The day after a pro-Trump mob assaulted the nation’s Capitol, Metro, a Mexico City tabloid, printed what this blogger declares the best headline ever on the whole messy situation.
Please also note the wonderful use of the word zafarrancho, a wonderful choice to describe Wednesday’s brawl.
Filing under “Why I love Mexico” and “Mexicans: How Can Anyone Not Like Us?”
Mexico’s coronavirus czar Hugo López Gatell urged Mexicans to stay home… but then he went on a beach vacation, sparking anger … and tons of memes.
After urging people to stay home, wear a mask, keep a safe distance from others and avoid going on vacation, Mexico’s coronavirus czar, Hugo López-Gatell, decided to take a maskless beach vacation in Oaxaca, prompting a wave of criticisms among Mexicans and later becoming the nation’s butt of the joke.
A series of photos published this weekend show Dr. López-Gatell seated at an outdoor bar with a female companion in the tourist-friendly beach of Zipolite, Oaxaca. Neither is wearing a mask. Another photo, taken a few days earlier on a crowded flight from Mexico City to the beach resort, López-Gatell is seen talking on a cellphone — again not wearing a mask. The photos quickly went viral on social media.
While the politician’s beach escapade sparked anger, naturally, it also gave rise to some hilarious memes and images that continued to light the Internet well into the new year, because when it comes to quick, witty Internet humor, Mexico sigue siendo el rey.
Here are some of my favorite reactions to López-Gatell’s beach escapade.
I never heard of this Mexican restaurant before, nor I’ve ever set foot in Bristol Virginia, but if their tacos are as good as its name, I envision a bright future for these people. Oh, and I want to buy shares or something.
Georgia on My Mind’s Spanglish version will make you get up dance –and hopefully vote.
The East Los Angeles-band Las Cafeteras has partnered with the New Georgia Project to create a Spanglish version of the iconic song “Georgia on My Mind” to support Black and Hispanic participation in the Georgia US Senate Runoffs.
“We re-imagined the song as a cumbia w/trap elements to build bridges among the changing demographics in the South,” said Las Cafeteras on their YouTube channel. According to NBC, the The Latino electorate in Georgia is relatively young, and many are U.S.-born children of immigrants. Latinos are about 380,000 out of the 7.5 million eligible voters in Georgia overall, per the Pew Research Center.
The runoff elections, which will take place January 5, are very important as they will determine if Republicans or Democrats control the U.S. Senate.
The catchy song was launched with a video directed by Roberto Escamilla Garduno and Giovanni Solis. It tells a story of all those who are looking to Georgia, travelling to the state “to amplify the voices of the people organizing to #FinishTheFight”
On the morning of Dec. 15, as I opened up my email account, I saw a message from Twitter with the following Subject: Your Twitter account has been locked.
My first reaction was –of course– W T F? ¿Qué chingaos hice? and started going through several possible scenarios.
Was it because of my multiple tweets mocking President Trump for having retweeting me once? Or perhaps, someone really important at the New York Times finally blew the whistle on my ongoing critique of their peas-in-guacamole recipe? (Let alone my Twitter bio.) Or…was it a collective denunciation by all those people whom I asked to DELETE THEIR ACCOUNT for not knowing how to eat tamales or make enchiladas?
Well, it was none of that.
What it was, according to Twitter, was punishment for having violated the Twitter Rules, specifically for “Violating our rules against promoting or encouraging suicide or self-harm.”
Self harm? Me? Tweeting about… self harm? Promoting or encouraging suicide? Perhaps, I thought, they misread something I tweeted about ham, not harm. But then I kept scrolling to find the offending tweet, which was not even an original tweet but a response to someone else’s retweet.
Here’s what happened.
On December 13, Montana legislator and former congressional candidate Tom Winter, tweeted his outrage about a piece of news that made a lot of people very angry (me included.)
White House staffers get the vaccine ahead of healthcare workers and my grandma? Are you fucking kidding me? https://t.co/AmsrBKjRm5
I do not follow Winter on Twitter, but my buddy @dcbigjohn does, and this is why I saw the tweet to begin with. My response was brief and as you can see below, it was SUPPOSED TO BE IRONIC.
I guess the Twitter algorithm (assuming it was an algorithm and not a bunch of weird MAGA bots) doesn’t understand irony and doesn’t understand that in all the years I’ve spent on Twitter I have never (not once) promoted or encouraged self-harm. Heck, I’ve even been warning people about avocado hand like forever!
I guess I will remain in Twitter jail until Twitter decides to read up and weigh my appeal. In the meantime, the president of the United States continues to tweet unsubstantiated allegations of fraud and tons of misleading information to millions of people, while my beloved followers will have to live without my very important posts (VIPs) about tacos, tamales, enchiladas and other extremely important virus-related musings.
I just learned that @miblogestublog has been blocked by @Twitter for 12 hours. I wish they would do that to people who truly deserved to be blocked or removed from the platform… pic.twitter.com/pyuGmMMBvP
Today in our always popular section Mexicans, How Can Anyone not Like us? I give you Dr. Ricardo Madrigal, whose urology clinic specializes in non-surgical penis enlargements and fixing other virile malfunctions. Judging from Dr. Madrigal’s marketing tactics, he’s not the one to beat around the bush when it comes to promoting his services.
“IT’S NOT THE COLD; THAT’S JUST THE WAY IT IS!” reads a recent billboard in Mexico captured by a Reddit user.
In addition to huge signs along local highways Dr. Madrigal is also very active on Facebook, where you can find tons of other incredible Christmas promotions.
A couple of years ago, Austin, TX correspondent, Sara Inés Calderón, spotted this on Stassney & S Congress Avenue, so this blogger had to go dig deeper into the meaning of “y más.”
CVS “truly understands that Hispanic customers are looking for a more personalized shopping experience where they can find their favorite brands at competitive prices, convenient services, and a higher level of customer service in an envirorment [SIC] where they feel at home.”
Reddit user IranRoman in Guanajuato, Mexico, captured this image showing two unsuspecting victims of COVID-19: Retro arcade games.
The sign literally says “Out of order because COVID-19,” which in Spanish sounds like they are not working because they “got” the virus, and not that they’re not available because of the virus.
Regardless, this is yet one more excuse for this blogger to exclaim… Mexicans: How can anyone not like us?
I don’t know who needs to hear this but Fitz Games has launched a party game targetting Latinos (or, as they like to call them now, the Latinx community.)
Called ¡Dios Mío! the game comes on the heels of other creations targetting specific groups, including “The Queer Agenda,” for the LGBTQ community and “The Chosen One,” for Jewish people.
According to Fitz Games, “¡Dios Mio!” is “a Latino Cards Against Humanity,” specifically designed with Latinx people in mind. It includes 420 cards, which are fully bilingual, and a series of additional packs to make your game more “picante.” Among said additions? Cuban, Puertorriqueña and Sucias.
Mexican duet Alan y Roberto dedicate latest creation to a pesky virus.
It took Alan y Roberto (a Mexican duet) barely two hours to write a corrrido dedicated to the coronavirus, but the song is on its way to become a YouTube hit.
“I told him we are going to make a theme for them [Latinos impacted by COVID-19]… give them encouragement, hope and a positive message. Because the truth is something that many people are going through”, Alan Meza, told Univision Arizona.
“We have never had to experience something like this, really,” added Roberto Meza. “I know that there was a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty on the part of the people and the truth was that was our mission, to carry that message.”
As is mostly the case with corridos, the tune is monotonous and kind of generic but what seals the deal are the lyrics. Always. Here’s a taste
Everyone was very scared, because of the coronavirus
We ran out of toilet paper, rice and even beans
Water is also becoming scarce
But fear not, it will all be over soon
Stoers, restaurants, schools and bars have closed their doors
I’ve spent many, MANY, years on this blog trying to explain “Latin things” or “Mexican things” to a mostly monolingual, crowd and I believe I’ve been pretty good at it.
Until now.
The above cover by a Mexican tabloid perfectly captured (prematurely, mind you) what happened on November 7, 2020, when the presidential election was finally called for Joe Biden, making Trump one of the few incumbents to lose a bid for reelection (thank God!) It also makes it harder to explain, so I will let the wonderful people from Urban Dictionary to take it from here.
From the always-popular section Mexicans: How can anyone not like us?comes one of the world’s smartest name ever, spotted somewhere in Mexico, home of some of the most surreal (i.e. wondrous stuff I’ve ever seen.)
Are you still not sure Mexico is the funnest place on Earth? Check out some of the following: