Anyway, you might have have missed it. But President Donald Trump is visiting the United Kingdom this weekend. His overall European visit has been filled with face-palming gaffes, but I've come to expect that anymore. English protesters have taken to the streets of London, letting him know that he's not terribly welcome. Somebody brought an AYBS-themed protest sign that reads, "Mrs Slocombe Has No Time For Pussy Grabbers. And Mr Trump, She Is Unanimous In That!" Somebody noticed and posted the image online. And somebody else noticed it and shared in on the Are You Being Served Fans FB page.
And the everything went to Hell and back!
At least four people reported that protest sign pic to Facebook and to the group's administrator/creator. The image got yanked. And then the board administrator told everyone that he completely supported the post:
To the 4 people who reported the post of the sign at the rally about Ms Slocombes pussy, I SUPPORT IT. I love my country but highly disapprove of our dictator.
AND I AM UNANIMOUS IN THAT!Which then led to scores of people complaining about politics being brought onto the page, particularly when the meme at the top of this blog got posted in the group!
Then came the exodus! Post after post of Trump supporters complained about the "Slocombe pussy-grabbing pics" and about the presence of rude political humor. And then the moderator of another "Are You Being Served?" FB page began poaching members with promises of politics-free pontifications.
Which is about when I came into the picture. I mean, I'd seen the top meme of Mrs Slocombe with her "Eww! Some orange man tried grabby my pussy" message, chuckled, and moved on to bigger and better things hours ago. I wasn't aware that people were being triggered over that meme and then exiting the fan group in fits of outage.
So I shared the following response:
Are You Being Served? was always about crude humor and double-entendres. This meme fits that perfectly. People could have chuckled or eye-rolled and then moved on to the next post, but apparently not.I subsequently suggested to a few fans that they avoid the group for 24 hours. Basically, wait until the fuss dies down and everything returns to normal. Because the fan group normally isn't a hotbed of hissy fits. If they ignored the posts with the "Slocombe pussy-grabbing pics" and commented on other posts, then the anti-Trump stuff would quickly disappear.
I also suggested to a few people that they take the initiative and post the type of content that they want to see in the FB page. Basically, they should model the type of online behavior that they want to see from others and ignore the type of online behavior that they don't want to see from others.
To further model good behavior, I spent way too much time creating AYBS memes, mostly featuring Mr Humphries. Including this one...
And this one...
And this one...
And this one...
And this one...
The last meme in particularly, led to some side-conversations about the 2016 remake episode and BritBox.
Lastly, I stumbled across this old meme on my computer, which is posted in the group about 30 minutes ago...
This one also created some side-conversations that had nothing to do with Trump.
There are still some cross comments about the two "Slocombe pussy-grabbing pics." But, as I predicted, they are fewer and less frequent than yesterday. And people are returning to their regular posting behavior.