Meme Report 11/1
Happy Halloween Hangover
Meme Halloween costumes
I always want them to be funnier than they are. I think I read a joke about Ken Bone in 2016 that forever changed my perspective on Relevant Halloween costumes. As someone with more thoughts on memes than I could ever hope to write down, you’d think I’d be the perfect audience for this. On the contrary, I more than anybody know the pain of saying “You know that meme…”, only to be met with complete silence. Either the people in these meme costumes don’t know the world of hurt they are in for the duration of their party or they do know and they are chasing the feeling of being the Most Esoteric One at the party. In both instances, I try to avoid that as best I can.
That being said, multiple went as Big Miss Steak, a meme I haven’t thought about in years. A meme with no ties to a place or time or fandom, so it might just play for anyone. Even the most offline luddite could understand “Big Miss Steak” as an idea and execution. Kind of ingenious and leaves everyone else battling for second.
I Hate Going To Gay Halloween Parties
If you’ve ever been, you know there are two competitions going at Gay Halloween parties, Hottest and Most Esoteric, and some people try to do both. This meme is for them. Of course, the meme itself became that competition as well. Especially when, on Saturday morning, there was a kind of “Oopsie!” reveal that most people were tweeting about their own costume, which undercuts the integrity of the whole meme! You used a chance to be a hater to instead post a picture of yourself. They not only tricked us all into thinking they were part of the hater community but also revealed themselves to be the very kind of annoying they were facetiously talking shit about not 24 hours earlier. Some of them weren’t even esoteric. A crime worse than trying to be the most esoteric is trying and failing to be the most esoteric. This meme brought out the worst in everybody. Can’t you just post the selfie and go? Must we engage in the Charade?
Cunty AI Pokémon
A year ago we would have said these were yassified, but we’ve all grown up a lot since then, and jumped straight to cunty. I’m not sure what to do with them just yet. I do love them but I haven't found a favorite yet. I think we always go for the obvious with stuff like this. I would love a Cunty Blastoise or Charizard. Use a little imagination. Think outside the box. Of course, the cute pink one looks funny as an Instagram model. As always, I want an expansion of the genre that integrates all possible aspects. Once again, AI Art is only as good as the person putting in the prompt and is limited to the biases and imagination of the creator. If it were really intelligent, we’d have a Cunty Diglett by now.
TikTok
‘Twas the night before Christmas
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I love love love this meme. It gets at the joy and wonder one feels before going out on the town for a widely celebrated binge-drinking event. The rush college kids feel before a night like this is akin to the night before Christmas. There is something so sweet and funny about these kids doing this. Rather than infantilizing themselves or mourning the loss of the excitement as we age, they are rightly recognizing there is still joy to be found. It’s just for Halloween (or game day) instead of Christmas.
I Don’t Have To Pretend I Like Acid Rock
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All of us so-called modern feminists reach a point where the fun is over. Where we meet up with our earlier counterparts, the killjoys. All summer, I’ve been in on the fun. I’m a defender of girl dinner and girl math because I think they are more than the name suggests. I think they allow us to self-determine what “girlhood”(🙄) has become in a public way that hasn’t existed before. This trend is where I become the killjoy though. I think we have bigger issues as a culture when we have to wrestle with the category “things that boys like that women don’t like.” because we assume the women who do like it are liars. In that instance, we do narrow the category of “woman”, or “acceptable woman” knowingly or not. For all my love and devotion to Taylor Swift, I think letting Swfities decide what they don’t have to pretend to like anymore because it’s a stupid boy thing is a dangerous game. Not to say that women can’t denounce things their ex-boyfriends enjoyed. I’m just cautious in the wake of the creation of the “lit bro” and the “film bro”, and their subsequent loss of a tether to the real world. A boogieman of modern dating. It’s all more complicated than this, but I’m always wary when we’re playing in the sandbox of “woman thing good, man thing bad.” I don’t believe in letting people enjoy things but I think you should be allowed to enjoy stupid shit without being a traitor to your gender. It’s stupid for other reasons.
Trick or Treat
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They are doing some fantastic work over at TikTok HQ. What a filter! Who thought of this? How much are we paying this genius? Can we pay them more?