Meme Report 2/23

Two Nepotism Related Memes!

Twitter

Vibe Shift

This week, someone wrote an article in The Cut about an upcoming vibe shift. This prompted a bunch of people to then make memes about how ridiculous this idea is. The people making memes I felt were being more annoying than they were funny. I know people who don’t care about culture at all love to make fun of people who do but they’re wrong. Culture is fun to engage with and also indicative of larger truths about our current society. It’s not all stupid and for the rich. Sure the article was a little silly and inarticulate because we have to be when talking about vibes. It could have connected a little more dots for us, like how all the major vibe shifts they point to coincide with new presidents. Just because the language was inarticulate does not mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. The vibe shift is coming and may have already happened; You can either shift with it or fall behind. Pretending there is no vibe and that it is not shifting is wrong and makes me doubt the commitment to cultural commentary. If you don’t believe in vibes, and don’t care about the culture, stop reading The Cut and get off Twitter. 

Goblin Mode

We could not say goodbye to the Julia Fox/Kanye relationship without one final death knell meme. Goblin mode isn’t even a real thing Julia said. It was a fake headline written to add to all the foolishness. Now all the girls who have within them a goblin mode are ready to let it out. Julia Fox may or may not have been Josh Safdie’s muse in Uncut Gems, but she is the muse of all of us who choose to go goblin mode. She didn’t even name it or even ever go goblin mode. But that is not the job of the muse. The job of the muse is only to inspire. 

Never Ask A Woman…

This meme has been around since last fall but has never really taken off until now. I have deleted this entry from the draft multiple weeks in a row but now it has found a niche that really works for it: The secrets of celebrities. Some of which aren’t so secret! Like who their parents are! We tried with subcultures and unnamed secret rich kids but there’s only so many of those and that version of the meme can only go so far. I hope it continues and I learn new fun facts about celebrities that they don’t want me to know. Though I suggest everyone be weary as we might have a new round of cancellations. Pray your fave makes it out alive. 

Nepotism Baby 

Ok this one is Euphoria meme adjacent but at this point it’s so removed from the show that it's fine. Everyone is so obsessed with the idea of nepotism babies but to the point that we’ve completely lost the thread. The younger generation is completely transfixed by these nepotism girlies but they don’t have a wide breadth of knowledge about pop culture so they are constantly surprised that people whose first entry into fame is through their parents or siblings, are nepotism babies. The world is an amazing and surprising place if you are incurious and unaware. What I love, what no one but me seems to have noticed, is the girl who originally tweeted her surprise about Maude Apatow not being plucked from obscurity, after hours of people telling her Judd Apatow is one of the more famous directors out there she changed her display name to “FUCK y’all and the Apatow family btw” which is really funny. It’s also funny that she knew who Leslie Mann was but not Judd, arguably the more famous of the two! This is important to remember when applying to obvious nepotism babies. The less famous parent has to be named! 

Poppy Corby-Tuech is Vinda 

A movie absolutely no one cares about was releasing character posters yesterday and the phrase on the tip of everyone's tongue is “Poppy Corby-Tuech is Vinda”. I don’t know who either of those people are and yet the phrase is stuck in my mind. I read it over and over again. It really is the Zendaya is Meeche of our modern era. 

TikTok

I’m So Small

I love making fun of people who talk about how small they are. It’s alway funny because they are always annoying. I’m not sure why or how this started. If there is a specific person who talked about how small they are and how difficult life is for them, I haven’t seen it but if it spawned this, they probably deserve it. People are also getting creative with it which I always love to see. How small can people say they are and what big inconvenience do they have to avoid as they go about their small life? 

Hanging Out With My Friend Of [x ethnicity] 

I think we’ve done this before but to me it’s always funny. Performative allyship at it’s finest. People are kind of loose with the format just in terms of who is crying about what tragedy. It should always be that you are crying about the tragedy that didn’t happen to your group. I wouldn’t cry about the potato famine, my friends would cry for me. Honestly, it’s an exercise in empathy. 

Curtis is here?

Finally, TikTok has a meme for when you don’t someone around. Curtis… get the fuck out is this apps equivalent to Oh…Luigi’s came too.. Super. A meme we all need for when someone we don’t like but can’t be exorbitantly rude to is brought somewhere. The tiktok version gets at it more directly, as TikTok is wont to do. They have to express their frustration and distaste directly because they simply can’t bear to hide it. It’s good to get it out. 

Didn’t Have The Sex Talk But Did Have The [x] Talk

My favorite part of this meme is the sound. It is time for a Cha Cha slide revival. No better place to do it than TIkTok. This meme is mostly fun except for when people are trauma dumping, but that’s obvious for any trend. People have been pretty good at keeping it funny for this one. I’m learning about all the different talks parents have with their children. There’s so many! Some are familiar and some are completely brand new to me. If nothing else, we’re learning about all the different kinds of complicated family situations a person can have and there are certainly a lot. Also that none of us got a good sex talk, which we should work on. 

Tom’s House Was Broken Into

This is literally the same trend as the Walter White sound from last week, which was not that good to begin with but this one is so much worse. In context. Erika Jayne is lying. This is not a true story and it’s obvious to anyone listening. It sounds like a lie. It’s long and rambling with too much detail. Context varies in importance for tiktok sounds but this doesn’t even sound like the truth. I know the trend cycles move fast these days but not this fast! We can’t already be replicating the past but worse from week to week. We have to let the body get cold first.