In theory, how fair is it to paint an image of an entire community using one photo?

If you’re on Facebook, I’m sure you’re familiar with memes (pictures usually accompanied by a caption or a narration below). They’re often posted to evoke a message of inspiration, humor, social justice, morality, religion, politics and everything in between. And try as you might to skip over them, they’re shared and re-posted thousands of times over, making them virtually unavoidable in the Facebook world.

Last week, we were introduced to “Chenango County Memes,” a Facebook page devoted to exploiting and unfairly portraying the entire Chenango County populace based on the negative perceptions and typecasting of the page’s architects (presumably college kids with a God complex and nothing better to do).

With memes that take a deliberately offensive stance on social issues like welfare, drug abuse, incest, teen pregnancy, education, and poverty in Chenango County, the page raises eyebrows and for good reason; it serves no other purpose than to spit in the face of Chenango. It’s filled with one-sided, biased, stereotypical and outright absurd depictions of the area, and while there’s nothing anyone can do but complain about it (you know, that whole first amendment thing), it certainly doesn’t garner any admiration from me.