It shouldn’t have been funny - this was, after all, history in the making as opposition parties in South Africa debated a motion to impeach the President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma after the historic Constitutional Court judgment and subsequent reaction last week.
And since the Parliamentary Channel has led TV ratings in recent months with all our political upheaval, South Africans were naturally glued to screens around the country, waiting to see if there would be ‘fireworks’.
We were barely into the first 15 minutes of the debate when opposition parties objected to Speaker of the House, Baleka Mbete, refereeing the debate from her lofty podium, given that she was a respondent in the Constitutional Court case. Opposition parties questioned her impartiality.
After much shouting and points of order, the Speaker agreed to a 10 minute break to caucus with the parliamentary party whips. As the 10 minutes stretched into half an hour and more, South Africans did what many do these days to relieve tension: they took to Twitter with the hashtag #10ParliamentMinutes and spawned some of the funniest memes seen this year.
As a fervent Game of Thrones fan who has read all the books to date and watched the whole series so far, this was my top tweet:
George R.R Martin will finish the Game of Thrones book series in #10ParliamentMinutes
— AvoMan (@Unavengedavo) April 5, 2016
And it just snowballed from there…
I'm just going to have a quick nap for #10ParliamentMinutes. Be back just now. I mean now now. Only in South Africa!
— Emma Sadleir (@EmmaSadleir) April 5, 2016
It will take @The_SA_Rand #10ParliamentMinutes to recover from it's current state O_o
— AvoMan (@Unavengedavo) April 5, 2016
Rome was built in #10parliamentminutes
— Graeme (@Real_Maverick) April 5, 2016
Even the @ComradesRace is shorter than #10parliamentminutes
— carien du plessis (@carienduplessis) April 5, 2016
Evolution happened over #10ParliamentMinutes
— Snap @matthewsavides (@matthewsavides) April 5, 2016
In #10ParliamentMinutes I... Wrote a novel, cooked dinner, built a house and then had some custard.
— Cathawhompus (@cathjenkin) April 5, 2016
#10ParliamentMinutes is out now on Netflix. pic.twitter.com/h4zQNF9NiL
— Garth Manthe (@iapperture) April 5, 2016
Moral of the story? Don’t leave South Africans waiting for anything for too long. They might tweet about it!
It’s not just our politicians which provide much merriment these days. We can’t feature a week of the best memes without a dishonourable mention for Republican Presidential hopeful, Donald Trump. Trump’s paranoia and attempts to spin an attack on a journalist by one of his staffers, failed somewhat when the internet took him to task for implying a pen in her hand could have been a weapon, thereby justifying the actions of his staff in manhandling her.
This was the original tweet:
Why is this reporter touching me as I leave news conference? What is in her hand?? pic.twitter.com/HQB8dl0fhn
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2016
This was the response by the more educated critical thinkers of the Twitterverse (i.e., not The Donald’s rabid supporters):
@realDonaldTrump A pen. You write with it.
— Kilgore Trout (@Beer__Wolf) March 29, 2016
Good eye, @realDonaldTrump pic.twitter.com/MP6V4QpqWe
— Nolan D. McCaskill (@NolanDMcCaskill) March 29, 2016
The best round up was provided by Mic.com.
It wasn’t a good week for newspapers either, when The Sun in the UK, known for its dubious practice of putting the well-endowed mammaries of half clothed models on its Page 3, actually put up hard cash for ‘an ogle at a bit of cleavage’. It’s no use throwing the words ‘sexist’, ‘misogynistic’, out of touch, ‘dirty old men’, at The Sun. They don’t care.
But Twitter did throw down, with lots of ‘man boobs’ from the men out there who didn’t want to be left out of the challenge. Hopefully some of them were also satirising The Sun’s continued sexualisation of women.
The Sun’s original request: “ARE you the breast of the bunch? We are inviting readers to send in their busty selfies for our Bust In Britain competition. There is £1,000 and a photoshoot in it for you if you win.”
The responses, in all their glory:
Am i allowed to show nipple? BTW - how is this actually a real tweet from an actual national paper? #everydaysexism https://t.co/fvpgaIlZD4
— Josh Feldberg (@JoshFeldberg) March 30, 2016
.@TheSun asking readers for 'your breast cleavage' pics. They don't specify sex. You know what to do @NoMorePage3 pic.twitter.com/DxvfHtymTc
— Josh Feldberg (@JoshFeldberg) March 30, 2016
Oh @TheSun - would love to £1k. pic.twitter.com/QP7dv3BR3T
— Richard Gray (@zumojuice) March 30, 2016
The Political Scrapbook had a round up of the best tweets from men – with pix.
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