Earlier this week it emerged that the famous linguist, Noam Chomsky, was unfamiliar with the meme ‘Baby Yoda’.

This came about when the previously unknown Jessica Yu emailed Chomsky to ask him what he — as a foremost international linguistic expert — thought of the meme, which is based on a character from the Disney+ series 'Mandalorian'. Chomsky replied that he knew nothing about the Star Wars spin off, and that, further, he had ''No thoughts on memes''

This comes to the disappointment of Chomsky's millions of followers, who have been waiting for years for the 90 year old 'father of modern linguistics' to issue a statement on or agree to be interviewed about meme culture. Millennials and Zoomers feel particularly aggrieved that the man who once dismantled Foucault in public debate has not once held forth on the ‘Overly Attached Girlfriend’ meme, ‘Scumbag Steve’, ‘Slender Man’, or the finer points of Acid Corbynist meme strategy ahead of the UK General Election.  Like... 'Ermagerd'.

A number of books in the last few years have tried to develop an understanding of memes including "Can the Left Learn to Meme?: Adorno, Video Gaming, and Stranger Things" By Mike Watson, "Beyond the Meme: Development and Structure in Cultural Evolution" , edited by Alan C Love and William C Wimsatt, "Post Memes: Seizing the Memes of Production", edited by Alfie Bown and Dan Bristow, and "Memes to Movements: How the World's Most Viral Media is Changing Social Protest and Power" by An Xiao Mina, all published in 2019.

The increasing use of memes for everyday communication as well as their role in online radicalization of the left and right alike show that memes are a vital part of our language and will be increasingly important in world politics as we roll into 2020 and a US presidential election. We want to know how weaponized memes effect Chomsky's brilliant model of public thought control by the media in "manufacturing Consent". In a world where techno-capitalism aims at controlling our very psyche via Neural Link and digital profiles from mined data, can memes break the power big media has long held — can we seize the memes of production?

That's why we ask you to sign this petition, following a facebook post on the 'Acid Communism' page , urging Noam Chomsky to read 'Can the Left Learn to Meme?' by Mike Watson,  but also to issue a statement on the pertinent issues of today, such as ''Can the Working Class have a little Salami?'' and ''How many Acid Communists does it take to change a light bulb?''.

We in return pledge to make all efforts to furnish Chomsky with the necessary apps, skills and background knowledge to deliberate on and, above all, make memes.

With enough signatures we will be able to draw attention to this issue and get the relevant books gifted to Chomsky by their publishers.