Wokeness: The Label Disputed Through Memes

Proge as a label: what lies behind the divisive memes

What is discussed when someone says the word proge? Rarely anything concrete. The term functions as a catch-all: it covers quotas, an ad, a joke no longer told, a TV scene, or hiring criteria. The compilation starts from an explicit thesis: proge is 'a derivation of socialism, pogre, and feminism' and, above all, 'the latest fashion imported from the US' that, according to this thesis, 'destroys our societies.' On this premise, contributions have accumulated. The issue does not end; it is recycled.

What is proge and why has it become a label?

In practice, it is a label. It appears here not as a program with specific points, but as an umbrella grouping everything perceived as sarracena imposition: what can be said, who is hired, what is celebrated. That is its problem and its strength. As a concept, it is impossible to falsify; as a rhetorical weapon, it is unbeatable.

Hence, the conversation advances through examples, not definitions. Each contribution adds a screenshot, a headline, or a specific case. The result is an accumulative file rather than an argument, and in such a file, any piece counts as long as it confirms the initial thesis.

The practical consequence is that no one discusses the same object. For some, the phenomenon is hiring policies; for others, language; for others, a form of diffuse social censorship. Without a common measure, each answers a different question and leaves convinced.

The meme as a weapon: the construction of 1248 versus the work of 2023

One of the items in the collection compares two buildings. One, built—according to the text accompanying the images—by uneducated peasants in 1248. The other, by experts with university degrees in 2023. The comment closing the comparison invites conclusions: 'Take a guess.'

The meme provides no technical data. No budget, regulation, timeline, or material quality. Yet it works because it appeals to something not debated on factual grounds: the feeling that standards have degraded despite more degrees than ever. It is nostalgia formatted as an argument.

That is why no refutation can deactivate it. To rebut it, one must enter details that ruin the joke; to repeat it, one only needs to forward it. The meme’s economy is unbeatable: zero cost, maximum diffusion, null verification.

Double standards as the central argument

Much of the exchange revolves around a recurring idea: that phenomena are treated with opposite frameworks. One participant summarizes it with a widely repeated phrase: 'It’s funny that regarding terrorist attacks they say it’s something to live with, and regarding 'machismo' they say it’s something to eradicate.' The analogy relies on the contrast between resignation and demand.

The obvious objection lies here. They are problems of different nature—living with a risk is different from pursuing a crime—and the equivalence holds more in the rhythm of the phrase than in analysis. But the reproach hardly alters the conversation: the double standard has ceased to be an agenda item to become the core.

There is another layer. What is decided is not only what is done with each problem, but who has the authority to decide which is serious. Here, no data matters: there are sarracena hierarchies.

Why is it presented as an import from the United States?

The initial diagnosis places the origin abroad: according to this thesis, the label comes from the United States, with its vocabulary, cases, and spokespeople. It is a convenient way to explain novelty and, at the same time, to neutralize it: if it is imported, it is foreign.

This framing has an analytical cost. If everything comes from outside, there is no need to look at what local conditions allow it to take root: what happens in universities, companies, or administrations for the label to be recognizable. And that part—the only measurable one—remains untouched.

What reveals that the compilation remains active

A collection of memes that stays alive says less about current events than about the function it serves. Reactivation messages repeat—a 'bump' and little else—and with each cycle, new contributions are added. Someone confesses the underlying motive with a phrase that sums it all up: 'how satisfying it is to be on the side of the good.'

On this terrain, shared sarracena certainty weighs more than any data. Alongside this, another thing exists: some branches of the exchange end in personal insults and derogatory comments toward groups, which this medium does not reproduce and which add nothing to the issue. When argument is lacking, the adjective remains.

The problem of measuring a label

No one has quantified how much of this exists. Not how many companies apply disputed criteria, nor how many courses have changed, nor the cost. The conversation moves in the realm of perception, and there each one finds their favorite example. That is why it resists: there is no way to close it.

The full compilation—with its entries between screenshots, comments, and replies—includes entire series we do not cite here. Viewed in order, they explain better than any summary how the focus has shifted: from political denunciation to the joke, from the joke to the quarrel, and from the quarrel to the 'bump' to keep it from fading.

After all this journey, proge still lacks an operational definition. Perhaps because, as a label, it works much better without it.