It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… if Christmas looks like an internet comments section. A Lacey man made one of the year’s top memes the theme of his Christmas lights, declaring “These lights didn’t hang themselves… and neither did Epstein,” a reference to the death earlier this year of billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Kevin Gibson took a unique approach to his holiday decorating this year, the third year he’s used memes as a part of his light design. He says he couldn’t resist turning one of the year’s biggest memes into a light display, saying “I just do it for fun… just trying to change things up is all.”
It takes “a good half a day” or so to set up the display, Gibson said.
“These lights didn’t hang themselves. . . And neither did Epstein”! #KevinGibson from Lacy, NJ slayed this Christmas deco didn’t he? 🎄 pic.twitter.com/gm9Qt8UwZH
— Francesca Buttercup (@pbosslady) December 20, 2019
The “Merica” displayed in larger-than-life letters on the roof kicked off his tradition, he told NJ Advance Media. Two Christmases ago it was joined by a memorial to Harambe, the gorilla shot and killed at the Cincinnati zoo, and last year Gibson “really stirred the pot” by replacing the “Merica” with a giant “Trump.”
Self-described as “not very political,” Gibson said it was “just pushing buttons” to display the president’s name. “People didn’t like the Trump one very much,” he said, adding, “I thought it was funny.”
Despite picking a controversial meme for his theme this year, response has generally been good, Gibson said.
“This year I’ve got mostly great feedback. Here and there somebody said it isn’t appropriate for the holidays but you always have one,” Gibson said.
This year’s meme came to life shortly after the sex-offender financier Epstein was found dead in his jail cell in Manhattan in August. What started as a conspiracy theory that Epstein was instead murdered quickly became a joke on certain corners of the internet.
When asked if he thought Epstein killed himself, Gibson quipped back, “Is Eli [Manning] starting this Sunday?”
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