Here’s an image that’s circulating Reddit and Twitter this week, after the site shut down just five of its countless hate groups. The cartoon portrays Reddit as the Tiananmen Square “Tank Man,” being run over by Reddit CEO Ellan Pao. It’s the easiest way to explain why Reddit is toxic.

The cartoon:

1. Is racist—Asian American CEO Ellen Pao is depicted as a Chinese tank driver

2. Portrays Reddit’s right wing community as an oppressed group

3. Portrays Redditors as champions of human rights

4. Portrays Redditors as the victims of a world-historical oppressive regime

5. Is a bad photoshop of another, also-dumb cartoon

6. Isn’t clever

7. Doesn’t really make sense

Let’s not forget that this cartoon is a response to Reddit’s decision to ban the collective violation of fat people and trading of revenge porn. That is Reddit’s great humanitarian crisis—and this cartoon is how a sizable (and disproportionately loud) group of pathologically self-important internet users view themselves in relation to the rest of the world.

Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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