Meme Report 2/2

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𝓔𝓾𝓹𝓱𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓪 𝓢𝓹𝓮𝓬𝓲𝓪𝓵 𝓢𝓮𝓬𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷

I wrote that whole big long thing on Euphoria in the hopes that I would not have to cover any more euphoria memes because they all mostly have the same general ethos. This week however there were two… “fun” ones that were Euphoria adjacent. So I think they deserve their own coverage. 

𝒢𝑒𝓉 𝐻𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝓃 𝐸𝓊𝓅𝒽𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒶 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒩𝒶𝓉𝑒 𝒥𝒶𝒸𝑜𝒷𝓈 𝒾𝓈 𝒟𝑜𝓃𝑒

This one I think deserves special coverage because for the first time since the show premiered we seem able to compare and contrast Euphoria with other shows beyond “Euphoria more adult and therefore bad”. Who is Nate Jacobs to the women of teen shows of yore. He’s bad but can he stand up to Paige Michalchuk or Manny Santos? What about Blair Waldorf? What about Shay Van Buren? Maybe this man isn’t more adult or inappropriate or unrealistic, just more stylized and on HBO. Nate Jacobs isn’t a spectacularly evil villain beyond the capabilities of our storied mean girls. 

𝕸𝖆𝖉𝖉𝖎𝖊 𝖎𝖓 𝕯𝖎𝖋𝖋𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝕾𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖊𝖘

This one is pure fun. It plays with stylization of Euphoria but one does not have to watch the show to get it. I like this meme because Maddie looks like the Sandworm from Dune in every variation. Finally we have a way to engage with pure silliness. No more discourse about the missing Jacobs kid or Rue and Jule’s relationship. No more questions about which character you identify with and how that makes you toxic. Just how many shapes can you make with Maddie. If we’re going to have our weekly discussion sections with everyone on the internet, we might as well do something different every once in a while. 

🍰 🎀 𝐸𝓃𝒹 🍑𝒻 𝐸𝓊𝓅𝒽💙𝓇𝒾𝒶 𝒮𝓅𝑒𝒸𝒾𝒶𝓁 𝒮𝑒𝒸𝓉𝒾💍𝓃 🎀 🍰

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Sometimes with memes it’s good to remember who’s in charge. Or not exactly in charge but who came before us. It wasn’t always buzzfeed and blue checks making memes. The people who made this for us, not the technology but the community, are weird forum people. We need memes that remind us we all speak the language of Twitter. We engage with our peers in a way that does not make sense to anyone outside the website. We spend all of our time on Twitter, this is one of our rewards. Engaging with each other and playing with our shared language. We may not like each other or have any functioning brain cells left but we’ve rewired our minds. The least we can do is have fun with it. 

They’re [blanking] Your Ass On [blank] Twitter

The last great joy of the internet is finding a subculture you didn’t expect to have a robust online community. We love to find out welding twitter has a thriving internet presence where they frequently fight with each other. This meme lets our imaginations run wild with all the fun wordplay and subcultures we can think of. It feels clever and fun to participate in. Watching new ones pop up is delightful. I can feel each author's giddiness as they post it. To have finally come up with a good one and excitedly post it. It has yet to really explode but maybe let's keep it that way. No low effort tossed off attempts. Only special clever moments. 

Brie Larson Who Said Food Can’t Be Fun

What happened to her? A lot of actors have their edges sanded away when they join the MCU but no one seems as tragic, or as committed to it, as Brie Larson. She was so good before all of this. It breaks my heart that rather than toiling away in indie obscurity post Oscar she’s gone full DoD stepford wife. And for what? To play Ms. Marvel? To be the feminist icon of the military industrial complex? It’s been sad to watch and I don’t know if she can ever recover from it. This latest iteration is the most innocuous and therefore the worst. We all reacted so strongly because we didn’t need to see it and it felt so obviously forced. Don’t remind us that we lost our girl to the mediocre movie machine and keep her “quirkiness” to yourself. 

TikTok

Just Had An Illuminating Talk With My Therapist

I’m glad we’re coming to a point in culture that we’re no longer seeing therapy as wholly good. This meme seems to finally get at the fact that the world we’ve built for ourselves around the language of “self care” and “my therapist says” is maybe inherently flawed and leads to us engaging in bad behavior that we know cannot be good for us. I like this trend because I like to see all the ways other people are self destructive, even in minor ways. How are we wasting our money? How are we avoiding our tasks? What avoidance tactic are we using now? 

Bitches Come and Go

This trend exemplifies something I truly hate. I hate when couples do something covertly “funny” while they’re trying to do something overtly “cute” and genuine. The “bro” in this trend has every couple laughing at how ridiculous they are. There is a tinge of faux embarrassment and the whole thing makes me sick to my stomach. Are you being sooo silly? Are you having sooo much fun? Keep it to yourself. It also always feels delusional on the girl's part to make her boyfriend participate in a trend where they refer to the women of the past as bitches, as if they’re not about to be just another bitch. Every girl wants to be the one who is no longer a bitch. Bitches come and go but you know I stay, is a bold claim to make when more likely than not, you're just another bitch. Especially when you’re making him do this trend. Nothing convinces me less that you have a long lasting relationship than participating in tiktok trends designed to make me think your relationship is long lasting. 

A Pony

We’re all mentally unhealthy and fixing it with various band aids. This is another in a long line of trends that address that. The pony changes from person to person but the general idea is the same. We’ll keep doing this forever, as long as time marches on and life doesn’t get better, Iced Coffee and a piece of toast will have to do in place of stability and growth. Fine. 

Come Give Me A Tune

I don’t understand this trend. I understand that the person disappears in response to something someone else said but I don’t understand why this sound. Why “come give me a tune” and then disappearing? I know we love to make an british rap song go viral every 3 months but why this one? The lyrics have absolutely nothing to do with what happens in the video, except for “Come give me a tune” which, in the song, is in reference to a blow job. Is it a larger reference to the pied piper? I don’t understand. If anyone was any insight as to how this trend came about, please DM me. I’m completely at a loss. 

You Were Raised By Karen

We literally did this one already. Like pound for pound exactly this before. The last time a girl got exposed cause her cool girl boss mom was Bill Cosby’s lawyer. I also don’t think the white people in this sound know that their mom is a Karen. “You were raised by Karen, I was raised by Barb” Barb is still a Karen even if her name isn’t Karen! Just because she’s a little silly sometimes and doesn’t have that god awful haircut, doesn’t mean she’s not a Karen! This was a bad trend a year ago and a bad trend now. Save yourself the embarrassment. 

Ok, I Like it Picasso

I love this sound. I love the original video. To happen upon some weirdos being insane. To ask them what they’re doing and receive their simple response of “an art project.” It’s brilliant. We should use it as an excuse more. Any person of any age can and should do more art projects. We should explain away any awkwardness or uncomfortability in interactions as an Art Project. The response of “ok I like it Picasso” is the little kick we all need. Recognition, appreciation, understanding. Receiving all the weirdness that someone is giving you and returning with an affirmation that you are in fact an artist. 

He Told Me That The Man of My Dreams

Stop doing free advertising for Disney. Stop making Encanto songs trend. We get one meme per big movie. One. It’s absolutely too much to invest this much attention into one movie, especially a movie for children. We’re all adults and we all need to move on. This trend is not particularly inventive or illuminating or fun or funny and just seems like yet another opportunity to shill for big Disney. Stop. 

White boy, Goated with the Sauce

This trend is an orroubourrus. It seems like everyone is pointing and laughing at a group of people but they are that group of people. It’s a joke where white people are making fun of other white people for misusing and over using AAVE and general internet slang. It’s only funny if you spend too much time on the internet. The gibberish is the point but no one except the people who talk like this already think it’s funny. It’s very spiderman pointing at himself.