Music

Ziggy Alberts And His Rant Against Face Masks Is Now A Massive Meme

Remember kids: Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from becoming a meme.

by Jules LeFevre 20 July 2020

Want more Junkee in your life? Sign up to our newsletter, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook so you always know where to find us.

Sunshine Coast strummer Ziggy Alberts is being rightfully slammed for an anti-mandatory face mask rant on Instagram, in which he proclaimed that the rule “strips Australians of their basic rights”.

His statement came after Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced yesterday that face masks would be mandatory in Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire from midnight on Wednesday due to the surge in coronavirus cases in those areas — not wearing a mask would incur a $200 fine.

Ziggy — who’s previously been called out for supposedly pushing anti-Vax and anti-5G views in his latest song, ‘Don’t Get Caught Up’ — wasn’t having any of that, and proceeded to let loose in an illogical post, writing that our country is “no longer free when you can’t leave your house or face fines for not wearing something over your mouth when you try to leave.”

“There is no way I’m going to support, endorse, or encourage mandatory face masks or lockdowns in a free country,” he wrote. He also seemed to draw a comparison between the Nazi regime in Europe — from which his family fled — and the current public health order in Victoria. He was heavily criticised by a number of artists, including Alex Lahey, Nina Las Vegas, Brendan Maclean, and Gordi — who actually happens to be a doctor, unlike…you know…Alberts.

“There is no space for the spread of misguided and misinformed rhetoric suggesting that wearing a mask is a breach of your freedoms as a human being,” Lahey wrote. “That messaging is dangerous, has no basis in science or medicine and will not solve anything.”

It’s not just artists calling him out — Alberts has now become 2020’s newest and most brutal meme, with Facebook groups like Sultanaposting now filled to the brim with posts ridiculing him. Have a scroll through some of the best below — and remember, having freedom of speech doesn’t mean you’re exempt from being called out for being a fucking idiot.