Meme Report 12/7+12/14
Post-Covid Holiday Spectacular!
Hello. Sorry about that brief interruption. I had to fight the demon of covid but I’m back and in a state of being known as “The Quil Zone” so I’m more tapped in to the internet mentally, spiritually, and emotionally.
𝓦𝓱𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓛𝓸𝓽𝓾𝓼 𝓢𝓹𝓮𝓬𝓲𝓪𝓵 𝓢𝓮𝓬𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷
Well Mike White and HBO have done it again. They got us all worked up over appointment viewing. It produced the two great things any tv show can be asked to produce: Memes and Theories. Here’s what we have to show for it.
They Should Stay At The White Lotus
I think reason #1 they should give out a casting Oscar is because people on twitter are so particularly bad at it. Should rich people from another TV show stay at the White Lotus? Is that what they should do? These suggestions are never interesting or funny. It’s just grabbing a rich person out of a hat and making a tweet which someone has probably already beaten you to.
These Gays They’re Trying To Murder Me
We’ll be pretending to laugh at this one for the next six months or so. It will never go away. It will be on the instagram graphic for every birthday party invite for anyone who’s ever stepped foot in a gay bar. It will not go away. We simply cannot help ourselves. Even the people who were actively rolling their eyes could not stop themselves from making an attempt with this one. Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and use your “these gays they’re trying to murder me” memes when they come.
White Lotus Theories
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Egg on your face. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Or more accurately, sometimes symbolism is just symbolism and not necessarily foreshadowing. The birds can be representative of Harper without symbolizing her death. Good on you guys for recognizing motifs and themes though! All of this amounted to what I would consider a B+ english project so congrats on that! What I loved most of all, is that absolutely everyone was wrong about everything. You all missed the point and misinterpreted the tone of the show. It’s not a murder mystery of any kind and there are no just desserts. Like life, it just kind of happens. It works out well for some, poorly for others. The bad guys get away and the good guys die. The only one who comes out on top is the Hooker with the Bob (affectionately), as it should be.
Spotify Wrapped
Spotify Wrapped came and went. It was just ok this year. We’ve been doing these jokes for a while now and some of them were still fresh but Spotify didn’t really give us a ton of fresh material to work with. Of course everyone is depressed and gay but we already knew that. We wanted something fresh to shock this year and we just didn’t get it. Hopefully next year we get a bang!
My top artist was unfortunately Taylor Swift which I will work hard to fix for next year. I like her BUT NOT THAT MUCH! I like her a regular normal amount!!! I like cool indie stuff! My second most played artist was Samia!! I bet you haven’t heard of her!!
AI Portraits
You guys paid for AI portraits? You paid for a picture of you where you look like a fairy? Or a knight? Or some other mythical creature? Are you kidding me? I can’t even go into the ethics thing because everyone is torn every which way and it’s a debate I’m not interested in having until I know who to copy my opinion from. (I haven’t figured out who the smartest person in the room is yet.) Until then, I’m not spending money to look like an elf.
GMA affair
This takes me back to a bygone era. Where affairs were between hot people who were public figures. None of this Try Guys bullshit. We had the added flair of social media evidence mixed with New York Post punny headlines. I know it’s evil and conservative but I am a loyal Page 6 reader and nobody does what they do better than the New York Post. There is evil in all of our hearts and there is no way to kill it. If we pretend it isn’t there, it only gets worse. Instead we must feed it, little by little. I feed the evil in my heart with the New York Post and it’s enough to survive but enough to corrupt me, and I think thats what it’s good for. This GMA affair was this for all of us.
Jenna Ortega said…
New It Girl Alert! She’s a scream queen who’s a little off kilter. We love that. We love when girls are weird. She’s captured our hearts for the moment and I like her so I’ll get on board this train. It’s just Olivia Rodrigo’s favorite album all over again but more expansive than just music. I see no reason not to love a fake quote from Jenna Ortega saying Kierkegaard is her favorite philosopher. We don’t know enough about her to prove it’s not true so she can be anything we want her to be right now.
A Tunnel Under Ocean Boulevard
It’s so hard to be a Lana Del Ray fan in this day and age. A new single release means bracing yourself for either the worst song you’ve ever heard or a return to the first time you heard Video Games. The memes are a moment of release. What was great about this round is that is was just repeating the title over and over again. I had no idea if the single was good or bad, (it turned out to be good) but the title is forever in my memory. The memes weren’t good, simply random. However, to me it mattered more that it felt like walking through the town square collecting dancers and singers, all of us rejoicing that there was a tunnel under ocean boulevard.
TikTok
I Put The Packet On The Glass
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Will we ever be free of Bo Burnham? Of course not. What surprises me more than looping back to this six months later, is the many uses. Or not many, but 2. A sound with immediate versatility. People on TikTok willing to tak either side of an issue. Admitting to being one or the other and not necessarily a fight to the death. We all know the question askers are annoying but in this trend, they admit to it. We all know what it is to be frustrated. Very rarely with a TikTok trend do people admit to being the bad guy and knowing and apologizing. Of course this is the micro but baby steps. It’s also not reveling in admitting to being the bad guy a la an Anti-Hero trend. It’s admitting to being the problem in an actually apologetic way. Growth.
You Make Me Un Poco Loco
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This one comes around all the time and we barely see it pop off like this. It’s really having it’s moment now but there’s also a lot going on. It seems like one that will do well for a little bit right now and either continue to be a good standby or really kick up again in like march or something. We’re in for an apex and I don’t think we’ve hit it yet.
I Was Home With My Kids
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Ok this one is fascinating to me. This is the song that used to be under “Bitch I’m a mother… No Drama!” which was a popular sound around late 2020. This feels like a moment of collective memory for tiktok. So many of the captions under this current sound are “bitch I’m a mother.” someone finally connected the dots and just made the song playing under the popular sound a meme itself. I think many people had the experience of wishing the Cardi verse was better and wishing there was a produced version of the woman from the Bitch I’m a Mother sound. Instead of combining these to have one good thing, we’ve created two separate entities that are just ok.
It’s Not Travis
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The McElroy brothers have a popular sound once again. This one is fine as far as those things go. I don’t have siblings so I don’t really connect with their whole thing but the rest of you all really seem to like it. Kind of a classic “whodunnit” format for TikTok. We’ve seen it before. We’ll see it again.
I Fucked Up I Know That But Jesus
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I love the tone of this trend. It’s not the typical story time bait sound we’re used to. The emotion around it is a little more complex, which I will always route for. 1) I fucked up I know that. Admitting fault, telling us the bad thing you did. 2) But Jesus. An exasperated exclamation. It’s not feel sorry for me, or forgive me, it’s an adult could you maybe tone it down a little?. Coming to the bad parts of past incidents with a little detachment but still a reaction. I like when we’re honest instead of approaching everything with overwrought therapy talk.