I'm Mr. Sterling Right Hand Arm... Man
I'm his everything.
The year is 2014. Audio of Donald Sterling, owner of the The Los Angeles Clippers, has just been released to TMZ. It is horrifically racist and sends the NBA into a brief moment of chaos. It bring the uncomfortable racial dynamics at play in Basketball and most major sports in America to the forefront of conversation. Franchises worth billions of dollars are built and sustained on the bodies of black players, while managed and controlled by white owners, who seem to get older and richer with each passing year. The scandal goes on for a little over two months as those in charge figure out what to do. Eventually Donald Sterling is banned for life from the NBA. He sells the Clippers and gives back both of his NAACP awards. Most importantly he and his wife enter a long legal battle with the woman who recorded the audio in the first place, V. Stiviano.
V Stiviano is a model, actress, artist, dreamer, and most importantly, an archivist. She was the center of this scandal as both the person who recorded the vitriol and also was on the receiving end of it. When the tapes come out, she becomes the center of attention and she does her best to capture it. When reporters storm her house, she skates by them, literally, in an iridescent face shield, an emoji shirt, and a colorful tutu. She is anything but typical but has, outside of the meme, been largely forgotten by culture. We have not looked at V. Stiviano with fresh eyes in the wake of deciding that the media was too mean. Her story is too recent and too complicated for her to be reclaimed a la Monica Lewinsky or Britney Spears. The meme of her that does live on is from her interview with Barbara Walters on 20/20.
Though I was around and on the internet and somewhat paying attention to this scandal at the time I do not remember the reaction to this clip when it originally aired. It was not instantly iconic. The audience for it grew over time. After being posted on Tumblr and Twitter and Reddit over the years, it got in front of people who could really appreciate it. People who came to recognize V. Stiviano and call her by titles like “Icon” and “queen”. The phrase silly rabbit has grown in popularity in recent years, all in reference to this video.
This meme is the last vestiges of a bygone era. It is the transition from one cultural moment to the next. The symbols of the current era are present in this one. V. Stiviano’s Instagram is a major supporting player that adds fodder. But the scandal is held up and facilitated by the old world. Barbara Walters (RIP) and 20/20 make the meme what it is. Baba Wawa’s poise and professionalism falters in the face of this new person (His what?).
V. Stiviano exists between time. Just on the edge of recent memory but after the media got reformed and became nicer which was… let’s say 2012. There was enough social media that she could give us her personality but the old stalwarts were still worth going to to plead your case in the court of public opinion. In the old days, people sought out legitimacy from established news organizations. They needed people to vet them in some way on their quest to be legitimized. Now, they can post their way to a better tomorrow. In 2014, The 24 hour news cycle of the internet had been well established but it still existed alongside both network and cable news.
If this scandal were to happen today it would be over and done within a matter of 24 hours. V Stiviano would go on Call Her Daddy and instead of baffling one of the most respected female journalists, she would be subject to the bland unblinking eyes of Alexandra Cooper and the fucking piece of paper she reads questions from. Internet sleuths would comb through V. Stiviano's Instagram when the news broke and we would be bored of it by 3 pm. Maybe she would appear on some reality show three months later but we would have forgotten about her.
It’s an odd feeling to harken back to the old days of 2014. I don’t think this was a good scandal but it’s certainly different from the way we do things now. People my age and older remember this happening and know who the major players are, not because we love basketball or care about the Clippers but simply because that’s what was happening at the time. If you engaged with “the news” in any kind of way you were aware of it, just like you were aware of Brangelina and Anthony Weiner.
I never underestimate a random internet users (or even completely offline person) ability to move forward without context. The ability to understand memes is all about understanding that context is not necessary. It’s the reason Boomers and Gen Xers ask “who is that? Do you know them?” when you show them a video and why my generation thinks popular cartoon characters are just from a meme and have no backstory at all. For many, this meme only works because they were around for it the first time. They remember this story and this nugget of it lives on, on the internet. It is made crazier and better when you have context.
I fear we may never have something like it again. No celebrity news story that will reach beyond the paywall. No one online reads anything but Pop Crave and no one offline knows what it is. I can’t think of any story that has produced this kind of content in recent years and this content used to be mandatory for any mild scandal. Even George Santos isn’t captivating the public like he would have in the Obama administration.
In any other circumstance the loss of the scandal machine would be an improvement. Proof that we’re more empathic as a society and less willing to gawk at people. The loss of this scandal machine is only sad because it has been replaced by something faster and meaner. If nothing else it is something less amenable to star power and these people, mostly women that we gawk at, aren't even given the chance to get their book deal or anti bullying campaign. Just a day or two in the stocks of Twitter and TikTok while we hurl tomatoes.