Metafilter: a blog dedicated to identifying our reptilian overlords

January 1, 2021 4:37 PM

Writing purportedly about the Nashville bomber, yahoo! news reporter Caitlin Dickinson revealed our true purpose.
posted by hat_eater to MetaFilter-Related at 4:37 PM (67 comments total)

Oh wow, interesting catch, a lot going on here with that article.

1. 2012 post by Meatbomb, not at all equivalent of MeFi being a "blog dedicated to IDing reptilian overlords"
2. The reptilian overlord thing sounds a little lulzy, but it's also an antisemitic trope/dogwhistle which the Yahoo article fails to mention (and it has expanded, obviously, but that's at the root of a lot of it)
3. I, for one, welcome our.... overlords is still funny but it feels weird lately with all of these conspiracy theories getting more traction.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:01 PM on January 1, 2021 [38 favorites]

What's the old trope "Journalists do good work until they cover your field?"
posted by General Malaise at 5:40 PM on January 1, 2021 [12 favorites]

OK mods, fess up. Who are our reptilian overlords?
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 6:30 PM on January 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

I am.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 6:37 PM on January 1, 2021 [13 favorites]

I barely even qualify as a mammalian jester.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:47 PM on January 1, 2021 [7 favorites]

Oh, sure, fine, blame the poor innocent Silurians.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:14 PM on January 1, 2021 [5 favorites]

3. I, for one, welcome our.... overlords is still funny

I, for one, welcome our identifying our reptilian overlords overlords.
posted by bixfrankonis at 7:32 PM on January 1, 2021 [4 favorites]

What's the old trope "Journalists do good work until they cover your field?"

The Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:43 PM on January 1, 2021 [8 favorites]

I can't imagine this is getting a whole lot of traffic, but is there any relatively civilized way for mods to add a preamble to Meatbomb's post providing a little context?
posted by zamboni at 8:15 PM on January 1, 2021 [3 favorites]

There is no cabal.
posted by ninazer0 at 8:15 PM on January 1, 2021 [3 favorites]

I, what.
posted by clavdivs at 8:37 PM on January 1, 2021 [7 favorites]

what?
posted by clavdivs at 8:38 PM on January 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

Now you know how we feel, clavs.
posted by zamboni at 8:46 PM on January 1, 2021 [15 favorites]

Nooo, don't spoil the delicious Meatbomb's post! There's no way to mistake Metafilter for a conspiracy website if you are not a web journalist hounded by the ever-approaching deadline.
posted by hat_eater at 8:47 PM on January 1, 2021 [8 favorites]

I, got this.
Jolie and arch pope Benedict still have power(s).
someone owned the popes web domain and Joile lived in Cambodia.

we all hate Kissenger...
posted by clavdivs at 9:04 PM on January 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

I am.

No it's true. I saw this weirdo peel off his stupid human suit once and it was all like Dennis Hopper in the Super Mario Bros movie in there.
posted by loquacious at 9:09 PM on January 1, 2021 [4 favorites]

Okay, credit where credit is due to the person who created an image compositing two "lizard people" and the alleged bomber, and then in the caption noted which one the bomber was. Someone had a good day at work.
posted by biogeo at 9:11 PM on January 1, 2021 [16 favorites]

WTF? The fact that the news article seems to have cribbed its list of LP celebrities from my post is... well, fucking hell, welcome to 2021 I guess. Not just the death of satire, but search and destroy operations to weaponize previous satirical works in service of the current alternate reality. Sorry, Internet.
posted by Meatbomb at 9:43 PM on January 1, 2021 [18 favorites]

like calling "Dr. Stranglove' a war movie
posted by clavdivs at 10:19 PM on January 1, 2021 [6 favorites]

Just perfect. At least we can probably assume the journalist herself is not a lizard.
posted by knapah at 12:54 AM on January 2, 2021

But I thought that with Mitch McConnell’s rise to prominence, we had decided they were Turtle People?
posted by MexicanYenta at 8:47 AM on January 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

Gonna get some weird sign-ups.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:54 AM on January 2, 2021 [15 favorites]

is there any relatively civilized way for mods to add a preamble to Meatbomb's post providing a little context?

Nah. I think the context is "This was 2012." Mods really don't edit posts after the fact like that for nearly any reason.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:02 AM on January 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

Sorry, Internet.

nothing to be sorry about, Meatbomb. That was (and remains) a great post. And like all great satire, not entirely untrue. I mean nobody seriously still doubts that at least some of the Royals are grey reptilian aliens from way back ... do they?
posted by philip-random at 9:32 AM on January 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

jessamyn makes a valuable point.

The post was from February 2012, and if assume that we are bound by the prevailing timewind, it posted was "before" the Great Timequake of December 21, 2012. This obviously means it's impossible to go back and access that timeline with the usual method. Someone with access to a TPDD could do it but it would be hell tying up all the loose ends.

I'd be willing to do it but my TPDD has been locked out pending review of the Donut Circumstance. 🙄
posted by glonous keming at 9:36 AM on January 2, 2021 [4 favorites]

like calling "Dr. Stranglove' a war movie

Why have I never misread that as 'Dr. Strangleglove' until you wrote it, Clav?
posted by jamjam at 10:15 AM on January 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

Mods really don't edit posts after the fact like that for nearly any reason.

Hence the relatively civilized bit - I was thinking like a single page banner or similar.
posted by zamboni at 10:37 AM on January 2, 2021

Isn’t this the premise of that series called V ?
posted by gt2 at 11:11 AM on January 2, 2021 [3 favorites]

ok, 'Track of the Moon Beast'. 1976.
"A New Mexico mineralogist is struck in the head by a tiny meteor. When the moon becomes full, he becomes a mindless humanoid lizard monster." IMBD.

The key to reclaiming satire is historical referents. A phantasy example would be like Robin Williams dealing with a heckler but the heckler is Stan Laurel.
posted by clavdivs at 11:20 AM on January 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

I, what.

You clavdivs.
posted by rodlymight at 11:46 AM on January 2, 2021 [22 favorites]

It's accelerating and will soon collapse under its own untenable weight. I wonder what we'll be left with after this.
posted by hippybear

I believe that will be concentrated evil.
posted by Splunge at 12:21 PM on January 2, 2021 [5 favorites]

> I was thinking like a single page banner or similar.

Eh, anyone who needs to be told needs more help than a banner. Let them have their confusion.
posted by The corpse in the library at 12:50 PM on January 2, 2021 [5 favorites]

The 2012 post? I remember being angered by the untrue suggestion that Alan Partridge ever worked for BBC Sport.
posted by k3ninho at 2:54 PM on January 2, 2021

Metafilter: dedicated to identifying our reptilian overlords
posted by Mitheral at 3:00 PM on January 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

Splunge, your video link is what I hoped it would be. One of my favorite moments from one of my favorite movies.
posted by theora55 at 3:56 PM on January 2, 2021 [2 favorites]

I, for one, am happily waving bye-bye to our reptilian overlords.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:59 PM on January 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

Isn’t this the premise of that series called V?

I'm sure there's a significant percentage of those who find the general notion of Lizard People plausible who saw that show (and maybe don't even remember it). My own starting point would be earlier, with Jim Morrison, the Lizard King (All Hail!)
posted by Rash at 8:03 PM on January 2, 2021 [1 favorite]

I can’t find the link to MetaFilter in the Yahoo News article. Has it been changed or am I missing it?
posted by Kattullus at 10:25 PM on January 2, 2021 [15 favorites]

It's been removed. It originally was part of the, "Blogs dedicated to identifying our reptilian overlords have accused prominent Republicans…" sentence.
posted by bixfrankonis at 10:58 PM on January 2, 2021 [11 favorites]

Well that's an interesting development.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:59 AM on January 3, 2021 [7 favorites]

(whooping Stan Laurel laugh)
posted by clavdivs at 9:04 AM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Obviously the lizard people got to her.
posted by obfuscation at 9:07 AM on January 3, 2021 [9 favorites]

this raw footage could shed light.
posted by clavdivs at 11:16 AM on January 3, 2021

k, one more wheelie.


"To the right hand there lies a secret pool
Alive with speckled trout and fish of gold;
A hazel overshadows it; Ophion,
Primaeval serpent straggling in the branches,
Darts out his tongue. This holy pool is fed
By dripping water; guardians stand before it.
Run to this pool, the pool of Memory,
Run to this pool."

-Robert Graves, 'Instructions to the Orphic Adept.'
posted by clavdivs at 11:44 AM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

It's been removed. It originally was part of the, "Blogs dedicated to identifying our reptilian overlords have accused prominent Republicans…" sentence.

But it still links to a blog that is itself clearly satirical...
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:54 AM on January 3, 2021

I genuinely can't tell whether or not to believe that lizard people is a dog whistle. There are so many less absurd choices! Actively making the decision to pick a batshit crazy thing - instead of, say, "bankers," which is abused and used for evil things but not obviously laughable - seems like a very weird choice. Is sounding nuts better than sounding overtly racist? My poorly justified current assumption is that they actually do mean literal lizard people. It's just a mental virus running on the same hardware as antisemitism, racism, and less silly conspiracy theories, so it follows the same patterns.
posted by eotvos at 12:04 PM on January 3, 2021

Yeah, enemies of the lizard people are not our friends.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 12:49 PM on January 3, 2021

Yeah. 'Lizard people' is a way of saying 'the other'. A catch-all for those that you hate.
posted by Splunge at 1:12 PM on January 3, 2021

hippybear: "It's a false flag operation distracting with non-lizardian celebrities "

false frog operation, surely.
posted by chavenet at 3:36 PM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

Oh don't be silly, frogs are amphibians!
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:04 PM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

Also, according to Grogu, delicious.
posted by jenkinsEar at 4:43 PM on January 3, 2021 [2 favorites]

"Frogs" Grogu, who lives with a Mandalorian and eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier and should not have been counted.
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:38 PM on January 3, 2021 [7 favorites]

Almost every news article that was linked within that article was by the article's author.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:11 PM on January 3, 2021 [3 favorites]

I tweeted with a link to her handle, so that might have triggered her deletion. Lame to edit after the fact without noting it, though. And I always had such a deep respect for the Yahoo! News as an institution! /s
posted by Meatbomb at 9:48 PM on January 3, 2021 [12 favorites]

And now the link to the article redirects to the Yahoo News home page. Did it get zapped completely?
posted by zamboni at 9:55 PM on January 3, 2021

Nope - still there.
posted by zamboni at 9:56 PM on January 3, 2021

I genuinely can't tell whether or not to believe that lizard people is a dog whistle.

Me neither, but I once sat on a plane next to a guy who halfway through our mercifully short flight turned from an interesting madman into a boring sleazebag once it finally dawned on me who are the "Etruscans" who supposedly rule the world.
posted by hat_eater at 10:01 PM on January 3, 2021 [1 favorite]

These kinds of thing never happened when the leontine Walter Cronkite and J. Fred Muggs helmed the august Yahoo! ("Yahooooo-oo") World Wide Web News Website!
posted by riverlife at 10:10 PM on January 3, 2021

Surely it'd be a lizard whistle.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 12:36 PM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

I've just read on CNN that "House Reptilians rush to Trump's defence". Then I blinked and they changed the headline!
posted by hat_eater at 4:46 PM on January 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

That's why nictitating third eyelids are superior. No need to blink.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:26 PM on January 4, 2021 [4 favorites]

That's a good p--heeeeeey, waitaminnit! *Fry-squinting.gif*
posted by Greg_Ace at 5:48 PM on January 4, 2021 [1 favorite]

OK mods, fess up. Who are our reptilian overlords?

There are no reptilian overlords.
posted by the Cabal at 4:01 PM on January 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

True. We're more like subterranean lords.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:02 PM on January 5, 2021

We believe in the creation of an equitable and mutually supportive reptilian workers collective.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:04 PM on January 5, 2021 [7 favorites]

It's time for all hot-blooded, warm-blooded, and not-so-warm blooded peoples to shed their skins and join in the revolut... Ooh! A warm rock. Gonna just bask right here for a bit, first....
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:15 PM on January 5, 2021 [4 favorites]

Underlords and fewmasters of the world, unite!
posted by hat_eater at 1:41 AM on January 6, 2021