and McDonald’s flag still at half-staff on 9/12 here at Gitmo. pic.twitter.com/Su3gb3tfTc

— Jerry Dunleavy (@JerryDunleavy) September 12, 2021

McDonalds one is for an unrelated incident

rip mayor mccheese

America's Burger

20 years later and they still haven't rebuilt the Golden Arches

...

https://i.gifer.com/fetch/w300-preview/47/47619e5bca9708b1e5b88bb23ac236e7.gif

I foresee the traditional Moment of Silence being supplanted in America with the Moment of Incoherent Bellowing, it's just how we demonstrate our reverence now

"Oh I thought it was time for Two Minutes of Hate."

1) i’m definitely over random ppl just posting tourist photos of themselves visiting the WTC ~whenever~

2) i’m at the point where i want every rando to stfu & leave space for ppl directly affected to talk or post photos if they need it. rest of world, just fuckin can it for ONE DAY.

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, September 11, 2021 11:33 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Tbh, every single living person in the US continues to be directly affected, there is no way any reasonable person should accept the idea that only those who "lost people" were directly affected. All of our lives would be measurably different, and to be honest, probably a lot fucking better.

And of course, that's to say nothing of the millions of Iraqi and Afghani citizens who, yknow, were murdered due to US imperial bloodlust.

so why did saudi arabia participate/primarily drive the attack? i am completely ignorant. certain faction of religious zealots in the govt? trying to get us more mired in the middle east to aserve their interests? some kind of straightforward financial motive?

There aren't any direct answers, but it seems pretty likely that— surprise— the US was working in concert with Saudi Arabia and a number of other regional interests to build more extractive infrastructure in Afghanistan.

Getting closer to September 2001, that year had seen a series of negotiations between the Taliban and a U.S.-led coalition regarding the creation of a new unity government in Afghanistan.

According to attendee Niaz Naik, former Pakistani Minister for Foreign Affairs, “If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid … And the pipelines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come.”

Naik also stated that Tom Simons, a U.S. representative at the talks, told them that “‘either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option.’ The words Simons used were ‘a military operation.’”

Such would apparently come to pass after the negotiations broke down. On September 4, 2001, the Bush cabinet authorized the drafting of a new National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD). This document, NSDP-9, called for a sizable covert action initiative which included U.S. ground troops and Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan.

Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, was dead set against U.S. ground troops in Afghanistan but, on September 9, 2001, he was conveniently assassinated, likely with U.S. complicity on some level.

The next day, on September 10, a second NSDP-9 related meeting was held, focusing on various details of the U.S. military and political plans for Afghanistan.

Then, on September 11...

I know that some of this stuff dwells in the land of conspiracy and paranoid spy-speak, but I really don't put it past US hegemonic interests to orchestrate a mass murder of its own citizens so as to better get at natural resources elsewhere.

That quote above is from Covert Action, btw. https://covertactionmagazine.com/2021/09/11/the-twenty-year-shadow-of-9-11-u-s-complicity-in-the-terror-spectacle-and-the-urgent-need-to-end-it/

I know that some of this stuff dwells in the land of conspiracy and paranoid spy-speak, but I really don't put it past US hegemonic interests to orchestrate a mass murder of its own citizens so as to better get at natural resources elsewhere.

oh trust me, my thoughts on this would probably get me laughed off the board

I welcome your thoughts, personally.

I was about to turn 17. I remember that we had an emergency assembly between when the first plane and second plane hit. I went to a Quaker high school, so it was a very gentle assembly, with talk of "holding people in the light," and so on. I only remember three things from the rest of that day.

1) Saying to my friend Richard, "We're going to start a war in the Middle East, probably against Palestine or Iraq"
2) Watching the second plane hit on live television in my beloved biology teacher's classroom
3) Having a screaming match with my father later that evening where I called him a "bloodthirsty pigfucker"

One of Al-Queda's main beefs with the US was the military bases in Saudi Arabia--particularly because Mecca is there. A cool idea we had later was that we wouldn't need the bases there anymore if we invaded Iraq. Problem solved.

i know this is the forbidden thoughts thread but can we please not do inside job talk this week

i'm keeping mum

The twentieth anniversary of 9/11 was going to be an inside job but it was moved to an outdoor venue due to COVID concerns.

guys do you want to summon the 'Lorax

https://s3-prod.adage.com/s3fs-public/styles/800x600/public/20200803_WilfordBrimley_3x2.jpg

i know this is the forbidden thoughts thread but can we please not do inside job talk this week

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Monday, September 13, 2021 9:10 AM (thirteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well I guess so many in the US have ignored glaring and obvious reality for the past twenty years, what's one more week.

xpost to table

i expressed myself poorly, i didnt mean that anyone who wasnt there wasnt affected. apologies for any offence caused to you or anyone else itt

9/11 was an inside job by Jonathan Safran Foer so he'd have something to write about

Leo Phoenix lives

Hi VG, I wasn't offended, I just get very...uh...polemical about how the reverberations of this event have quite literally led to the deaths of millions. 3100 people dead is a horror, of course, but millions of people? Unbearable to think about, but we must.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkSMSbFV_q0

shameful lol

so why did saudi arabia participate/primarily drive the attack? i am completely ignorant. certain faction of religious zealots in the govt? trying to get us more mired in the middle east to aserve their interests?

I don't think there are good answers. The long game of inciting a war that eventually gets us to take out Saddam (only to be replaced with a state in Iran's orbit?) feels like a big stretch. I'd guess more along the lines of some religious radicals wanted to do it and the people above them couldn't afford to piss them off/stop them.

Norm Macdonald setting up Andy Dick to laugh at a 9/11 joke... 😂😂😂#NormMacDonald #911remembrance #NeverForget911 pic.twitter.com/LGZcGdX2qy

— Zombie🤬Sexbot (@ZombieSexbot) September 12, 2018

I don't know if this is just the media bubble that I've created for myself, or possibly because I'm in the UK rather than the US, but I feel like these days, about 90% of the time when I see a reference to 9/11 it's in the context of an intentionally edgy/bad-taste joke? Or that 9/11 has become almost the default go-to subject for tasteless jokes (maybe the Challenger space shuttle disaster filled a similar place for an earlier generation?) It's maybe a 'safe' subject for edgy jokes because it's obviously inappropriate to joke about but it's not obviously racist/sexist/ableist etc?

I remember people I knew making bad-taste 9/11 jokes almost straight away (I was 16 at the time, so maybe my peer group was more likely to contain people inclined to make offensive try-hard jokes?), but in media anything less than absolute solemnity seemed verboten for quite a while - it's maybe the memory of that period when it forbidden to openly joke about that is why there are so many jokes now? I wonder a bout people who are too young to remember it first-hand, if they'll encounter 9/11 primarily as a thing that people tell jokes about (I feel this was my experience with the Challenger disaster?)

idk if Giuliani's descent into disgrace and buffoonery has anything to do with it (I know a lot of people always realised he was a buffoon, but he used to get a lot of respect across the centre-left and centre-right as well, right?) Or more generally, the Iraq war and the 'war on terror' more generally where there's a consensus view that sees them in retrospect as follies?

9/11 conspiracies and 'jet fuel can't melt steel beams' must be another factor in making it into a farcical subject? or just how the contemporary internet immediately makes anything and everything into a joke

Can confirm, my 1st grade class started making Challenger jokes almost immediately.

yeah I think how the attack was leveraged for just the dumbest and most evil stuff in the succeeding years definitely contributes. as does our response to “a 9/11 every day” in the Covid era.

https://ifunny.co/picture/the-flu-kills-more-people-every-year-lol-CMNd2bdq7?s=cl

eh fuck it

https://img.ifunny.co/images/eb0dac5efff12b9e090cd7779805afed151fb46cadbde1b4f9de7b76bed5cbc2_1.jpg

yeah I think how the attack was leveraged for just the dumbest and most evil stuff in the succeeding years definitely contributes.

Correct. Meanwhile the right wing have gone for conspiracy shit so much in the ensuing decades that their apetite for harping on an event where the conspiratorial pov is not to their advantage isn't very strong.

i think the constant solemnity in the media mentioned cultivated the urge, coupled with the growing cynicism that comes with being lied to 100% of the time by the president as he starts more and more wars

I did lol when I heard someone refer to the burning of the Fox Christmas tree as "Pine/11"

I will say that the 9/11 jokes in my last book always went over really well— even when I read from it in Lower Manhattan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7mvikSQteQ

the real 9/11

pic.twitter.com/Rd4sT5kd4Z

— Right Wing Cope (@RightWingCope) February 4, 2022