Meme Report 2/22
Angela Basset Did The Thing
Angela Bassett Did The Thing
Rarely do you see something and understand it’s power immediately. The first time I watched this video I understood exactly the journey we were all about to go on. I let the video wash over me and immediately sent it to a group chat, even though everyone was already asleep. I knew what I had on my hands and knew I had to share it. Everyone who spends copious amounts of time on the internet needed to see this ASAP so we could all laugh together.
What we have here is the first truly great moment from culture for the year. Everything else has been well executed and rehearsed. We’ve yet to have a gaff of this proportion. Sure George Santos has been entertaining but this has meat and it’s not intentional. This is a true misfire that results in a cultural object for us to devour. It’s perfect in every moment. It’s starts strong and brave and only gets.. braver as time goes on, finally reaching a climax of cringe with “Angela Bassett did the thing”. The video continues after that but never tops that moment. It only continues to live in it.
Almost every second of this video can be picked apart and analyzed for celebrity reaction. Acting is reacting as they say and boy are these women reacting. The best performers of the year, all locked in a room together, forced to stomach the experience of live embarrassment and praise. Each one puts their own personal spin on the experience which speaks to their persona. Cate Blanchett has a classic cold smile. Michelle Yeoh handles it with grace, though I can tell she is deeply embarrassed for Ariana. She’s having a little fun with it. Viola Davis is clapping along politely, until she is mentioned and cannot take it anymore. There’s many more and I could go on and on, studying each face. I have watched this clip ten times to do this analysis and it never gets old. I’ll spare you the explanation so you can decipher it yourself.
This video encapsulates everything I love analysis wise about celebrity culture. As the song goes on we see everyone who is named react to it, as well as their seatmates. Each person hates it in a unique way. There’s something about the way each person realizes she’s going to say they’re name and they are suddenly part of something they were not enjoying in the first place. Dolly De Leon is one of my favorites because of the way she smiles. It’s so familiar, of wanting to be nice but also having to endure. She cannot give in to the performance of loving it to be nice, but instead holds fast to a small smile so she does not let her true misery show. She should have won the BAFTA just for that.
Now, for the Ariana DeBose of it all. On Monday morning, she had deactivated her twitter. Now on Tuesday, she’s claiming to be in on the joke. There’s executives claiming everyone loved it. Even people on twitter are concerned about how she might react. Everyone wants to reassure everyone else that it’s fine.
That’s not how this works. The internet at large is allowed to make fun of something that happens on TV, especially at an awards show. We are laughing at the people involved and we are making fun of Ariana DeBose for her performance. Anyone who says different is lying to themselves or doesn’t understand. We’ve reformed too much since the Perez Hilton days and have forgotten that making fun of high production value, overly written award show bits falls under the purview of making fun and not bullying. The price we all pay for performing musical theater of any kind is the right for everyone to make fun of it, if the content is bad. Anyone who performs should have a thick skin. There should be a level of resilience there.
I think we’ve all forgotten how to live through things. We don’t need every part of Ariana DeBose’s reaction to us reacting. Let’s give her a week, or however long it takes for her to laugh at herself. We don’t need to hear from her until she has distance from the performance. Until she sees it for what it is. It’s just funny and it will be long after her feelings stop hurting.
To me, this marks the end of an era. Pure Sincerity is out. It’s time to be funny on purpose again. A song about girl power and how awesome women are from someone who is not funny, just talented is not enough. We need jokes, we need statements, we need a point of view. We’re going to laugh regardless, it might as well be on purpose. It’s not enough just to slay anymore, you have to know why you’re doing it and that reason can’t just be because it’s awesome.
She = Onika Ate= Burgers
This meme comes from the depths of Stan Twitter. To understand this phrase, you must understand the kind of free association gibberish dialect these vile little creatures speak. The phrase comes from a reply to a Pop Base tweet about a drawing by North West. Pop Base is a Pop Crave knock off where the people of Stan Twitter will reply to any tweet with how it compares to their fave, regardless of if they are mentioned or not. It is where we get the phrase “Ended Cardi”. Any time anything happens, these people are reminding how much they love someone or hate someone else. These people hate Nicki Minaj (Onika) and think she’s fat (eats burgers), thus Why She Ate, she = onika ate= burgers.
This tweet was striking enough to be funny and reach meme status but not totally indecipherable. The sweet spot of stan twitter that bleeds over for us semi-normies. A fundamental bastardization of the english language that could still be basically understood. It even writes it’s code out for you, she= onika ate = burgers. As far as stan twitter goes it’s very accommodating. It’s entered the lexicon. How we’ll use it beyond this, we’ve yet to see. There’s nowhere to go but up.
Lamb Being Eaten By Wolves
I understand that we’re all sensitive lambs. Every Twitter user from their own perspective is God’s perfect angel and every other Twitter user is the wolf. We are victims of the cruelty of the world and therefore unable to enact it ourselves. We are sweet and dainty and not built for all this evil. If that were true we wouldn’t be where we are. I am tired of this victim mentality. God’s perfect angel doesn’t have a Twitter account and that extends to all parts of our lives. We are not lambs being eaten by wolves, but wolves fighting wolves.
TikTok
You’re Like My Dream Girl
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
No one doing this trend has ever been told that they are somebody’s dream girl or dream man. None of them have ever been asked “how are you single?” We know the answer from the second we see the soundboard and active TikTok presence. Whatever else may be wrong with you, you are incredibly annoying and it is apparent from minute one. You are not unlovable but there is no air of mystery. Perhaps you are confusing the two.
Born In The Right Generation
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Obviously I understand this trend. I have a substack about social media. I’m where I’m supposed to be, timeline wise. I love modern conveniences but it’s a reductive way to look at the world. I would not rely on those modern conveniences if I did not have them. I believe we could all learn to live without, if we didn’t realize we were living without. However If I had to navigate in an unfamiliar city without my phone I would be as good as dead.
To close out this weeks Meme Report, I have some personal news. The next time you hear from me, I will have undergone the experience of driving across America. I will have a better understanding of the size and scope of it all, from sea to shining sea. Unfortunately for you, that means there will be no Meme Report because I will be in the midst of soaking it all in and also driving. Don’t worry though because the following week there will be a special double issue with all the memes from the past two weeks. Talk to you then!
such an excellent meme forum. I laughed, I cried... a cultural phenom
see u space cowboy 🫡♥️