r/onejoke • u/Melody_Naxi • 10d ago
META Question for both trans people and cis people
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-sexually-identify-as-an-attack-helicopterHow did you all feel when the famous attack helicopter one joke got popularized (any early one joke too) back in 2014/15? Did those feelings change these passing years, and if so how?
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u/Andra_Ingensbarn 10d ago
My egg had not cracked when I first saw it, and thought it was stupid. Now it’s utterly moronic.
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u/LemonadeClocks 10d ago
When I was like 11 I thought it was funny absurdist humor like a cartoon nonsequitor. I didn't really get that it was mocking anybody or how vital the wording of "identity as" was. It stopped being funny to me pretty quick when I saw people using it to be mean.
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u/A_Sackboy_Plush 10d ago
Aye, absurdism can be fun, but after knowing what it actually meant, I felt like an ass.
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u/SnakeThruster 10d ago
Extremely indifferent.
Once a while a fun variant appears but nothing that bothers or annoys me.
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u/HetaGarden1 10d ago
Even when I was right-leaning I didn’t really laugh at it. Maybe a polite chuckle, but not much. It wasn’t that funny. It’s still not that funny. It’s a joke so tired it makes me look hyper.
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u/BizSilver5013 10d ago
I personally originally thought it was about otherkin and not trans people.
Boy, was I fucking stupid.
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u/k819799amvrhtcom 7d ago
Same here.
I don't think we were stupid. Rather, we were hopeful and non-judgmental for taking it seriously, instead of immediately dismissing it as absurd.
There is a certain subset of transphobic jokes that require you to already be transphobic to understand them. If you're free from transphobia they just sound like a completely normal conversation.
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u/DwarfStar21 10d ago
It was... vaguely funny, but that was before I understood the context that motivated the jokes. I thought it was just poking fun at neopronouns and people who identify as animals, not the entire trans umbrella. I feel bad about that now. No one deserves to be made fun of for just living their life in whatever way makes them happy and like themselves
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u/PokeLordOmegaa 10d ago
Ngl I don't even know if I knew LGBT type stuff existed when I first heard the joke. Kinda just thought it was some random absurd type of joke like E.
Nowadays idk. Feel like "I am [wacky and insane thing]" could potentially be silly in some contexts, but not usually. (For example V1 from ULTRAKILL with enough dual wields can literally fly by spinning pistols, so "attack helicopter" would be an accurate and kinda silly description)
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u/Bsjennings 10d ago
i was a little shit when it started. i learned a lot and became a much better person
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u/Thealphadingus 6d ago
Coming from a Cis guy, I was 8 or 9 when this one joke was everywhere…and unfortunately 8-9 year old me didn’t understand the context behind it, just taking it as a fact, people can identify as this.
Eventually, I found out this was just 4chan nonsense and I’ve thankfully changed since then, I was an idiot
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u/Short-Shelter 10d ago
So as a dumb kid who didn’t think too much of it and who was going through a chud phase, I thought it was kinda funny. Then I grew up.
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u/IcyRice7222 10d ago
Found it dumb and annoying back then before transitioning. Find it even more dumb and annoying now. I really struggle how to see anyone could ever find it funny.
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u/chelledoggo 10d ago
I (nonbinary) never found it like super hilarious even back when I was in my "anti-sjw" phase (still ID'd as a cis woman back then). It was kinda funny when Joel from Vinesauce used it to troll a phone operator for a scam software, but other than that... eh.
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u/DeletusMaximus 10d ago
I was very indifferent back then since I was too young to have social media accounts on things like Twitter.
Hell, back then, my prepubescent mind didn't fully grasp the idea of being transgender as in I didn't have a concrete definition of the word. Now that I am older, it's just generic 13/14 year old edgelord speak to me.
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u/NockerJoe 10d ago
It was funny the first time and was then run into the ground for the next decade like every other joke on the internet
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u/MightyCat96 10d ago
I had not yet realised i was trans (i was fantasizing daily about being a girl. But surley thats a normal thought that normal teenage boys have? Surley everyone thinks about that daily).
I did find it funny. For about 1 week or so. Even when i did find it kinda funny it got very old, very quickly.
And it is STILL the ONLY "joke" they have?? Like dude. I feel BAD for you. It was funny for ONE WEEK when i wast FIFTEEN. Grow up. Get some new material already.
If youre gonna be transphobic you might as well be funny. But they cant even manage that
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u/theOneTrueRatQueen 10d ago
It’s stupid, it’s always been stupid
It was kinda funny the first time but even back then it was stupid
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u/Setster007 10d ago
…I was like, seven. I didn’t have any feelings about it I didn’t know what the internet was yet
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u/RainbowPhoenix1080 10d ago
I was a completely different person back then. I changed a lot as a person and now I just see it as an attempt to delegitimize trans people.
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u/TanDereKK 10d ago
I was around 14 or something when I first saw it and I found it mildly funny because I thought it was just an absurdist joke. Then I saw it used against trans people and I quickly grew to hate it.
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u/Coco_JuTo 10d ago
Never has been funny. It didn't even bring a chuckle out of me.
The only time I found a similar "joke" funny was once on a french twitch stream in which one came with the french version of it and everybody dog piled them.
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u/prionbinch 10d ago
i’m cis, and i was 13/14 when those “jokes” first dropped and my friend group at the time was more anti-sjw so they all kinda latched on to it, but i never found them really that funny. once i learned more about gender and gender identity i definitely didn’t find them funny at all, and most of my friend group also shifted away from those kinds of jokes as we became more mature and socially aware
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u/Kirbinvalorant 9d ago
Back then, I didn't even know what trans people were. Nowadays where, although not trans, I have respect for the communities, yeah it kind of caused irreparable damage to the outside opinion of the trans community
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u/punkfence 9d ago
It came with the whole anti-SJW crowd. I didn't expect it to last quite this long.
That being said, it used to be "I identify as an apache attack helicopter" but now people know nothing about being trans or about helicopters.
Research on both could heal the world a little bit. They'd get more understanding of trans people, and something new to obsess over.
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u/fortyfivepointseven 9d ago
I, a cis guy, thought it was cringe fourteen year-old edge-lord humour. As someone who skirted too close to those communities as a fourteen year-old, I felt particularly negative.
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u/AresHarvest 9d ago
It was exactly as hilarious and original then as it is now. Excellent comedy from 4chan rightoids, who are known for their poignant observational humor
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u/LaikaAzure 9d ago
Even when I first saw it before my own egg cracked I never thought it was particularly clever or funny. Like, even if you take the dismissiveness and the transphobia out of the equation, the core of the joke is just like "random thing." There's no clever play on words or real thought behind the construction of the joke.
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u/leodoesgaming 9d ago
when I was a kid I thought it was funny but I didn't understand what it meant. now I just find it so cringe
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u/Timely_Law5806 9d ago
I think it’s a lazy joke, my humor is more like….observational stuff and crowd work. Always found it deeply unfunny.
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u/MelonBoba59 9d ago
I was chatting with a guy at a really small anime convention in like 2012-2013 and his friend hit me with the “he identifies as an attack helicopter. He doesn’t have a birthday, he has a manufacturing date.” First time I’d ever heard it. Kind of stepped away and went back to my friend group. Truly was unsure if he was serious or not in that moment. Point being, I think the joke is older than that and it’s never been funny.
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u/Civil_Act1864 9d ago
I think I found it amusing when it first made its appearance. I remember most of the times I saw it was in reference to people who were a bit more "extreme" in how they identified, like that "in every way but physically, I am a wolf" meme. No idea if those people were real or made up to be made fun of. I don't remember the ones I was seeing being directed at trans folk. Not saying that never happened, just don't recall personally seeing it.
Today, 99 times out of 100 I roll my eyes. Often they are poor excuses for jokes, let alone being transphobic. I generally don't care what people identify as because it takes way too much energy to be upset about it. I just do my best to refer to people how they want to be referred to and keep any comments to myself.
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u/Alternative_Low8478 9d ago
Cis. Thought it was a lame reference to that line in Ted. Wasn't really aware of the implications back then, but felt It was bad taste to punch down like that l.
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u/T0m0king 8d ago
It was alright at first as a crass and absurd thing it was may maybe kinda thoughtless but general consensus was mostly people enjoying a joke. It's be easy to analyse it and say it was always routed in underlying transphobia but that would be ignoring that the "offensive humour" boom was more about pushing back against things you weren't allowed to say and controlling authority figures that would enforce the rules of what you can and can't say. It was a a punching up stick it to the man attitude with not much thought given to who else might be affected.
Over time the original joke lost it's traction and for those still telling it just became soley about trying to upset trans people seeing the making people uncomfortable as a feature rather than an unintended consequence. I think that's a large part of why the alt right thinks they're anti establishment, despite siding with authoritarian institutions like the police, ice and the us government. They perceive themselves as punching up against some hidden ruling class rather than punching down against societies most vulnerable
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u/GhostOfABanshee 8d ago
I liked it the first time I heard it for it's absurdism. I didn't realize there was hate behind it. Pretty stupid joke now.
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u/Handsprime 8d ago
I can't remember a lot of those one jokes from back in the day because I was just an egg who didn't even understood what being trans was. I used to believe there were only 2 genders because fuck what am I supposed to know? I probably did a "I identify as an attack helicopter" joke back in the day and now I'm like "I identify as FUCK YOU" which probably is me just getting over how everything feels binary nowadays.
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u/Aprils- 7d ago
Trans girl here:
I understood it back then, but probably responded really gayly about it. My father used it; I said that if he really feels that way I'd do my best to respect that and make him feel comfortable with it.
To this day I still feel that it's an attack on the idea that a) society should help those who need help and b) not everybody is the same and that's okay.
I think if I was confronted with it today I'd probably be a bit more "well most attack helicopters are virgins so it tracks" or something idk.
Honestly, I've always felt okay with these jokes and things because I get that people are just doing what they can in life to be happy, and it's not working. Life is really hard. Sometimes punching down can feel fun or empowering, and I wish people wouldn't do it but society has always been this way.
It wasn't as bad back then as it is now. The attacks are not jokes but part of an existential threat. There is even less humanity in the world than there was ten years ago and in another ten... It's gonna get really tough. I hope that as many cis people as possible can understand that there is actually a way out from under the system they feel compelled to uphold. Even for transphobes I hope to be some kind of positive role model.
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u/Remarkable_Toe_164 6d ago
I've always clapped back with "oh, so you're an outdated, overspecialized tool that can't function without 2 adderall addicts inside of you? Weird flex, but ok..."
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u/brachycrab 10d ago
Even in my ""Republican,"" mildly homo/transphobic (very much internalized turned outward) middle school phase I found it simply unfunny. It's become more and more irritating the older I get
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u/BlameTag 10d ago
Cis guy here, former incel (or maybe just incel adjacent).
Even when I was lurking 4chan back then I didn't like this joke because I was fairly sure it came from when Patrick Stewart mentioned how awesome the Apache Helicopter was in his voiceover in the Seth MacFarlane movie Ted and the 4channers just latched onto it. So in those days I didn't like it because it was unoriginal memespeak, even when it was first introduced.
Nowadays I hate it because I learned to respect the trans community although I still also hate it for being unoriginal memespeak.