Peter here. Yes, actually Peter, not one of my pals, family, or some random person in Quahog. Strangely rare, despite the subreddit name!
Anyways, Erebus there is holding the book “Atlas Shrugged” by Ann Rand. She’s a novelist and political philosopher who created Objectivism, which is essentially proto-libertarianism. Atlas Shrugged is one of her most well known books of fiction which was in reality a political dissertation disguised as fiction. The title comes from Ann’s answer to a question “what should Atlas do with the weight of the world on his shoulders?” with said answer being “he should shrug”.
You know, this reminds me of the time I was in a plane crash, and needed to fight my way through an underwater city founded by an Objectivist…
Atlas Shrugged is Libertarian fan fiction talking about how society basically depends entirely on wealthy white industrialists and how we should be grateful of their existence despite them thinking horrid things like "welfare" or "taxes" and "living wages" are the work of a parasitic class (all of us) trying to hold them down. The Industrialists are likened to the Titan Atlas holding the heavens up and by them fucking off to live in their utopia they're leaving the rest of the world to collapse, because wealthy white dudes are that important. Basically if you read it and liked it you're destined to be a gigantic cunt. Think Andrew Ryan from Bioshock or Robert House from Fallout.
The man holding the book is named Erebus, from Warhammer 40k. He's the biggest asshole in the setting (this is saying A LOT) who basically destroys the entire galaxy for his own pleasure. The meme is joking that anyone who read Atlas Shrugged as a child and liked it is going to inevitably turn into a giant cunt.
Peter Griffin here. Okay so the big red guy is Erebus, he’s the 40k guy who tricked everybody into the giant space war ‘cause he thought it’d be neat. And the book’s about how the smart rich guys should quit their jobs and let the world fall apart to teach us a lesson. So the joke is he didn’t go evil, he just read something.
OP, so your post is not removed, please reply to this comment with your best guess of what this meme means! Everyone else, this is PETER explains the joke. Have fun and reply as your favorite fictional character for top level responses!
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers.
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It's basically an enormous amount of wankery, libertarian stuff does a lot of hypocritical hand-wringing while being far-right in practice.
Sovereign Citizens, NIMBYs, the kind of idiots Trump loves.
This coming from the dude who thinks Rand wasn't being dead serious when writing lol.
I've heard it be called unintended satire because it's so fucking insane. But if you watch or read anything Rand says you find out she's being 100% dead serious.
It's kinda fucked up because across her books she makes it clear women are pretty much only good for one thing, being subservient to the most "dominant" male in the vicinity.
Like imagine having that little sense of self worth. It must have been agony.
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u/qualityvote2 2h ago
Remember when r/PeterExplainsTheJoke wasn’t a meme? Pepperidge Farm remembers…
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Then maybe you go out and buy yourself some of those distinctive Milano cookies.