REAL LIFE NEWS: ROCK STAR ASKS GOOGLE TO TAKE DOWN UNFLATTERING PHOTOS, WHICH IMMEDIATELY MAKES THEM MORE WIDELY VIEWED
by Hazed
Poor Axl Rose. The lead singer of rock group Guns 'n' Roses doesn’t like to be mocked. He’s fighting to get copies of an internet meme called “Fat Axl” removed from the web – but his attempts are just making the meme even more prominent.
The meme stems from a concert that Mr Rose gave in Winnipeg, Canada, back in 2010. Fans who hadn’t seen him perform for several years were shocked when pictures from the show showed that the singer, wearing a red bandanna and with his shirt unbuttoned, had put on a large amount of weight.
And so a meme was born, called Fat Axl. A picture was used with a variety of captions which played on lyrics of the bands songs – such as “Sweet pie o’ mine” and “Take me down the bakery city where the pies have cream and the cakes are tasty”.
Now, six years later, Axl has decided he’s had enough of this rude mockery and has issued takedown notices to Google, Facebook and YouTube. He claims that the pictures violate copyright because the photographer did not sign a release, which makes the pictures Rose’s property.
Well, whether he has a case or not, his attempt to make the meme go away has had the opposite effect. I’d never heard of this meme until a few days ago, when the details (including the picture he doesn’t like) showed up in articles all over the media. This just goes to show how his efforts are backfiring.
Clearly he’s never heard of the Streisand effect, named after the singer who famously tried to suppress photos of her residence in Malibu, but just managed to draw more public attention to it.
Poor Axl.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/06/axl-rose-google-remove-photos
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/07/axl_rose_tries_to_remove_fat_axl_meme/
