Andrew McLoon: Casually Pepper Spray Anything Cop

Casually Pepper Spray Anything Cop Examples:

 The “Casually Pepper Spray Anything Cop” is a Photoshop meme showing a policeman superimposed in a painting or picture pepper spraying people or various items. The image is based on a real life event in which John Pike, a police officer for the UC Davis Police Department, pepper sprayed a group of Occupy Davis protestors who refused to disperse. Louise Macabitas took the picture of John Pike that serves as the basis of the meme on November 18, 2011. Macabitas would later post the image onto the popular social forum website Reddit. The original image is below.

 This image received a lot of attention from the national media as the event sparked public outcry at the overly aggressive response from the police. The only thing the students did was sit together while linking arms, not posing any threat other than civil disobedience. With the national spotlight shining on this event, someone on the Internet came up with the idea that since this cop is so willing to casually pepper spray sitting students, he would probably pepper spray anything. Thus, the first memes of the pepper-spraying cop appeared on Reddit a few days later. The first two instances of this meme involved Officer Pike in Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull and A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges Seurat1, pictured below:

 I think this meme became so popular because it started in the few days after the event occurred and was still highly relevant in the media. According to Google Trends, searches for “pepper spray cop” reached a peak search volume in late November of 20112. Its popularity has declined through 2012 and 2013, however. It seems that the most logical explanation for it’s decrease in popularity could be attributed to both the issue being almost non-existent in news media today and because the Occupy Protests are largely over. The event became a symbolic action for the Occupy protesters since it appealed to their anti-establishment roots.
 Additionally, the pepper spray incident is credited for creating the “Megyn Kelly Essentially” meme3. While being interviewed on The O’Rielly Factor about the event, Kelly, an anchor for Fox News, was whether pepper spray’s only effect was burning the eyes. She responded by saying that pepper spray is “like a derivative of actual pepper. It’s a food product, essentially4.” This poor logic led to a meme of her in which she describes some type of harmful thing or event as essentially something completely harmless, such as:

 Citations:
 1. Knowyourmeme.com “Casually Spray Everything Cop” http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cop
 2. Google Trends “pepper spray cop” http://www.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en-US#q=%22pepper+spray%22+uc+davis,%22pepper+spray+cop%22,lt.+john+pike
 3. Knowyourmeme.com “Casually Spray Everything Cop” 
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrx6DDgTH_w&feature=player_embedded