Hoo boy, here's a doozy for you. A Turkish man, Bilgin Ciftci, made a meme comparing the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to the Lord of the Rings series' tiny CGI creature Gollum. Insulting the President is a crime in Turkey, and so Ciftci is on trial, but it all comes down to this: Is comparing someone to Gollum an insult? Think about it.

The judge explained that he had not seen the whole Lord of the Rings series, and so brought in a team of experts (not joking): two academics, two behavioral scientists/psychologists, and a television/film expert to give their two cents. What a job! Gollum experts! Imagine your freedom depending on five adults in a room discussing Tolkien's fictional high-fantasy characters.

I mean, Gollum is a slimy and obsessive little weirdo, but is that such a bad thing? Much like the most recent Peter Jackson iteration of the Tolkien series itself, we'll have to wait for the next installment; the case is adjourned until February.

We talk about freedom in speech in the United States, but how often are we thankful for our freedom of memes? Probably not often enough. So thank you, America, for the freedom to meme—memedom? meme freedom?—and for not sending me to jail for using the word "memedom." Love ya, baby.