Asemese Basket Weaving

Asemese Basket Weaving is a phrase which originated on the website 2sama in mid 2013. the term was coined by a user responding to someone claiming they had recently attended an anti-immigration protest in Valnødkjerke, a small community in southwest Lyngaard. The user posted a photo taken by Journalist Steven Arundel of an Asemese woman weaving a basket while soldiers rush with guns drawn during the Battle of Sinké-Pacifique. The post would effectively mock the original posters efforts, comparing it to Asemese Basket Weaving, while other did unspecified "real work".

The term was initially a popular phrase within the culture warrior community who used the phrase to mock others they saw as not acting decisively. It would also be used to mock liberal and apolitical individuals, claiming they were doing useless tasks while others (the posters) took action against "Cultural Communism", "Degeneracy", and "Globohomo". However the term gradually became normalized in internet slang, gradually becoming a euphemism for simply not caring about or intentionally ignoring the news or current events. By 2018 it became common for people to respond to news articles with the Asemese Basket Weaving photo, used to insinuate that the poster was unbothered or unconcerned with the news. The phrase "literally me rn", or "my reaction to this information" would sometimes be added into the post.

The term reached mainstream recognition after the Lyngaardian socialist politician Karoline Pyndt used the phrase to describe people who participated in the Pink Hat Protests on a Clipr Post in 2019. The phrase in now in use in broad internet slang, particularly in Lyngaard and Arcadia.

The photo

"Woman weaving during battle" is a photo taken of a woman named Bérengère Gbó in the Matelotville Market. She is weaving a set of traditional rice baskets, in the background there are several armed FARSU rebels supposedly running into battle. It was taken by journalist Steven Arundel in 1998 during the start of the Battle of Sinké-Pacifique. Arundel would later say "The situation at that moment was really dire. The village of Korhotoubé was recently attacked and depopulated by rebels allied to FARSU. I knew I had nothing to really worry about, the rebels tended to be careful around visible foreigners. But that lady I think showed some sort of courage in the face of their invasion of the city. She continued to do her work, the only thing she could and knew how to do. While marauders sacked her community. She refused to give them a victory, that it's the victory of fear and intimidation."

It was reported later that the woman was named Bérengère Gbó, a well known and beloved basket maker in the city. It was claimed that every family in the city had at least one of her baskets in their home. She would later be executed by NCAPDGb during the Purification Campaign. Her body was never found.

Initial use by the far-right

The phrase's first known occurrence was on the image board site 2sama in June 2013. Its initial use was explicitly to mock others who, in the eyes of radicalized members of the board, were doing little to nothing in the fight against leftism. The phrase also became popular on other forums and imageboards. The phrase was used to describe those who took part in political action seen as unproductive, as well as to describe more moderate conservatives, liberals, the apolitical, and others deemed as "enemies". The Phrase specifically took off initially in the culture warrior community, and online community which organized to fight against "social justice warriors", "Communists", and degenerates" in a Culture War against these perceived threats. The image would regularly be used during raids (where individuals flood a specific online space to troll others), harassment campaigns, and others forms of Cyberharassment.

The Image would also be a common motif amongst the online far-right, being used in propaganda and online posts by Internet Neo-Fascists like Patriotic Resistance, Kultursværd, and others. Johannes Magnussen would post "Asemese basket weavers, much like useless eaters, must be eradicated from the earth." on a private Kultursværd IRC Channel before attempting a mass shooting at the Lyngaardian Christian Democrats headquarters in Fyrhøgh. He would fire 62 bullets into the builds front window and facade, however only 13 bullets bassed into the building, which was empty for a Bank Holiday and Magnussen was arrested by police, where he then attempted to pretend to be a communist revolutionary before his phone was cracked and given to police. The still remained in common internet vernacular amongst right-wing portions of the internet and amongst right-wing users on social media more broadly.

Normalization

Between 2017 and 2018 the term gained traction on various social media platforms. Initially spurred by its use by right-wing individuals in these spaces. its adoption and appropriation softened its initial message. In 2017 the term started to be used by social media users as a self deprecating joke, using the basket weaving woman as an avatar to express their own political apathy. It later entered broader political use as a way for others to criticize political actions they did not agree with.

In the start of 2018, the phrase came into general use amongst a general audience, its meaning dependent on the context in which it was posted and had evolved from a strictly political term into a term to convey a wide array of emotions and feelings. Losing its initial political meaning through semantic satiation, now it currently occupies a space as a social phrase used to describe apathy, Boredom, or even relaxation, and tranquility depending on the context given by the user. While others still use the phrase for its inherent political meaning, this has slowly become its secondary, even ternary meaning as internet users have continuously redefined and recontextualized the phrase.