mackaycartoons

Graeme MacKay's Editorial Cartoon Archive

  • Archives
  • Kings & Queens
  • Prime Ministers
  • Sharing
  • Special Features
  • The Boutique
  • Who?
  • Young Doug Ford
  • Presidents

Search Results for: jackass award

Why Political Memes Suck; And Yet Another Social Media Jackass Award goes to…

October 7, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

…Envelope please…The People’s Party of Canada! With shout outs to Rob Lussier, and Mark Friesen.

The story was posted last week by the Saskatchewan regional office of the CBC, under the headline “2 PPC candidates tweet cartoon of Jagmeet Singh wearing turban with bomb on it“. Naturally, it evoked memories of the Danish cartoon controversy, and without seeing the cartoon I wondered, who the heck would draw that? 

From left to right is a facial depiction of Jagmeet Singh by Theo Moudakis, altered to show a bomb in his turban, my caricature face of Justin Trudeau, John Fewings caricature of Andrew Scheer, and then another drawn by me of Maxime Bernier. I’ve linked my drawings to their original cartoons.

Turns out to be one of those Photo-chopped amalgams of various unauthorized repurposings to create what has increasing become acceptable in online political discourse: the meme. 

Those who follow this blog know that we in the editorial cartooning world don’t take kindly to the strange behaviour that compels people to make and share their efforts to create these ugly renderings. I have written much over the years against this practice over and over.

While the source of the above is unknown, two candidates running for the PPC, Rob Lussier (Brandon-Souris), and Mark Friesen (Saskatoon-Grasswood) chose to retweet an inflammatory message linking Singh to terrorism, and continue to stand by them as an appropriate line to supporters.  Obviously, the xenophobic tactic of spreading fear about Sikhs or Muslims or anybody that happens to wear a turban being aligned to terrorism is a racist one. The unauthorized use of the work of others is a secondary offence to a more serious one of spreading hate.

Alas, this is the peril of posting work on the Internet. When satire is turned around for partisan gain, or worse, used to spread hate. Be they chopped up editorial cartoons or photographs, memes are unsigned, repurposed imagery cluttering the online world. Yet, they’ve become a subject of study as they become permanently part of the election cycle (practically perpetual outside of the usual 6 week campaign period.) So when my local paper posts an article under the headline Why political memes matter to this federal election reporting scientific exploration, it gives credence to the concept of memes.

Over the past few years write-ups have suggested that memes have become the political cartoon of the era and that the work editorial cartoons draw face an ‘existential threat’ from advertisers and memes.  

The Condescending Willy Wonka Meme

Amongst the chatter within the tiny group of people who still draw editorial cartoons for a living there is universal disdain for these perspectives. While memes are generally frowned upon there are, admittedly, some pretty hilarious memes, non-political memes that is, which are quite effective in getting a point across, quick and dirty, with a wide audience. Which is, ironically, the basic goal of an editorial cartoonist in drawing a cartoon.

The difference, however, when it comes to political memes, is that they’re used for ideological or partisan purposes, as opposed to satire. The top rendering is a case in point, and indeed all of the other repurposed photo-cropping of editorial cartoons I’ve awarded Jackass awards to are partisan regurgitations. Meme creators are anonymous, the images they use are ripoffs, and only a fraction of time is spent whipping up memes as opposed to editorial cartoons.

Editorial Cartoonists are mistakenly regarded by some as being partisan. We’re supposed to skewer the people with power, to punch up, no matter what political party happens to be in charge of the levers of government. At the same time, we shouldn’t necessarily work as agent provocateurs for the opposition. I think editorial cartoonists are expected to satirize and draw out folly along all sides of the legislature.  To shoot editorial cartoon barbs from a constant point of the political spectrum and align oneself to a particular party, is in effect being partisan, creating propaganda, as opposed to satire. One need only look through a editorial cartoonist’s body of work to differentiate a satirist from a propagandist. Take this so & so as a prime example. Those of the latter group might as well call themselves political meme creators.

Political memes will never take over editorial cartoons, because propaganda will never replace satire. Can we just stop making the comparisons?

Posted in: Cartooning Tagged: app-slider, jackass, meme, Memes, PPC, racism, SMDA

The 1996 Duncan Macpherson Award goes to…

June 16, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

… unknown. 

If anyone does know if a winner was declared please contact the Association of Canadian Cartoonists.

But here is the plaque presented to Graeme MacKay, who won… second place… (noted on the badge in the top left hand corner.)

1996 2nd place plaque

The Encyclopedia of Canadian Animation, Cartooning and Illustration states following awards granted in 1994 and 1995, “there appear to have been no further awards given.”

The short lived award was of good intent but became mired in organizational conflict and was discontinued.

Posted to macKaycartoons.net in June 2021 to mark the 25th anniversary of the mystery.

Posted in: Cartooning Tagged: ACC, award, cartoonist, contest, Duncan Macpherson

New Social Media Jackass Recipient

March 1, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Congratulations, Ontario Liberal Press Secretary’s Office

Social media is a wonderful platform for editorial cartoonists to share their daily goods. Not only does it allow artists to avoid lag time between completion and public display, the results look way better on a screen than printed on newsprint. Best of all, instantaneous reaction from your following lets a cartoonist know how well one did on their cartoon. We cartoonists love it when people like, share, or retweet cartoons over the expanse of all social media – but we absolutely despise it when people mess with our work.  

The biggest pitfall of social media is that it has spawned an empire of Bush Leaguers – huge swaths of online amateurs with little or no training displacing professionals, be they musicians, writers, photographers, and … editorial cartoonists. Anyone with a computer can bluff their way into coming up with content by repurposing stuff found on the Internet, cutting out monikers, and posting stuff as if it was their own.

Take, for example, the above monstrosity, a piece of partisan propaganda using the works of unknowing artists, slapped together in an attempt to simulate a genuine work of satire, and shared on Twitter. Someone, using chop shop graphic software, thought the above piece was worthy enough to share – something better than from where the extracted element originated. Here’s where the caricatures actually came from:

February 15, 2018

That’s right, my depiction of Ontario PC leaders was clumsily added to a landscape possibly belonging to another unknowing artist.

A carefully crafted work of satire that took thought and effort to come up with, whose message is no different than something a writer or columnist might have composed. Would a member of the Ontario Liberal Press Secretary’s office willingly extract a paragraph from a newspaper columnist’s piece and not credit the author if the extract was used in, say, a press release? They would get holy hell if caught. So why would the Ontario Liberal Press Secretary’s Office feel it’s okay to steal the work of artists? Leave cartoons alone!

Three years ago Premier Kathleen Wynne addressed a gathering of the Canadian Association of Cartoonists at a reception in Toronto. She declared her support for the satire that we deliver in our political cartoons as an essential form of expression in a thriving democracy. The leader of the Liberal Party affirmed respect for the integrity of satire, whereas her party’s press secretary’s office demonstrates the complete opposite, and that is why they are bestowed the indignity of a Social Media Jackass Award.

There are more examples through @LibPressSec‘s Twitter account posting other unsourced works from unknowing cartoonists. Have a look, and maybe send them a note. Given that they’re posting fresh stuff to their account, and haven’t deleted the offending material, reworking cartoons for partisan purposes is okay in the Liberal Party Press Secretary’s eyes.

This one belongs to U.S. cartoonist Dave Granlund

Past Recipients of the Social Media Jackass Award. Each winner eventually removed stolen items from their feeds but it always took persistence:

Canadian Pride

“Teflon Jim” Stewart

HarpersGotaGo

UPDATE (March 3, 2018): The offending photoshopped cartoon involving my work was deleted, but noticeable were other repurposed cartoons belonging to other artists. The account holder @LibPressSec made no attempt to make contact with an assurance that they’ll stop doing this. With a provincial election fast approaching it’s expected they will.  Let’s keep an eye of them.

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Posted in: Cartooning Tagged: jackass, plagiarism, SMDA, social media, twitter

Latest Donkey Award goes to: Canadian Pride

October 26, 2017 by Graeme MacKay

Congratulations Facebook Fan Page Canadian Pride, you are the latest recipient of my Social Media Jackass Award. Canadian Pride follows in the footsteps of other online notables Harpersgotago, and “teflon Jim” Stewart. Both of those jackasses were caught repurposing others’ cartoon work as their own, a practice, which unfortunately happens to a great many artists who put their art online. Canadian Pride went a step further by attempting to make money, without authorization, using my cartoon work for a design they were marketing on Facebook for purchase on a custom t-shirt company called Tee Chip Pro. A casual glance through Canadian Pride’s Reviews (boasting a 1.5 out of 5 star rating) with comments mocking the products they shill, to accusations of racism, to charges of other instances of design theft. The thought crossed my mind that Canadian Pride might have some connection to the alt-right Proud Boys group given its themes of protest against the left. However, there’s no way of telling who’s behind Canadian Pride, as the page is shrouded in anonymity, without lurking into the movement and details of Facebook likers of the page – Feel free to do your own investigation. Anyway, it is rather ironic that a group calling itself Canadian Pride uses an American company to sell its stolen work.

Without permission, Canadian Pride was caught on its Facebook page repurposing my depiction of a clown extracted from a May 29, 2014 editorial cartoon (right) for its own monetary benefit on shirts and other products for sale on TeeChip.com (left)

Nowadays, thankfully, enforcement is being levied against the pirates of intellectual property in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a U.S. copyright law that’s been around since 1996, but whose teeth seem to be getting sharper as time marches on and its might successfully fends off challengers. Social Media companies and reputable user submitted online marketplace companies are now marching in lockstep to avoid DMCA violations. Compared a laissez-faire snails pace approach from a few years ago, Internet companies act with little hesitation from beefed up legal departments, to claims of trademark and copyright infringement.

In my experience of filing two reports of misuse regarding this incident to Facebook and TeeChip.com, the powerful social media giant took less than an hour to remove the content, and the shirt company took longer than half a day.

A very satisfying sight to see after a report was filed

Canadian Pride is now using the online store Moteefe with a new Elect a clown design, which is probably someone else’s design being used without permission. Could it be yours?  The best advice is to keep one’s eyes peeled – this mysterious group hops around from one online marketplace to another, ripping of artist’s work, and repurposing stuff for their own financial gain. Sadly, they are not alone. 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

Posted in: Cartooning Tagged: DMCA, donkey, intellectual property, jackass, permission, SMDA, unauthorized

The Latest Social Media Donkey Award unveiled…

September 22, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

It has become very apparent in recent years how social media, particularly during election campaigns, has empowered the wing-nut body politic. It used to be kept at a certain level of decorum and higher standard in the days before the Internet when letters editors separated the readable public commentary from the rantings of idiots. Social media, many argue, has democratized free speech by giving everyone with the ability to type words on a keyboard or into a “smart” phone a voice. Problem is, the idiot voices on social media now overwhelm the sophisticated commentary making it next to impossible to find any worthy substance in it. It is a forum for throwing around opinions and insults, a place to promote bigotry and accusing people of racism (and every ism for that matter). Where the wild frontier of unregulated virtual freedom of expression gives amnesty to pirates of intellectual property. It has become by default, a zone for which polite engagement is automatically greeted by rude and boorish behaviour. Pssst, there’s a soft-spoken mantra in newsrooms when it comes to dealing with this sort of aggressive online agitator: Don’t engage with them. In the vastness of cyberspace, the warning is don’t feed the trolls.

CanadianTruthNews

Some of our chat

Some of our chat

Introducing James Stewart, not the famous Hollywood actor, but “Teflon Jim”, as he goes by on Facebook. I had an interesting encounter with him on Facebook today that I’d love to share with my readers. Bottom line is, Jim doesn’t think it’s wrong to download cartoons or any image from the Internet and slice and dice those images and repost them on his many Facebook pages for his adoring audiences. He claims he’s got the captains of Big Social Media backing him up on this copyright free-for-all. While he denies altering my image, he says he downloaded the cartoon in some state, refusing to remove it at my request, and adding that I should be grateful he’s giving me the exposure to his FB audiences. Yeah, shame not on him, but shame on me for asking to remove my vandalized intellectual property. In this case it’s the artist defending his work who’s the troll in Jimmy’s world.

His view of artists, I found, is not very glowing, particularly for a card carrying member of the Green Party. Here’s some of James’ messages to us regarding our work:

If you post something on Facebook, it becomes public domain. People can do with it as they please. Those are the rules, please learn them. And whether or not you get your “Panties in a Knot” over it, the situation will always be the same.

You should be proud if someone shares your stuff my friend. If they go further to download it and send it out as something special, you should be more proud.

Yet nobody is going to put up with your whining and complaining “Mine Mine Mine” on Facebook. Just a fact. Also the rules.

It turns out he’s had other run-ins with others who’ve stumbled on their own work modified on his page:

I got the same crap over the artist who made this photo for a group he was in. Excellent Photo and very relevant to my group. This I did alter, taking his group name out of it, and it has been the front photo on my most popular video.

He demanded I quit using it, and even complained to Facebook after I told him to shove it! They sided with me, and I am glad: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10201925658244310&set=o.202199749840008&type=1&theater

After I mentioned to him that I found it quite rich when people who are first to scream out against the unethical behaviour of those in authority prove themselves to be unethical, James answered back:

No in fact this has been discussed at great length and decided upon. The only people who give a rats ass about it are the artists.

*Note for Artists*

Do not share your art on Facebook if you get your “Panties in a Knot” if someone crops it or changes it or uses it in any way.

Those are the rules. You signed them when you signed up to Facebook, and the same is true on all Social Media. NO Social Media is on your side on this issue.

12041852_10153582830780450_671104434_n

Click for context

He even used the opportunity to compare intellectual property with his green energy passion:

…it is kinda like arguing over Oil Jobs and how many people would be put out of work by Alternative Energy. It would actually increase the work, but less profit for the Elite.

Artists make art to be seen. They have a tie to it as they made it, and that I understand. Yet it is either kept in a closet or seen. You cannot help what people do with art. Best it be seen, rather than not, and as I said, if you are so insecure about it… keep it in your closet.

That’s Art in the Social Media World according to James Stewart. Social Media’s got his back, and if you’re an artist who likes posting work on the Internet, James will be there ready to carve it up and do with it what ever he wants to. You may recall the last time I asked someone to remove altered editorial cartoons. He took his time, but I think in the end he learned his lesson. Thing is, we never got to know the actual name behind the Twitter account.

A man with a hat

A man with a hat

But we know who James (not the actor) Stewart is! According to his Linkedin page he’s into Marketing and Advertising, and used to be a newspaper guy working at the two big dailies in Saskatchewan, the page goes into great blah blah blah about how things didn’t go right. He now  sells vehicles online (yeah, I know, not so green) using his vast knowledge of advertising. His summary reads, “Now to retire comfortably, but always open to advice, new ideas, and possibilities.” It seems his new ideas today involve managing a host of Facebook pages. In his own words they included “Free Energy, RBE, Occupy, Liberty, Canadian Truth and more.” Canadian Truth News Eh, is the page I came across my altered cartoon. I’ve been since blocked from viewing the page, but it’s filled with an abundance of left leaning, environmental content, plus a lot of usual anti Harper stuff that there’s no shortage of on social media.

SocialMediaJackAssIf you’ve got nothing better to do with your time, why not visit James Stewart on his many Facebook Pages. Surely you’ll find quite a range of Canadian offerings he’s decided look better reworded his way instead of what editorial cartoonists originally had in place. Editorial Cartoonists can report their defaced artwork, such as the examples shown below, to Facebook admin. And don’t forget to thank James (Teflon Jim) Stewart, not the famous one but the man with a hat, who calls himself, in his own words “someone who does stuff unselfishly for humanity…”

11845107_10200903951796479_3568791382471503485_o
11890028_10200877949346434_3809022892701994770_o
11816293_10200774133071092_6736968954218126020_o
11891496_10200839718790694_1248845579619135789_o
10945832_10200640800937872_8907482622374827532_o
11267347_10200703364141913_1074523012987299298_o
11406255_10200612032538680_3224841065484541558_o
10854481_10200261751101863_5909628665808769329_o
11794536_10200775659869261_2854116035073616156_o

Updates (September 24, 2015, 12 hours after complaint made) on James Stewart’s refusal to remove intellectual property. This email letter to me from Facebook admin:

Hi,

Thanks for bringing this matter to our attention. We removed or disabled access to the content you reported for violating the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. We understand this action to resolve your intellectual property issue.

This is a no-reply email. If you’d like to report something else, or if you don’t believe this action resolved your issue, please fill out this form:

https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/208282075858952

If you have any additional questions, please visit the Intellectual Property section of our Help Center:

https://www.facebook.com/help/intellectual_property

Thanks,

The Facebook Team


(October 1, 2015) James Stewart might want to think again about returning to his habit of reposting altered intellectual property.  Artists are going beyond the sort of shame tactics one sees above that is the precursor to having their work forcefully removed by social media admin.  Stubborn, bullheaded behaviour like that exercised by James Stewart is being dealt with in the legal courts. While having images quietly removed from Facebook users pages might not school copyright pirates, I’m pretty sure if people are having to reach into their bank accounts to cover damages a lesson will learned the costly way.


 

No Jimmy Stewart, you can’t modify #cartoons & repost them on Facebook. That’s called #plagiarism and it violates…

Posted by Graeme MacKay – editorial cartoonist on Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Posted in: Cartooning Tagged: Canadian Truth News Eh?, cartooning, cartoonists, copyright, ezcarsandtrucks.com, James Stewart, plagiarism, SMDA, Teflon Jim
1 2 … 16 Next »

Click on dates to expand

Please note…

This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

Social Media Connections

Link to our Facebook Page
Link to our Flickr Page
Link to our Pinterest Page
Link to our Twitter Page
Link to our Website Page
  • HOME
  • Sharing
  • The Boutique
  • The Hamilton Spectator
  • Artizans Syndicate
  • Association of Canadian Cartoonists
  • Wes Tyrell
  • Martin Rowson
  • Guy Bado’s Blog
  • You Might be From Hamilton if…
  • MacKay’s Most Viral Cartoon
  • Intellectual Property Thief Donkeys
  • National Newswatch
  • Young Doug Ford

Your one-stop-MacKay-shop…

T-shirts, hoodies, clocks, duvet covers, mugs, stickers, notebooks, smart phone cases and scarfs

Brand New Designs!

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets
Follow Graeme's board My Own Cartoon Favourites on Pinterest.

MacKay’s Virtual Gallery

Archives

Copyright © 2016 mackaycartoons.net

Powered by Wordpess and Alpha.

 

Loading Comments...