Is This Worse Than Being Slimed?

There is a sub-culture phenomenon that is rearing its crass head in this vacuous forum we've surrendered our lives to. It has the wit of Anna Nicole and the cultural significance of the Macarena. But, it makes me laugh, followed by feelings of shame and guilt, followed by more laughing. Kinda like watching Austin Powers.

It's called "Doing a Lynndie", named, of course, after Pfc. England, aka the Mistress of Abu Ghraib.

While I don't want to get caught up in the crosswinds of the Iraqi War, the Geneva Convention, and Cindy Sheehan, I can chuckle at the humiliation-inspired offshoot slowly making it's way from coast to coast.

Doing a Lynndie is the puerile way of displaying out your contempt in a semi-demeaning but jocular manner on an unsuspecting "victim", the disgust displayed in pose.

Here are the basic instructions:

Find a victim who deserves to be "Lynndied".
Make sure you have a friend nearby with a camera ready to capture the "Lynndie".
Stick a cigarette (or pen) in your mouth and allow it to hang slightly below the horizontal.
Face the camera, tilt your upper body slightly forward but lean back on your right leg.
Make a hitchhiking gesture with your right hand and extend your right arm so that it's in roughly the same position as if you were holding a rifle.
Keeping your left arm slightly bent, point in the direction of the victim and smile.

My favorite Lynndie of all time is not an actual photograph, but from an Opus cartoon last summer. Berkeley Breathed's brilliant comic featured a plotline involving Bill the Cat running for mayor of Bloom County. His platform focused on forcing boxer-showing hip-hop teenagers to pull their hip-hugging britches above their waist. Opus, playing pseudo campaign-manager and part-time black bag operative, is caught sneaking up on unsuspecting youths and bracing their pants against gravity. In one scene, Opus is photographed doing a Lynndie next to a shocked but freshly natty youth.

Subsequently, Bill the Cat's political career was sidetracked. Not that his affair with Paris Hilton helped.

But, while I am embarrassed and partially responsible for breathing life into this mime-like tulpa, I can't resist myself.

http://badgas.co.uk/lynndie/