Purple, green and orange are the classic ‘secondary color’ triad for anyone who considers red, yellow and blue to be pigment primaries, so it’s going to be very commonplace. (red isn’t a pigment primary, btw. It can be mixed from yellow and magenta, but that doesn’t stop most people from making RYB color wheels)
Also the 4chan meme isn’t using purple. It’s using magenta / fuchsia / hot pink, while that cartoon character in the striped shirt is wearing green and purple.
So the gif and the GG logo match each other, but neither matches the female cartoon figure.
According to know-your-meme, and those who would charge that this is a rape joke, the particular juxtaposition of colors was apparently the product of a revolt against moderator censorship on 4chan.
As know-your-meme notes, the images became more and more abstract in protest against moderators censoring images, until it just became purple and green. This is not the behavior of someone spamming a rape joke, rather it is the behavior of someone pissed off by the fact that they were censored.
Context Matters: If the color scheme is not innocent, then it is a cry against censorship–and that is admirable.
If it came out of 4chan, quite possibly? Do you think that people will be afraid to admit that? Now that I know of the green/purple 4chan rape joke connection, I’m almost certain I have unknowingly glanced over this rape joke (and intentional, knowing combination of the colours with intent) without knowing I was doing so on the internet many times. I bet there are a lot of other in-jokes I don’t get too.
Worth pointing out, but I think you have to consider the context of the origin of the image, and the mindset of the people who created it. As Know Your Meme says;
Some aspects present in Vivian James’ visual design represent 4chan’s /v/ board, such as her striped sweater being green and purple, a reference to the infamous daily dose images, and the four-leaf clover on her headband. - [knowyourmeme][1]
To not create more pointless outrages? To not feed the trollies, whose painstaking work gets waved off as a coincidence instead of exploding in delighful fireworks of internet rightfulness?
So it’s okay for trolls to spam those boards with rape references, and “censorship” for mods to try to remove the rape references, and “admirable” for the trolls to spam those boards with indirect rape references in retaliation?
I think it’s easier if you ignore it, and then maybe have a go at not worrying at all what other people pay attention to. I feel more media literate because of this story, not more outraged.
For what its worth, I’ve been lurking on /b/ off and on for years and this is the first I’ve ever heard of this color rape thing. /b/ moves fast and I undoubtedly missed some of the references, but it seems pretty damn obscure to me.
I haven’t properly followed any of this, but wasn’t that Vivian character created before any of this gamergate stuff? And aren’t we just attributing to malice what could easily be explained by stupidity?
All in all, the tone here is feeling just as much a witch-hunt as the opposition.
A board’s moderators removing offensive images is not censorship. It was never censorship, it will never be censorship no matter how often people who don’t really understand censorship say that it is.
One side harasses women and sends rape, death and bomb threats, while another discusses the context of a possible reference to a previous rape “joke” meme.
