{"id":146245,"date":"2025-11-21T10:29:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/146245\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T10:29:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T10:29:17","slug":"the-meaning-of-a-photograph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/146245\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meaning of a Photograph"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi,<\/p>\n

Thanks for the spirited discussion under The Horror of Police<\/a>. Scott got to the heart of it in his comment:<\/p>\n

“The problem of New Zealand Police comes in the forces that created it, and the forces that sustain it. Let’s not beat about the bush, as the police once did: They were established as part of a platform to disempower and repress M\u0101ori. One of their first roles was hunting M\u0101ori who had offended the crown.”<\/p>\n

Wherever you are in the world, substitute “M\u0101ori” with whoever lived on the land first, and you start to get the idea.<\/p>\n

Now back in October \u2013 as I was taking some crude snaps of the LAPD on my phone<\/a> \u2013 I bumped into writer and photographer Eric Langberg, who noticed Pedro Pascal in the crowd when I certainly didn’t (you know, faceblind<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"Pedro<\/p>\n

I’d seen Eric’s photos regularly going viral on Reddit, and we briefly spoke about his frustration in how his photos were being interpreted online. Rather \u2013 how they were being misinterpreted.<\/p>\n

In his words: <\/p>\n

“I’ve come to believe that we are experiencing a massive breakdown in the way humans process communication, a disruption in our understanding of the very act of meaning-making.”<\/p>\n

I couldn’t get our conversation out of my head, and so asked him to expand on it for Webworm. I’m really glad to have his piece here today. And what Eric’s talking about \u2013 it’s not just limited to the USA. I think you’ll see echoes of what he’s discussing wherever you hang out in the world, and online.<\/p>\n

Essentially, there is a growing disconnect in people’s ability to grasp context \u2013 and when you throw in a splash of bad faith arguments and lack of critical thinking, we land in a pretty bad place.<\/p>\n

See you in the comments. I will pass this over to Eric.<\/p>\n

David.<\/p>\n

Labubus, Middle Fingers & Creeping Fascism: How do we find meaning when we can\u2019t agree on the words? <\/p>\n

by Eric Langberg<\/p>\n

On June 8th at LA Pride, I photographed a mischievous-looking human-sized Labubu walking around Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Two days later, on June 10, LA TACO published a photo essay about anti-ICE protests<\/a>, highlighting that same human-sized Labubu protesting ICE. That day, tensions over proudly-cruel immigration raids downtown had exploded into what the country would call \u201criots,\u201d leading to some burned-out Waymos, graffiti, a curfew, and the deployment of a staggering variety of armed agents of the state.<\/p>\n

I first made it downtown on June 11th \u2013 a few days after the human-sized Labubu had appeared \u2013 which I will be ashamed of forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I found my city crawling with National Guard, ICE, LAPD, Customs and Border Patrol, and Department of Homeland Security officials, some wearing masks and most carrying guns. We\u2019d been invaded. Protesters held press conferences as soldiers watched on. People danced, chanted slogans about \u201cpeople power,\u201d and yelled profanities.<\/p>\n

Then a bored-looking guy in camouflage stretched, and his rifle swept haphazardly across the crowd that had assembled outside the Metropolitan Detention Center.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

I distinctly remember feeling surprised that my main reaction \u2014 to a man dressed like that, lazily waving a gun like that my way \u2014 was a sort of clarity. I distinctly remember thinking: \u201cWell, that\u2019s a new life experience, and I guess I\u2019m gonna be photographing this until it\u2019s over, because people need to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, I\u2019ve attended dozens of protests and taken thousands of photos. I\u2019ve shared a bunch on Reddit, where they\u2019ve cumulatively reached something like 42 million views. I say that not to brag. I just mean that I\u2019ve spent months immersing myself in how people online in 2025 respond when they\u2019re shown images of an America coming apart at the seams.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Against my better judgment (and conventional wisdom, and the advice of friends and family concerned about my mental health), I\u2019ve read most of the comments, and I\u2019ve replied to a lot, too. My main takeaway from this year \u2013 in LA, in America, and online \u2013 is: \u201cUh oh.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

I say \u201cUh oh\u201d because the conversation online feels completely broken to me \u2013 and I think that\u2019s the crack through which fascism has slithered in. It\u2019s happening in the open, but people either aren\u2019t interested or they cannot comprehend. I think it\u2019s because, as a society, we are now either unable or unwilling to engage with images in the way we used to. Pick your cause \u2013 TikTok, phones, AI, a decade of a pathological liar ruling or influencing the country and culture, declining literacy rates, increasing bots, 4chan trolls run amok \u2013 I\u2019ve come to believe that we are experiencing a massive breakdown in the way humans process communication, a disruption in our understanding of the very act of meaning-making.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Let me explain.<\/p>\n

On September 24th, I posted an album called \u201cDay 76 of sustained protest in Downtown Los Angeles, where it\u2019s become an everyday part of life<\/a>\u201d. Two days earlier, Donald Trump signed an executive order designating anti-fascism as \u201cterrorism.\u201d Three days before that, someone on Reddit said my photos seemed like \u201csurveillance\u201d because I\u2019d posted closeups of protesters. My approach, they said, had them \u201cpissed.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, in that \u201cDay 76\u201d album, I didn\u2019t do my normal thing. Instead, I turned my camera on passersby paying no attention to the protesters, who I only depicted this time from behind and through reminders of their presence.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

I was surprised when this title made people mad. Everyone seemed to think \u201cDay 76 of protests\u201d meant \u201c76 days\u2019 worth of protest photos,\u201d and they derisively piled on. Where were all the protests I\u2019d promised, hmm? Someone told me it was a misleading title because \u201cthat guy on his phone could walk this street everyday so he\u2019s seen it all before.\u201d Fruitlessly, I pointed out that half of the title is \u201cwhere it\u2019s become an everyday part of life\u201d, but he was not interested in allowing that. He\u2019d interpreted the image the way I\u2019d intended it.<\/p>\n

\"Maybe<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t capture a single protester?\u201d asked one person. I pointed out that the second photo in the series did, indeed, show a protester.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I got:<\/p>\n

\"For<\/p>\n

A few things.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe image doesn\u2019t stand alone.\u201d \u2013 Correct. I know; that\u2019s why I posted it with a title and ten other photos. I am expecting and intending each of those elements to inform your understanding of the others. It drives me nuts that this is maybe the most common criticism of my photos; I find myself trying to explain to people that humans have understood since, well, cave paintings that a succession of images can create meaning not found in any one image. I am exploring the idea of \u201ca series of photos that cumulatively creates meaning\u201d on purpose! It\u2019s not an accident that I want you to look at one to understand the other.\u201cFor all we know it\u2019s a woman taking a picture of a van.\u201d \u2013 I think you actually know a lot more than that! You\u2019ve been told this is Los Angeles, and I\u2019ve told you that this is someone \u201ctaking a picture of a van\u201d on the same block as lots of anti-ICE graffiti, and you can see that said van has no license plate, and you\u2019ve been told this person\u2019s taking a picture of a van on the 76th day of protests. At a certain point, I\u2019m aware that you do just have to trust me, but I\u2019m trusting you, too \u2013 I\u2019m trusting that you will be able to pull together all those other things you \u201cknow\u201d and have them inform how you read this one image.<\/p>\n

But we don\u2019t trust each other anymore, and so we\u2019ve started to view everything in isolation, denying that things are connected to one another and that meaning is fundamentally made through this kind of juxtaposition. We\u2019ve reached The Big Point: I think we\u2019re living through a time where signs are being reduced to their signifiers and are completely divorced from the act of signification. By that I mean: we\u2019ve stopped agreeing that words can mean things, and that things can stand in for other things.<\/p>\n

Uh-oh.<\/p>\n

On August 2nd, I called a post Activists in Downtown Los Angeles forcing the fascists to look themselves in the mirror<\/a>, to 4.9M views. It looked like this:<\/p>\n

\"two<\/p>\n

Top comment: \u201cThis is an FPS Officer. The FPS only exists to provide security for federal buildings. Doing your job to guard a federal building is fascist\u2026 how exactly?\u201d<\/p>\n

I told him that the \u201cbuilding\u201d this guy\u2019s guarding is where ICE is keeping people in literal cages so crowded they sleep standing up<\/a>, and I told him these \u201cFPS officers\u201d have arrested dozens of peaceful protesters, including the women in this photo after it was taken. I sent him a bonus photo of the street art on the wall across from that cop on that day\u2026 and I got downvoted to oblivion.<\/p>\n

\"Sign<\/p>\n

\u201c[Fascism] doesn\u2019t just mean \u2018meanies that do things I don\u2019t like,\u2019\u201d one person chastised me in reply to that street art photo.<\/p>\n

Uh oh.<\/p>\n

On November 3rd, I posted Scenes from the Dodgers World Series Parade, or, absurdities of living in a police state. It included these:<\/p>\n

\"Spiderman<\/p>\n

I assumed we\u2019d all agree that we live in a police state. This is LA! Rodney King, anyone? We\u2019ve faced the USMC, CBP, DHS, LASD, ICE, CHP, FPS, LAPD, and more in the last few months. Besides, I\u2019m sure we all saw the word \u201cabsurdities\u201d in the title, so we understand that we\u2019re just having a little fun with silly juxtapositions like \u201cSpider-Man in JNCOs\u201d next to \u201ccop with wooden sword,\u201d right?<\/p>\n

Everyone rushed to tell me that my photos didn\u2019t show police brutality, so actually it\u2019s \u201cnormal and accepted\u201d for there to be this many cops at a large event. Was this my first time going outside? Don\u2019t I know that sports riots are dangerous? I\u2019m just fearmongering.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a police state, it\u2019s just \u201ccops standing near people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fascism doesn\u2019t just mean \u201cpeople doing their jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

For all we know, it\u2019s a woman taking a picture of a van.<\/p>\n

I feel like a doctor trying to tell someone they have cancer, only for them to reply, \u201cWell, cancer is just cells, and I already know my body has cells, so what\u2019s your point?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a deep societal denial, and I don\u2019t just mean a denial of the reality we find ourselves in; I mean a denial of the existence of any shared reality at all. Words are just words, and images? Forget it. How can we expect people to find meaning in \u201cperson seeing vehicle\u201d or \u201cguy standing near building?\u201d<\/p>\n

Reddit made it click for me, but lest you think I\u2019m spiraling over three dumb Reddit comments (there were many, many more) \u2013 I can point this out to you everywhere. I\u2019m convinced we have Nazis again because this Internet-brainrot discourse style escaped into the real world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Everything is six-seven, Dictionary.com\u2019s 2025 Word of the Year, which is evidently uproariously funny to #TheYouth because it doesn\u2019t mean anything. The kids are realizing that really, words are just mouth-sounds we repeat because other people repeat them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why they praise Charlie Kirk because he \u201cdebated.\u201d It\u2019s why they say he was killed \u201cfor his beliefs,\u201d but are outraged if you suggest \u201cthe free speech that he spoke\u201d had material effects on other people. You can lose your job for acknowledging that his words meant things.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why all the uniforms seem like they say \u201cPOLICE\u201d now, ever-present letters that may as well just be random shapes for all they tell us about which armed faction the guy tear-gassing you belongs to.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why United Airlines can claim in court that selling a \u201cwindow seat\u201d \u201ccannot reasonably be interpreted as\u201d promising a seat next to a window<\/a>. They\u2019re right, just not how they mean it: no one can expect anyone to \u201creasonably interpret\u201d anything. Sure: \u201cwindow\u201d means \u201cwall\u201d now. Fine.<\/p>\n

\"Headline:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why United States Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says \u2013 faced with emails that contain the credible suggestion that Vladimir Putin has sexual-assault-related blackmail on the President of the United States \u2013 that \u201cThese emails prove absolutely nothing, other than the fact that President Trump did nothing wrong<\/a>.\u201d She\u2019s exploiting the fact that we no longer have a shared understanding of what we mean by \u201cthese emails,\u201d \u201cprove,\u201d \u201cnothing,\u201d \u201cfact,\u201d and \u201cwrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do we counteract that? \u201cThat depends on what the definition of \u2018is\u2019 is,\u201d Bill Clinton famously said in 1998, and he was roundly mocked for it. That feels like every exchange now. In three sentences, we\u2019ve gone from \u201cDid the President sexually assault children?\u201d to \u201cWell, what\u2019s your opinion of what the word \u2018prove\u2019 means?\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no true or false now, no right or wrong; there\u2019s only the rhetorical advantage you gain by deploying certain mouth-sounds, whether or not you want them to represent any essential truth as we used to agree to understand it. It\u2019s better if you don\u2019t, actually. If you do, people get suspicious. Hey, are you AI? How else would you know how to use an em-dash?<\/p>\n

That \u201cagreeing to understand things\u201d part is how \u201ccommunication\u201d has always worked, ever since we collectively decided that a stick figure bull on a cave wall could represent migration patterns. We couldn\u2019t organize ourselves to modern society until we collectively agreed that colors could be emotions, and a spiral might indicate the sun, and sounds could be represented by letters, which could tell us what sounds to make to form words that have meaning. That innate trust in each other\u2019s ability to represent things is how we passed on knowledge, how we evolved, how we spoke, how we wrote, how we invented, how we progressed, how we made art.<\/p>\n

If things are falling apart societally on a level that fundamental? \u2026Uh oh.<\/p>\n

In conclusion: interpret this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/p>\n

You can see more of Eric Langberg’s work here<\/a>, or on Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n