If you spend any time on the internet at all, there’s a fairly good chance you’ve run across images related to the Twitter hashtag #gopdildo  at some point in the last few days. The meme at first gives off a sort of 4chan/Reddit kind of vibe, with its poorly-Photoshopped images of politicians holding dildos instead of the guns that were in the original photo. But it turns out the source of the meme is in fact Matt Haughey. Unless you’re a total internet noob, the following remix of the original quote should clue you into who Matt Haughey is:

“GOPDildo is one of the strangest sites I’ve seen in some time. I have no idea how these people got their dildos wedged into their politicians, or why.”

No, he wasn’t the creator of DildoScan.com (I’m amazed no-one has registered that yet), he was the creator of Metafilter, one of the first “community weblogs” on the web, founded back in 1999, and featuring as one of its first posts the website catscan.com (now defunct). The whole idea of having a place to share links on the web owes a lot to Metafilter.

Apparently Haughey isn’t overly fond of the death and destruction wrought by guns in America, so earlier this month he decided to do something about it. His idea of “doing something” turned out to be “photoshopping dildos into photos of pro-gun politicians”, and posting them on a tumblr called  #GOPdildo. While you could easily try to argue that this is an odd form of “doing something”, it has in fact worked to some degree, and if you read Haughey’s recent piece on Medium explaining the whole thing, you’ll quickly realize he’s a pretty rational guy who is tired of people getting pointlessly slaughtered, not some raving liberal elitist. His framework for the project is simple; as he puts it: “The subjects are conservatives in power, that work in lawmaking or help support it, and yet do nothing to curtail guns.” The only “call to action” currently is to send him photos of second-amendment types holding guns, so go for it, if you’re so inclined.

On The Other Hand…

It’s not too hard to poke holes in this strategy; one Twitter user pretty quickly used hot dogs and babies as an example:

Dildos And Politics Are Old Bedfellows

The use of dildos as a political statement is nothing new; Jon Stewart famously referred to the GOP reaction to the Affordable Care Act as rolling a dildo in glitter, UT Austin students protested against “Campus Carry” laws by taking dildos to class a few months ago, and this image made the rounds of Anti-Tea Party forums over a year ago:

Owning Six Dildos in Texas A Felony?

On a related note, you may be interested to know that The Obscene Device Law essentially makes it a felony to own a half dozen dildos in the state of Texas. Section 43.21 of the Texas Penal Code prohibits the sale or promotion of “Obscene devices, meaning a device including a dildo or artificial vagina, designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs.” with section 43.23 stipulating “A person who possesses six or more obscene devices or identical or similar obscene articles is presumed to possess them with intent to promote the same.”

Still no word though on whether the Portland Power Line Dildo Epidemic was politically motivated.

And the winner is….

So far, this is our pick for images submitted and shared via #GOPdildo: