Greg Abbott Is a Little Piss Baby

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Part of a series on Catchphrases. [View Related Entries]

About

Greg Abbott Is a Little Piss Baby is a catchphrase used to make fun of Texas Governor Greg Abbott after he signed Texas House Bill 20 into law in September 2022. The bill aims to prohibit social media companies from censoring the expressions of social media users on sites active in Texas on the basis of their viewpoints, giving these companies less say over what they can censor or remove from their sites. People opposed to the bill (some of whom see it as an impediment of the First Amendment because social media companies can't control their private platforms) began calling Greg Abbott a "piss baby" online following a meme started by users of the subreddit /r/politicalhumor, who made it a rule that every commenter must call Greg Abbott a piss baby in their comments or be banned from the sub.

Origin

Texas House Bill 20 is a bill that specifically aims to prohibit the banning and censorship of social media users for expressing their viewpoints (including political ones) online, particularly on social media sites with over 50 million monthly users that are available in Texas. The only content that a social media company can ban under this law is unlawful content, such as posts that incite crimes or threats of violence. Bill 20 was signed into law on September 9th, 2021, by Texas Governor Greg Abbott but suspended by the Supreme Court on May 11th, 2022, on First Amendment grounds.^[1]^[2] On September 16th, a federal appeals court upheld the bill, finding it does not violate the First Amendment.^[3]^[4]^[5]

On September 23rd, 2022, the subreddit /r/PoliticalHumor^[6] made a post stating that "Until further notice, all comments posted to this subreddit must contain the phrase 'Greg Abbott is a little piss baby'" otherwise they'll be banned from the sub, garnering over 5,500 upvotes in four days. The poster criticizes the bill for its vagueness, writing, "The law also requires moderators to not censor any specific point of view, and the language is so vague that you must allow discussion about human cannibalization if you have users saying cannibalization is wrong." They also mention how Reddit falls under a "weird category with this law" as most of the site is handled by volunteer mods who do not work for Reddit, writing, "It's unclear whether we count as users or moderators in relation to this law, and none of us live in Texas anyway." The post ends, "We are explicitly censoring the viewpoint that Greg Abbott isn't a little piss baby. Anyone denying the fact that Abbott is a little piss baby will be banned from the subreddit" (full post shown below).

Spread

The subreddit became filled with posts, comments and memes calling Greg Abbott a piss baby in the following days. For example, on September 24th, 2022, a Redditor posted a Letterkenny meme to /r/politicalhumor^[7] using the phrase, garnering over 6,900 upvotes in three days (shown below, left). On September 25th, a Redditor posted a similar meme to /r/politicalhumor,^[8] garnering over 8,300 upvotes in two days (shown below, right).

Also on September 25th, Redditor Takpusseh-yamp posted a photo to /r/politicalhumor^[9] showing a plane flying a banner reading, "Greg Abbott is a little piss baby," apparently photographed flying over Austin, Texas, garnering over 6,700 upvotes in two days (shown below). On September 26th, Tech Dirt^[10] reported on the meme. On the same day, Twitter^[11] user @mmasnick, a writer for Tech Dirt, shared the post, garnering over 4,200 likes in a day.

That day, Redditor samenumberwhodis posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop^[12] asking for the meaning behind the meme, garnering over 5,000 upvotes in a day. The top commented answer reads:

The state of Texas (of which Abbott is governor) has passed a law which attempts to force social media companies to host content that they don't want to host and forbids moderators from censoring any point of view. In response to this law, all over the internet, moderators are refusing to censor the proclamation that Greg Abbott is a piss baby.