I AM CLOSING THE SURVEY TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT. FILL IT OUT BEFORE THEN
Dune
Dune was released this week and it seemed like everyone had something to say. It is rare that we are simply talking about something rather than making fun of it, which is what is happening here. Dune is one of those things that people can recognize the inherent silliness while also enjoying it wholeheartedly. Sure the sand worm is funny and there are silly names like Duncan Idaho but it seems most people are genuinely excited for this movie and are willing to love it, Gom Jabbar and all. It’s a remake based on existing IP but the good kind. The kind we like and want more of. Dune allows for creativity in the meme sphere. There is no set format here but everyone wants to get their joke in before the moment passes, we’re letting content (Dune joke) dictate form (meme) which is usually the opposite of how memes work. Not since Uncut Gems has a movie so absorbed twitter, both within and outside of its designated film side. It’s even got me excited. I love the memes mostly because it follows on of the cardinal rules of Twitter: I like it when we all watch the same thing.
Kingo Died
This meme is exactly the opposite of Dune memes. We’re all being mean about a movie we are mad even exists. This is the bad kind of existing IP. These Marvel nerds still talk about these movies like they are precious cultural objects and not formulaic dark grey blobs that waste the talent applied to them and we hate that. The worst part is that they act like they are the victims of some horrible crime when anyone, especially critics, call these movies what they are. This week they were sent into a tizzy when someone spoiled the Harry Styles in Eternals reveal. The anti-Marvel people upped the ante took and revealed that Kingo died. It will always be funny to me to make fun of the Marvel nerds. They dominate culture and are ruining movies for the rest of us and they’re mad they can’t have it all (respect). The movies make billions of dollars, we should be allowed to hate them and not regard them as high art (which they aren’t). My favorite part of all of this is that none of it matters. All of their complaining is completely divorced from reality until one of these movies actually tanks at the box office and we are officially post superhero. Until then, the Marvel haters have to stick to our guns and repeat the phrase that pays: Kingo Died.
Fake Boss Texts
We are at a dark time in the American economy. Everyone is either severely underpaid or grossly overpaid. There is both a labor shortage and it is impossible to get a job. This frustration with our working conditions, those of you that have them anyway, is being taken out in a variety of ways. Right now we’re seeing it manifested in fake exchanges with their bosses about them quitting. These have been a regular occurrence for a while and have ramped over the past month. I can’t tell if they’re people’s fantasies about quitting in the same way you would write a letter detailing all the ways you hate someone and never sending it, or just a hollow attempt to go viral. The whole situation depresses me. When I thought the texts were real I did not like reading them and now that I know they’re fake I hate reading them even more. I hate people satirizing them and writing obviously fake ones. The whole cycle from start to finish is not that funny or interesting and it just seems like everyone has all this pent up anger and doesn’t know what to do with it. They read as more filled with righteous anger than anything else and that is just not good for comedy.
Omg I Got Into…
We do this all the time. People who go to Harvard are war criminals. Theater School means you’ll be poor forever. English majors have useless degrees. Business majors are evil. This jokes are as old as college itself and while sometimes it's good to go back to the classics, we should at least be improving upon them. This is just repetition and frankly, if it was hack in the 80s, it’s hack now.
Tiktok
This one is based on a Rooster Teeth podcast episode from 2014, It’s pretty straightforward once you get it. You and the snail are both immortal and the snail can kill you but you have $10 Million. Now sometimes I think TikTok likes to participate in a weird joke for the sake of being weird but I like this one. When was the last time a bunch of adults played a big game of make believe together? When was the last time we all genuinely engaged with a hypothetical just for the sake of it? I love this kind of stuff. I love to talk about the ins and out of a scenario that will never happen. I believe that memes are the collective creative imagination being put to use for the enjoyment of all for free and I believe this meme is the height of what we can achieve. Everyone has a take because everyone has an imagination. There’s no right answer, only a what would you do?
And I Think To Myself.... What
This feels like a good version of a trauma dump. Mostly because it’s not a trauma dump. It’s the most “trauma” we should get from strangers on the internet. Just some real what the fuck moments. That's more what we’re looking for from everybody. If you can address what is happening to you or what has happened with a simple what the fuck, it shows you have a sense of humor about it. These videos have a potential to be really good. They also are great for showcasing weird things our parents say. I think society needs more hot takes from parents on random stuff. Most often they aren’t in the same hive mind the rest of us are. It’s good to get a perspective other than from the same ten people over and over again. More what the fuck moments, less stories of truly horrific things happening that the creator has clearly not dealt with.
I Never Said I Was A Good Person
The internet connects us in ways that are overwhelming. The world is falling apart in every direction and it is literally impossible to care about everything going wrong and even harder to do something about it. The overwhelming pressure to be a good person in every aspect of life is not only exhausting but unfeasible. It can be easier to just admit that you are a bad person and accept that about yourself and do what you can to be better. This applies to the minor things we can’t fix and the major things we try to. However where this fails to be a cutesy dismissal is when someone is defending their choice to work for Monsanto or some equally evil corporation. In the years since Tumblr made us all activists, we’ve all gotten worse at it. We think that anyone who cares about anything is an activist, hence the girlboss. This is not the case. You can’t have your cake (High paying job aiding the evil of the world) and eat it too (think you’re not actively making the world worse). While it feels tongue in cheek rather than an outright announcement of one’s despicability, it reads more as the second one than the creators are willing to admit. It’s not a joke when you mean it.
Too long. Every video includes a part where the creator realizes how long the pause between the first and the second line are and regrets their choice to do the video. I’m not even kidding, literally every video has that. Also none of the content even borders on interesting. Some things I like, and some things I don't. Not interesting. Not insightful. Try again.
Work All Night and I Drink a Rum
Is this meme good? No. Do I like listening to Harry Belafonte? Yes. So for that reason I’ll allow it. He’s a great man with some great songs. His music is heavily featured in my favorite halloween movie, Beetlejuice. Sometimes a good TikTok is about closing your eyes and listening to the sound rather than reading the words or engaging with the content in any real way.
Why I Stopped Dressing For The Male Gaze
This one is a doozy. The original videos are about girls who stopped dressing slutty and started dressing to trends instead. I know people fight about reading theory a lot, but I think there has to be at least a barrier for entry before we start throwing around words from theory completely out of context. It’s impossible to not dress for the male gaze because unfortunately they’re everywhere, and they’re always looking. Now the girls who did this trend are a little dumb and need to do some reading but I think the way to combat it is not to teach them theory. They don’t actually want to learn. They want to call themselves feminists but they don’t actually want to do anything. The best way to deal with these people is to make fun of them. Especially because the point is that they’re patting themselves on the back for essentially nothing. The bullying has become so widespread that now the sound is filled with people complaining about the originals, that the originals are impossible to find. When that happens I consider us at Mission Accomplished and there’s no need to keep talking about this. We can all stop.
You Are Not Good Enough For My Daughter
I love when people can look back on their past mistakes and laugh. What I love more is growth. Being a hopeless romantic is fine but you have to know when to hang it up. Fanfiction and Romantic comedies have broken all of your brains. Everyone is hoping for an enemies to lovers arc IRL and it rarely happens. It takes special circumstances, like the plots of most animes, to get there. Most of you do not have high enough stakes in your life to make your pining for someone who doesn’t love you back endearing. These are fun to watch for now but there’s only so much desperation I can put up with on the For You page. Some of you are too content to go viral for how pathetic you are.
Feel similarly about the job texts. Harrowing stuff. Somehow missed Kingo has died meme which is now making me crack up. The multiplicity of memes!!!