Lazy Guide to Net Culture: Doing a Lynndie

If you want to appear like you’re at the cutting edge of net culture but can’t be bothered to spend hours online, then never fear. Scotsman.com’s pathetic team of geeks, freaks and gimps will do the hard work for you. While you sip wine, read a book or engage in normal social interaction, they will burn out their retinas staring at badly designed web pages and dodge creeps in chatrooms to prepare for you: Scotsman.com’s lazy guide to net culture.

The abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad has prompted a wide range of responses worldwide, most of them involving disgust.

A handful of images have stuck in the collective mind of people across the planet and become a symbol of how the war in Iraq has gone wrong.

One US soldier called Lynndie England has become a poster-girl for the Coalition of the Willing's failure to get to grips with Iraq's citizens. There is an image of her that has developed a life of its own: her, fag in mouth, pointing at the reproductive organs of a naked prisoner with her left hand and giving the thumbs up with her right.

It is a degrading and shameful sight.

And, according to badgas.co.uk, worthy of commemoration so we never forget it. In this vein, the site hosts image after image of people "doing a Lynndie". Badgas.co.uk explains it all thus.

So what does doing a Lynndie involve? Here are the basic instructions:
1. Find a victim who deserves to be "Lynndied".
2. Make sure you have a friend nearby with a camera ready to capture the "Lynndie".
3. Stick a cigarette (or pen) in your mouth and allow it to hang slightly below the horizontal.
4. Face the camera, tilt your upper body slightly forward but lean back on your right leg.
5. Make a hitchhiking gesture with your right hand and extend your right arm so that it's in roughly the same position as if you were holding a rifle.
6. Keeping your left arm slightly bent, point in the direction of the victim and smile.
Ideally, you should refrain from telling the victim what you're about to do. Victims who are unaware, bemused or angry make for a Lynndie that is more in keeping with the original. If you've "done a Lynndie" and would like it to appear in the gallery, send the picture to nobody at badgas dot co dot uk, along with details of where it was taken.

While too many of the images feature the same people doing the Lynndie poses, or tramps having the mickey taken out of them or one karaoke evening, there are some gems in there including a newspaper editor, Michelle from Big Brother being Lynndied (yes, I also have forgotten who she is already) and a member of the Bush, jun, administration striking the pose.

It's handy that Bush gets mentioned so any US visitors to the site don’t forget his role in the war on Iraq. You remember, all that wacky business of telling the world that he knew the country had weapons of mass destruction when in fact Iraq has more real ale pubs than nukes. It's good that our friends across the pond are reminded of these things as they are having one of their "elections" in November.

Anyone who needs reminding of why Bush is a bad thing and why they should vote in the US elections (I know I'm going to try) should check out TooStupidToBePresident.com's animation The Bush Who Stole Florida.