Poll: Better symbol of internet anonymity, Guy Fawkes or Laughing Man

[Vicarious Reality]

I do not recall much about the laughing man, so i vote GF only because of the movie

 

[busterkeatonrules]

SNIP

Yeah, well. the problem of your Guy Fawkes is that he's a zealot and no exaggeration, he is the today's (and western) equivalent to ISIS or Al qaeda. He had all the qualities of an dictatorship, he was a religious nut who interprets the bible in a literal sense. There are no real redeeming qualities unless you're a strict catholic yourself.

Bonfire night is mostly about how Protestants overcame the Catholics. There is no longer any honour or pride with that in modern England and is mostly seen as an event to relax, socialise - a lesser Christmas in a sense.

I'll also reiterate that *it* was chosen because of a comic book and not historical fact.

Fawkes is not famous because of WHY he tried to blow up the Parliament. He is famous BECAUSE he tried to blow up the Parliament. He is famous because he took action against the established system during a time when most of his contemporaries were either perfectly happy with said system - or content to merely sit around and complain about it. That, to a lot of people, is what is truly being celebrated.

Also, you must remember that back in Fawkes' day, Catholics (to whom Fawkes was a hero) and Protestants (who saw him as a terrorist) both made up a significant portion of the population. Thus, he was both glorified and reviled in equal measure - just like your typical Internet vigilante of more recent times.

One man. One face. One crime. Yet everybody who looks, sees something different. That was the situation when Fawkes himself was captured, and that is the situation today whenever yet another Anonymous makes yet another headline!

 

[Vigormortis]

Neither. Adopting an iconic symbol as a representation of yourself is the exact opposite of being anonymous.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anonymous

: not named or identified

: made or done by someone unknown

: not distinct or noticeable : lacking interesting or unusual characteristics

I mean, come on. Does the irony not dawn on these people?

True anonymity has no icon or symbols. That's the point.

Spoiler: Doesn't help that this is always the image I see in my head whenever some brings up Anonymous:

 

[Frankster]

What I don't understand is why no one is bringing up the most obvious candidate..

TROLLFACE mask!

It's bloody perfect because it doesn't have the baggage of the other 2 and it spawned from the internet as well as hinting that any anon could be a hyper troll so you gotta take them with a pinch of salt.

Can also easily replace trollface with anyone of the popular emoticons too, so you can even have a much bigger variety then when everyone wears fawkes masks.

 

[Superbeast]

The Laughing man is a much more likeable and sympathic character, essentially being a version of Holden Caulfield who wasn't an obnoxious jerk.Guy Fawkes, however, is much more representative of the internet in general. A guy who tried(and failed) to blow up parliament for dubious reasons and then got celebrated for it for the next several centuries just kind of sets the tone for the stereotypical internet denizen who will do/say terrible things, often badly, for stupid reasons because "nobody knows who I am in real life".

Celebrated for several hundred years? Uh...the point of bonfire night is to literally burn an effigy of Guy Fawkes. It is (historically) to cheer the fact that a foreign mercenary (attempted) regicide was caught, tortured and killed; to act as a a warning to to other Catholics with sympathies to foreign powers. I don't think that quite counts as celebrating what he did/tried to do.

 

[Pinkilicious]

I'm on board with the Laughing Man. Possibly because I really like GitS, but also because I REALLY hate Fawkes. The guy was literally a terrorist attempting to take down a free society and install religious rule. He is the exact same as picking Osama Bin Laden as your symbol.

Give it a couple of hundred years and I'd not be surprised. People currently glorify pirates and vampires after all

Haha, well, some of them DID have some sort of moral code....Just not the most successful ones. Except for Black Bart, he was pretty crazy. Fanatical Christian pirates? Really now? Where'd that come from?
Anyway three I can think of who would fit the bill would be Henry Morgan, Jean Lafitte, and Calico Jack. Jack Rackham was kind of a blundering idiot, but he somehow managed to find the only two lady pirates roaming the seas, and then they both cheated on him with each other. Never managed to do anything your successful pirates did like sack towns or lay siege to a fortress, barely even killed anybody in fact, and his big scores seemed to be wholly luck. Henry acted more like a mercenary than a pirate, then at the height of his success traded in his piratin' badge for a governin' one, and was apparently successful, if a scandalous lech. Jean seemed to be one of those 'gentlemanly' sorts that only pirated opportunistically, also engaging in spying and soldiering as the winds took him. Sooo yeah, there's SOME who're more like One Piece pirates than Wallaby Jim pirates, just not a whole lot.

(Also I'd say vampires were always glorified since their inception, it was just more about WHICH aspects were glorified. The freer with sex western society became, the more their sexual prowess and hypnosis abilities were the focus over their raw power.)

Neither, because I don't really think either of them represent anonymity in any of their significant incarnations. Laughing Man is literally a stand alone complex, that's where the title comes from. His goals are not about anonymity, they are in fact about exposing the truth. A good symbol for a whistleblower, but not internet anonymity. Guy Fawkes the historical figure is irrelevant to anonymity, and V is all about anarchy. The only reason either is a symbol for anonymity is that they are both masks, and if that's the only criteria we're going by, then why not just make Batman you symbol?

Or Sweet Tooth!

I don't know why GF masks got that popular - he and a small coup he was a part of failed miserably, and GF even became the source of intel on his co-conspirators. And LM in-universe actually WON several times. So, LM for me.

How did you miss out on that bucket of fun?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology

 

[Thaluikhain]

Haha, well, some of them DID have some sort of moral code....Just not the most successful ones. Except for Black Bart, he was pretty crazy. Fanatical Christian pirates? Really now? Where'd that come from?
Anyway three I can think of who would fit the bill would be Henry Morgan, Jean Lafitte, and Calico Jack. Jack Rackham was kind of a blundering idiot, but he somehow managed to find the only two lady pirates roaming the seas, and then they both cheated on him with each other. Never managed to do anything your successful pirates did like sack towns or lay siege to a fortress, barely even killed anybody in fact, and his big scores seemed to be wholly luck. Henry acted more like a mercenary than a pirate, then at the height of his success traded in his piratin' badge for a governin' one, and was apparently successful, if a scandalous lech. Jean seemed to be one of those 'gentlemanly' sorts that only pirated opportunistically, also engaging in spying and soldiering as the winds took him. Sooo yeah, there's SOME who're more like One Piece pirates than Wallaby Jim pirates, just not a whole lot.

Francis Drake comes to mind, if he counts as a pirate.

(Also I'd say vampires were always glorified since their inception, it was just more about WHICH aspects were glorified. The freer with sex western society became, the more their sexual prowess and hypnosis abilities were the focus over their raw power.)

Disagree there, unless you mean specifically modern vampires.

 

[Pinkilicious]

I expected that was what he meant, actually. There were a handful of 'sexy' deviants back then like Carmilla but they were miniscule in comparison to hulking ghouls like Orlok and the original Dracula came along. They nearly all share similar elements, aside from Mr sparkly-twinkly flatboardbuns, and the fat lunatic that runs a circus.

 

[cleric of the order]

Given both of those choices I'm going to have to go with:

It's a classic.