Duck Meme Photo

[Yufei Labbe]

NoteThe rubber duck meme was temporarily removed by Chinese censors after it first appeared online in 2013, but reappeared the following year. Even the most subversive memes, it turns out, have limited shelf life.

Saturday, June 4 marks the 27th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when the Chinese military in 1989 violently broke up a 6-week student pro-democracy rally. Ordered by the nation's hardline leaders to suppress the demonstration, troops entered the square with tanks and assault rifles, killing hordes of students who refused to move. Anywhere from 400 to over 1,000 unarmed protesters died (the actual number has never been released).

Although China has undergone dramatic economic changes in the years since, its communist government remains authoritarian in practice. Officials are quick to crack down on dissent, limiting freedom of speech and other basic civil liberties.

Television, film and print media have long been under the government's strict control. And while the internet presents greater censorship challenges, the government has acted aggressively to limit access to search engines like Google, and filter content deemed subversive.

As memory of this tragedy doesn't exactly cast the Chinese government in the most positive light, it's hardly surprising that they'd try to wipe out - or rewrite - as much information on it as possible. In fact, Chinese history textbooks are notorious for omitting any reference to Tiananmen Square and other incidents of government suppression.

"Today", "Tonight", "June 4", and "Anniversary" have been among the many blocked words and terms on Weibo, the Twitter-esque site, which has more than half a billion registered users in China. In recent years, more obscure workaround references, like "May 35" and "63 plus 1" have also popped up and been subsequently blacklisted.

Chinese censors banned the term after the above image went viral on the social media site. The clever meme reinvents the iconic "Tank Man" image from the 1989 protest. The original image, captured by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widener, shows a young man standing in front of four tanks, blocking them from moving forward (see original video footage above).

"The education system and the vast apparatus that censors the Chinese media and Internet have done such a formidable job at eliminating references to the events of 1989 that many young people are unaware of what happened or have only a faint notion of what happened," Jeremy Goldkorn, the founder of Danwei, a Beijing-based firm that tracks Chinese media, told Agence France-Presse .

i'd seen this ride in an old internet meme photo back in the day but wasn't sure it was real 'til i stumbled across one in a playground in the slovansk dům courtyard in prague. . . d.j. dougiegyro took the photo. . .

The Internet, however, is having none of it, as memes depicting the tank man photo in ways that might avoid censorship nets spring up all over the place. One of the most viral is the photo you see above.

Hello everyone! Just in time for Easter I have some of the most adorable photos I have ever taken of baby ducks! They have become a bit of obsession since I moved to Tampa a few years ago. There is a lake in the community where I live and there is always at least one set of baby ducks that arrive there every year. I always get a few shots I like but they are very difficult to capture great photos of at least at this lake. They always stay in the water or the mother wont let me close enough etc. This year though a neighbor told me about a small lake not may people know about hiding behind a hotel a few miles from me where she saw some babies. None have arrived at our lake yet. Well I went a just before sunset the other day and there were tons of them! This lake was small but beautiful and for the most part they were hanging out on the grass. Someone had even put down a large area of ground corn for them.

As you can see this corn actually added to the photos I love having it there and also they tended to want to hang around that area for a while. I was able to get and stay 5-6 feet away, plenty close enough to get these images with my 70-300mm lens. I have never had the chance to photograph yellow baby ducks before which made it all the more exciting! These babies do not come from Mallards. They are Muscovy Ducks that look like they are almost part turkey. I had never seen them before moving to Florida. Many of the babies looked the same as those of mallards but some were all yellow and some had different markings. They do not look like they will turn out like their parents at all at this point! Here is a family portrait I got when I went back the next morning.

This bunch of babies and their mother were sleeping a large rock formation sticking out of the water when I got there in the morning. The lighting was very back from where I had to stand but this is still pretty adorable!

I had SO much fun taking these photos! Hopefully some babies will arrive at the lake where I live soon and I will have better luck this year there as well. Hope you have enjoyed these images as well! All are available as prints or canvas wraps just email me if you are interested.

Of course, haters gonna hate. The anti-duck lips backlash is still going strong on forums like Reddit. Lots of internet memes satirize the way that women use duck lips in pictures to look cute. Criticisms of duck lips are often sexist or ageist.

This is not meant to be a formal definition of duck lips like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of duck lips that will help our users expand their word mastery.

From awkward autocorrect gaffes to complete conversational derailments caused by an errant correction, there's a delightful smorgasbord of situations and laughs to be had. Reflecting on the daily autocorrect escapades, memes like the notorious "ducking" mishap have become symbolic of the classic struggle between humans and their gadget companions. Such memes chronicle the frequent incongruities and provide an outlet for the exasperation of millions. Each meme is a testament to the quirks of modern communication, tempered by the unexpected whims of autocorrect.

These are the tales of Seymour J. Canard, the vibrant, geeky, wanderlusting technology duck from Mineta San Jose International Airport (SJC). His story begins in the heart of Silicon Valley and continues with the help of SJC duck fans who send us photos of him at home and afar.

If you grabbed a Seymour duck at one of our airport outreach events and would like to share photos of him, tag @flysanjose on Facebook and Instagram or @flysjc on Twitter so we can find and potentially use your photo in future stories.

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