Mega Meme Report (1/29 - 2/26)
Long Time No See
Let me set the scene.
You are my humble reader. You received my last letter on its regular weekly basis. A week went by, no letter. That's ok, sometimes she does that. Her life is fabulous. She's probably bopping around New York City doing something extravagant and exciting. She’ll be back next week. Then the next week went by. No word. Maybe it’ll be late. She's been late more and more often these days. As the result of her jet-set lifestyle, of course. Then two weeks went by, then three. You’ve lost track of the last time you’ve heard from me. There’s a nagging feeling at the back of your mind that this is how it always goes. On the internet, most people don’t take the time to end things. They just forget to log back in one day. Days go by, weeks, then years, and suddenly it’s too late. The digital cobwebs are too thick to blow off. You can’t help but worry that it’s happening again. One more structure of your online life abandoned without so much as a warning.
Then this morning, as you checked your email there it was. I like to imagine something more romantic than the refreshing of the Gmail app and the boop sound effect that goes with it. In my mind, you are all in offices that haven’t been redecorated since 1970 and there’s a telegram machine that starts working. Suddenly, on your end there is clacking after clacking to signal that a message is coming through. Or to modernize it, it’s a fax machine and papers start coming through for the first time in weeks. You’re receiving word from Ice Station Zebra, where I am currently holed away. We don’t have to dwell on the past or where I’ve been. Just know that I’m back and committed as ever to Memeforum and Meme Criticism.
Kendrick Super Bowl
This moment is fleeting. It is the end of something. We want so badly for this to mean more than it does but it is February in a new Trump era. The Kendrick Super Bowl is reflective of decisions made during a summer when we thought frivolity would not only save us but live forever. It’s a last hurrah, a victory lap for a game that ended long ago. It feels hollow to me. It’s fun to call Drake a pedophile, it always has been. And it’s fun that Kendrick did it even though he wasn’t supposed to (?) his shit-eating grin was a moment all of us live for, but as I said, this moment is fleeting. Enjoy it as it’s ending.
Trump Picture
What is striking to me about Trump as a symbol is that his image does not immediately strike fear and he is somewhat…. Neutral in appearance, which allows us to easily manipulate his image without fear of what the imagery might suggest. This picture is not some kind of resistance liberal humiliation ritual but a series of internet abstractions. We can do this to Trump because we feel nothing inherently when we look at him. His featureless face does not have anything to exaggerate. He lacks a good silhouette.
Trump has been a figure of memes longer than he's been president, which is why his image can be so easily manipulated and the statement made with the image can be everything or nothing. If political cartoons were still in vogue, we might have a better cartoon version of Trump that worked semiotically the way it was supposed to in whatever context. Instead, we live in a world where context more or less doesn't matter and his image is just another thing we can manipulate. Little victories.
Just Got The Call
Not to be the friend who’s too woke but this meme feels conservative. I don’t understand how we benefit by making up DEI jobs. It feels like we’re playing in their sandbox and some of you aren't careful enough to know your ideology. I know that we're joking but it's just not funny enough and it's about to get so much worse. Maybe sit this one out.
Girlfriend IUD
The breaking of the new left begins now. We're going to break Gen Z's bizarre conservatism by taking slightly off-color jokes (Old Twitter's bread and butter) and turning it into 3 days of discourse about IUDs, women's pain, and men in general. My favorite part of all of this is that the person who posted it and was then quote-tweeted to death wasn't even directly involved. He could be lying. That probably wasn't even his roommate. There might not even be a girlfriend. There is no IUD. It might also all be real. We have no idea. We were given no concrete details and fell for a story. My second favorite part is that every time we do IUD discourse, people with the copper IUD love acting like it’s the only kind of IUD. *** STOP READING IF YOU"RE NOT A BIRTH CONTROL WARRIOR. BIRTH CONTROL IS GOOD. THIS IS A PETTY SQUABLE BETWEEN MYSELF AND THE COPPER IUD CONTINGENT. ****** There are more kinds of IUD that have hormones than don't so it's insane to act like IUD means Copper IUD. I just think we should be clearer with our messaging, and that includes not letting the most annoying among us dominate the conversation. Jk all love fellow birth control warriors. Personally, I stump for nexplannon. Insertion was easy and they numb the arm. Do whatever works for you! Maybe Try the Depo shot!
Taylor Thigh
This is the platonic ideal of a Taylor Swift meme. We’re talking about her and having fun but no one has any opinion beyond that. I don’t have to constantly reassess my opinion of everyone who participates based on a sliding scale of judgement for the appropriate amount to care about Taylor Swift that only I understand. It's proof we can all play well together without devolving into insanity.
Benson Boone
The Grammys are the great equalizer between real America and cultural snobs. Those of us who take pleasure in arguing about Stan culture online and discussing the rollout strategy for Addison Rae’s new single are forced to reckon with what’s actually popular in the United States of America. Each year this phenomenon takes a vessel in the form of a moderately handsome but forgettable man with songs that are slightly too horny to be endorsed by Christian radio. This year it was Benson Boone, a man who wrote a song that should not be allowed to be played in public and yet is the only song they seem to play in Target. Benson Boone has one thing setting him apart from the others, he can do a flip. The whole world is high school but more importantly, the whole world is 3rd grade. All the girls and gay guys will be swooning when we find out he can run the fastest too. But like 3rd grade, his moment is over. We will forget him like we forget all the others of his ilk. Sorry “Benson Boone” but pop music is not a place for men like you.
Lemony Garlicy Brown Butter Miso
We live the surprise results of old plans. We are still living in the fallout from the chokehold of old Bon Appetite. People who were too young to know at the time are playing in the cultural sandbox now and they speak these phrases with confusion. The rest of us live with the knowledge, every time we return to our bookmarks from May 2020 and before, blowing dust off the shelf. The revolt is coming. We will be free from the pale imitation that is New York Times Cooking. We’ll learn to make real food again instead of putting brown butter, miso, gochujang, and the letter y where it doesn’t belong. Chocolate chip cookies are going to be regular again and Miso is to be used sparingly instead of randomly in everything. It will all be over soon.
Nachos
While I was away, a meme rose and fell. It’s ok, I’ll hold your hand through it if you missed it. For a while, we’ve been saying “low-key wanted her nachos” using nachos to mean one’s general essence at a given time. So many people love to praise the creativity of Stan Twitter but this is more a win for shared context than anything. The nachos in question were at one point real nachos. It starts from a place online that often does not break containment, and when it does it leaves the rest of us bewildered that it still exists, Baddies West (an offshoot of Bad Girls Club). Natalie Nunn genuinely lowkey wanted Stunna Girls Nachos. From there, the metaphor was born.
What I love about Nachos as meme is that Nachos are a difficult dish. Good nachos require structural integrity in a way that most dishes do not. There’s also a wide variety of ways nachos can be built and served without much differentiation in naming. Nachos at a baseball game made from round chips and bright orange cheese are different from nachos from a sports bar and are different still from nachos from a taco stand. It all depends on context. They are also famously difficult to reheat. Reheating Nachos is somewhat of a fool's errand. I believe this to be a happy accident of the world. Stunna girl could have been eating anything and we would be talking like this. It adds an element to me that reheating someone else’s nachos is a task many attempt and if you do it successfully, we can still tell that they were reheated. It’s not like lasagna which is often better reheated. Nachos are fleeting and personal.
This meme is popular because it’s fun to say. We love anything that makes us sound insular and insane. Adding another code to our language gives us a couple more minutes of safety and playtime. As long as the language can’t be co-opted by outside forces for a little bit longer, the world of online stan culture and laissez-faire cultural criticism can continue. It is also popular because it’s true. The more poignant one’s nacho observation can be the more we understand about culture. In this era of post-postmodernism, nothing is new. And it’s all less new than it’s ever been. We’re reheating Nachos at an alarming rate. Being able to correctly identify that almost everything in pop music now is just reheating Madonna’s nachos from Ray of Light, is freeing and makes the whole thing click into place. Or it did. Now it’s over and if you use Nachos, you’re just reheating last week’s nachos. We have to use it sparingly now. Only when we mean it. When the Nachos have truly been reheated so unsuccessfully, or on the other side, so very successfully that it’s worth commenting on.
Doechii
This meme is bad. The only reason it’s interesting is because it’s a cultural anointing for Doechii. She is already a critical darling who is elevated by her peers. We’re all ready for the year of Doechii. We love having someone new. I’m always partial to the young-girl-as-genius for an artist’s public narrative and Doechii delivers on everything that is asked of her. I’ve known who she was since 2020 and I’m surprised it took her this long to explode but I’m glad we have her now. She has her grammy and her popularity and now she needs the unwavering support of the public. The “problem” is that she is clearly funny and clever but not in a way that the general public gets to participate in. We haven’t found our joke about her or her Achilles heel as an artist. We are simply in awe of her, which is not something we know how to handle, especially from young black women. She does not need to be capital “R” Relatable but until we have a peek behind the curtain we won’t be happy, and the memes won’t be funny. we found it quickly with Megan Thee Stallion and her awkward smile. For her it was harmless and we all like her more because of it. Chappell Roan rocketed herself to stardom with this kind of relatability. It can be fraught but weathering the storm is a test of celebrity or one-hit wonder status. I’m not saying we deserve this from her or she should give it to us. I’m just diagnosing why the meme isn’t funny and why the online conversation about Doechii among the plebeians will be uneasy until we find it.
What’s the First Pic You Recreating When It’s Back Hot Outside
It is almost spring. We are almost there. We can give ourselves the hope of summer again. We can talk about it and think about it without considering the whole ordeal to be too painful. It’s time to hope again. The hope will not be too big, nothing lavish. We’re giving ourselves a small moment to look forward to. Something as simple as a pool, or a beer on the beach, or an Italian sandwich in front of the air conditioner. Nothing crazy, just enough to get us through it.
Had A Straight Dude Come To My Place
Because straight men are shielded by privilege, we’re allowed to talk about them online as if they can’t read what we’re saying. We’re allowed to make sweeping generalizations about their behavior the way we’re not about other groups. This isn’t exactly wrong per se but it does lead to a lot of commentary that we are able to successfully avoid because in most other cases because it would be considered a form of prejudice rather than observant social commentary. Most of the time it’s just about a specific circumstance that doesn’t really matter in the larger context. Sometimes a guy comes over to your house and says something. The straight man from the original tweet probably did do something while he was over that was a result of his upbringing and societal role as a straight man but it wasn’t complimenting a knife block.
TikTok
Paloma Diamond
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Everyone else’s favorite Oscar meme is back. The guy who orchestrates his own best actress Oscar race has come out with a new one. I’m too close to the real thing to like this parody. I've spent too much time thinking about Oscar movies and what is and is not an Oscar movie to appreciate this. It's not as well executed and everyone thinks it is. The most egregious example this year is that the character of Paloma Diamond, this universe's Glenn Close, has directed the universe’s hot out of Sundance indie darling. Funny Lady is obviously supposed to be a funny edgy comedy inspired by the real life of a girl comedian. Essentially in this world, Glenn Close directed Frances Ha or Obvious Child. Everyone knows those movies don’t get nominated for Oscars. There’s chatter over the summer when they’re released that ultimately leads nowhere. We've lost the thread here and this kind of blunder is exactly why Paloma Diamond fails to go all the way for me. We let it go too far for too long.
Do Not Come To My Town
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One of my least favorite parts of TikTok is the toothless haterism that exists there. The internet breeds all kinds of haters both the subtle and decidedly unsubtle. I am not asking for more haters I’m asking for better ones. Plenty of nerds who don’t leave their bedroom and have mean opinions about other members of the Hazbin Hotel fandom love to call themselves haters but can’t form a coherent thought on anything outside of their little world. Those aren’t real haters but they’re the exact kind of people who flock to this sound and others like it to display their “mean” opinions. I’m over it.
She Just Want To Party Ain't Nothing Wrong With That
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We are going to litigate every double standard and gender norm until we solve them. It’s a somewhat interesting project that we’ve got going on. There is an endless ongoing discussion about our cultural norms where every day someone presents an idea and we all have to decide whether it’s ok for both men and women to perform the action in question. Sometimes we get more progressive (it’s ok for men to paint their nails) and sometimes we get less (we now all think it’s gay for men to order dessert.) Over the past ten years, almost every American has taken on a more radical view of gender than they held previously but in opposite directions. Many people are trying to untangle their old opinions while deciding which ones to keep. This meme says it the most succinctly. I believe one person should make one of these every day and we can sort through every double standard that negatively affects men. Once we’ve done all of them, we can revisit them and decide which ones we want to keep. We have to find different memes for other parts of our society but I think in the long term this system will work as good or better than anything else we’ve tried.
The Woman in Pakistan
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All of us are just local news junkies who want to keep up with an event. We want to live within something and wait for news of whatever happens next. Everything that happens to us in that time is marked by that event. It was during the OJ Trial, Watergate, or The Great Kanye/Taylor Feud of 2016. This event also speaks to us because it tests the limits of everything we are told about traveling abroad as Americans. The caricature of Americans is that we are rude, demanding, and pushy. We are also told about the dangers of traveling to other countries, especially countries we have less than friendly diplomatic relationships with, and also countries that have more rules than we do about being in public. Onijah broke all of them. She tested the limits and seemed to be doing just fine. They were begging her to leave and she simply would not. As long as she was in Pakistan she was entertaining the masses. We all had a vested interest in how long she would stay. It’s a classic reversal of the narrative, most Americans garner attention abroad because they want to leave and cannot. If she’s refusing to leave, she must like it. It takes the danger out of the situation and makes it fun for everyone. Of course, now the story has taken a tragic turn because she is in Dubai and has stopped posting. We knew it would happen eventually.
Ted Mosby
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This is the part of culture I want to eradicate. A kind of referential smarminess that is UNEARNED. This is not The Namesake. You cannot make your entire art piece a reference to someone else’s work. Your singer-songwriter tune about dating in Brooklyn/Silverlake using a reference to How I Met Your Mother as your anchor is not a valuable contribution to art.
I Had A Dream My Life Would Be
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This is the home stretch of winter. When everything is not only bad but also hard. The days blend together and there’s not enough sunlight. Leaving the house requires 30 minutes of prep to make sure the cold is at least brave-able. The nights are understandably longer which means there is more time to make oneself crazy. This comes through at least once every winter with a meme about being as dramatic as possible. We rewatch Les Mis and see the suffering of Fantine and go she’s just like me fr, except what I’ve experienced has been harder.
The Return
What a rip roaring return!!!