It’s the first Meme Report of the year! The first time we will go through the popular memes of the past week and analyze them for all that they are and all that they could be. Last year was a big year for Memeforum and hopefully this year will be even bigger. I am happy you have come along on this journey with me and I can’t wait to see where we go, and how we grow next. As the tagline for the 4th season of the hit HBO show Girls said, There’s Nowhere to Grow, but up!
Benoit Blanc
We all watched Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery with our families at some point between Christmas and New Years. Some people hated it and thought it signified the death of cinema. Others liked it for its silliness and think it hit the nail right on the head. A perfect medium effort movie to watch with your family that, at the very least would elicit one genuine laugh. The “I thought it was fun.” crowd. These people have an unshakeable joie de vivre and they appreciate the best part of the movie, Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, giving his best terrible southern accent. The man is having fun on screen for the first time in years, which I think is deserved after he suffered through playing Bond all those years.
Now the meme of pretending to be Benoit Blanc on Twitter is not about authenticity to the character. It is about having fun doing a bad southern accent. It is channeling your own inner southern detective the way Daniel Craig channeled his. Everyone is approaching Foghorn Leghorn but without the discipline. In the spirit of Knives Out, it’s fun and nothing more.
George Santos
The vibe of this meme is “I’m home with my family and CNN is on in the background.” In 2008, this would have been such a fun political scandal. This man seems to be a pathological liar and every lie is crazier and easier to disprove than the last. We really could have done something with this if we hadn’t all been soured on political satire during the Trump years. Our best minds were ruined by trying to outdo the doer. This meme is a lazy last ditch effort from a bygone era.
[x] Was Not Included On Rolling Stones’ Top 200 Singers
This meme is not good but it does bring up something I want to talk about. This meme is based on an original tweet from Pop Base, a Pop Crave copycat. This is not the first time this has happened, nor will it be the last. For those who aren’t familiar with one of Twitter’s most trusted news sources, Pop Crave is a pop culture news source that I trust more than the New York Times. Their house tweet style is so iconic that many memes have spawned from it. It is the basis for many a pop culture meme that holds Twitter hostage for at least a couple of hours if not days, every couple of months. Maybe it’s the simplicity or the fact that all of their tweets could be totally fake. Maybe they’ve cracked the code for the best way to report news on Twitter. Whatever the reason, congratulations to Pop Crave for molding the internet in its image. One of many achievements it will eventually gain over the course of it’s long and hopefully storied run.
TikTok
Topher
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2023 has it’s first character. Over Christmas, a girl asked her family to help her make a TikTok. She asked them all the same question and they all answered it. The question “If you were to introduce someone to our family, who would you warn them about?” The first kid says Topher. We then see Topher. He is all that was promised and more. Then we see another kid and she also says Topher. In the background, we can hear Topher screaming in protest. Topher is then not heard from again and every other family member refuses to reference him.
Topher is a kind of boy we all knew and he has a lot of charisma to him. For now, we love Topher. We love how weird this meme is right now. The wonder of the algorithm that we all saw the same innocuous video and remembered this boy. He’s a little niche and underground for the time being but he might gain traction and some brand deals. I see him as a little too online for public consumption. Normies won’t get it and since they can’t figure it out, it can’t be labeled as wholesome. I don’t see longevity for the Topher fan club but it’s only the beginning of the year. There’s a long cold winter ahead of us.
Today I Saw A Balloon
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I know we’ve been on a pro Family Guy kick for a while now but I hope it reaches an apex this year. I hope we get deep into the lore and everyone can come out of the shadows as pro Family Guy. It won’t just be for internet weirdos anymore. We will have to come to terms with the same truth. That we’re lucky there’s a Family Guy. We’re lucky there’s a man who, positively can do, all the things that make us, laugh and cry.
Horrified Looks From Everyone In The Room
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Happy First Trauma Dumping Sound of the year to all who celebrate!
HAPPY NEW YEAR MEMEFORUM!!