Baby This Is Keke Palmer
A Star is Born
We all have celebrities we grew up with. Child actors who are a couple years older than us who we either see in a movie targeted directly at our age group or talked about as giving an incredible performance for a child in a movie far too adult for us. Keke Palmer did a little bit of both for me. Akeelah and the Bee was a very influential movie for a know it all like me. The adults in my life who talked about the Oscars said she was very talented and would probably go on to do great things. I knew to keep an eye on her and loved seeing her whenever she popped up in anything.
After a somewhat bumpy road, she finally has a role worthy of her talent, Jordan Peele’s Nope coming out later this year. Finally the rest of the world will see what people of my generation saw when they watched the Disney channel original Jump In! and the Nickelodeon original series True Jackson VP. We’ve known she was a star from the very beginning. How many other child actors did both Disney and Nick? We want to see our former child stars transition smoothly from underappreciated kids movies to critically acclaimed star vehicles. Keke Palmer is a star and will be recognized as such in the coming years. With her stardom we will repeat iconic phrases related to her internet presence. “Sorry to this man” will live on iconically separate from her. It is not intrinsically tied to her being and does not need to be brought up every time we see her. However another meme does meet these requirements. “Baby this is Keke Palmer.”
The origin of “Baby this is Keke Palmer” is a wild ride that starts with someone addressing a bizarre truth that no one thought to say out loud until Twitter. A tweet that makes all people go “Well you’re not wrong!” or if you are unfamiliar with the fact being discussed, “Yeah that makes sense.” It’s a little bit vulgar. It’s a little bit shocking. It’s well written as a tweet because the shock doesn’t come until the end. “All girls that looked like this in high school could suck a mean dick.” I’m sure it was a quick throwaway thought. The kind twitter is built and best used for. Without the drama that ensues from here, who knows if the tweet would have been viral or stuck in the mind of anybody. I think yes. I think it would have been somewhat iconic but certainly not nearly as iconic as it is today.
Then the original author of the tweet shares a DM she was sent about the tweet. Not the content is inappropriate or gross but something much weirder. The person writing the DM claims that the girl in the picture is her sister who was hit by a metra train. She then goes on to ask the original author to take down the post because it is disrespectful and rude to her dead sister. The author responds to this person’s request, swiftly and with no bullshit. A google images result with the information that it is in fact Keke Palmer. In her genius she gives us the phrase that we repeat to this day. “Baby this is Keke palmer.” She follows it up with a quick, “have a nice day.” End of discussion.
That is the end of the exchange from our perspective. She posts the DMs on twitter and a video of her summarizing the events. From there it takes on a life of its own. It grows and grows and everyone internalizes the phrase and repeats it until it’s not funny and then they keep repeating it until it becomes funny agan. It exists in so many iterations that it’s almost impossible to credit the original creator. Looking up the original user in the screenshots leads to dead ends and suspended accounts. Twitter user @SimishaPlumBob claims to have written the copypasta which would mean that she had written the metra train sister part. To me that means she was probably in collaboration with the original poster. They were in cahoots. Or it’s the same girl with a second account and she is the sole mastermind. She cooked up a plot to go viral and it had consequences beyond her wildest dreams.
Both of these theories run antithetical to my original idea of the interaction. That the original sender of the DM was being absolutely unhinged. Lying to a stranger for no reason. Which is not beyond the realm of possibility. There are people on the internet right lying to the benefit of no one and killing the vibe. People who make new rules for the world or new bad things that happen. Kids who lack understanding but still want to be right. Children trying to confront the terrors of the world by making it worse. They are no longer lying about having girlfriends in Canada or smoking weed once with their cousin or friends from another school. They’re lying just to mess with people, but not in a fun or funny way. Have a fleeting moment of superiority without coolness. Although in giving this any thought it has to be some kind of plot. Why share the DM with us unless you know how funny you’re being. A rare case on the internet where someone knew they had a hit on their hands and they were right.
It’s a mystery I don't want to know the answer to. Every possibility is funny and gives the meme a rich mythos. Like all memes it is out of the author's hands. The narrative surrounding the meme has stretched far beyond the original instance. Halle Berry has participated bringing new people into the inside joke. Keke Palmer herself has chimed in, as all celebrities must if they are fun and good natured. The most recent iteration of course is Jordan Peele using the quote as the sole text accompanying the trailer on his Twitter. The most recent is my favorite. In the repetition and removal from context we have changed the meaning. Baby this is Keke Palmer from Jordan Peele is an announcement. It feels as if she is being announced to us. Baby…. this….. is….. Keke Palmer. She has finally arrived. Get ready. As an almost life long fan, I have been ready.