Meme Report 4/20
In the Words of our fore fathers, Blaze it
Twitter
Rihanna and ASAP Cheating Rumors
At the beginning of this year I asked what new ways would we find to make fun of Drake. Asked and ANSWERED! This rumor turned out to be fake, but real or fake we know the one man most excited to hear it: Aubrey Drake Graham. I knew we would find a reason to meme this man before the year’s halfway point. I thought we would get one when Degrassi went on HBOMax but I’m so happy it was because of my favorite Drake fact: he’s a simp for Rihanna. I’m even happier this rumor turned out not to be true and we can still joyfully await Rihanna and A$AP’s baby. Two for one special.
Worshipping Jesus At 30,000 Feet
Listen, I know I wrote about Jesus in this weeks Sunday edition but I talked about Him in a raised catholic separating the art from the artist way not in an evangelical have you heard the good news way. I know if you are not and have never been affiliated with Christianity it may seem the same, but it’s very different. This is what evangelicals do. They loudly talk about how much they love Jesus at a time that is inconvenient for everyone with a song that no one wants to hear. Every few months they go viral for pulling some stunt like this and everyone tries to dunk on them. None of the dunks are memorable thought because we know they are teflon to our heresy. Nothing we say gets through to them. The Romans called Jesus annoying! We’ll get ‘em next time though.
Number of Times
For some reason, Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert made a thread of things that have happened to him and quantified how many times those things have happened to him. I have some questions. Why? How? and one statement: No Way. Some of them are obvious lies and others invite victim blaming but all of them together create a marvelous list. Scott Adams has had something of a second life on twitter. A proud member of a club made up of previously famous people who now regularly interact with the hoy polloy and either destroy their public good will (JK Rowling) or create a sweet affinity for them, which they then destroy by being annoying (Eve6). Comedians and the general Twitter public played around with the format and I loved every single one. Any tweet that began “Number of times:” was guaranteed to make me laugh. When people with Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law avatars are dunking on Blue Checks it’s usually a good time.
TikTok
#RevolveFest
We, as a society, need to learn the difference between a scam and poor event planning. A couple of late buses and bad water distribution does not a scam make. For those who don’t know, this past weekend was Coachella Weekend One. A companion event to this music festival is Revolve Fest, an invite only influencer event which basically corals and entertains them during the day while they wait for the headliners at night. This year it didn’t exactly go off without a hitch. Now, I’m not a big influencer girly (I spend less than 30 minutes a day on instagram) so I don’t have a lot of sympathy for these people who lack the charisma needed to be famous for anything other than bodies but lack the mystique to be successful as models. The whole world of getting paid to post on Instagram is sketchy, from the follower counts to their paychecks, so it never surprises me when something with multiple gifting suits and “activations” goes poorly. That being said when I am invited next year as Substack’s first influencer, you all have to be on my side when I complain about being stranded in the desert.
Texts from Boyfriend (Piano Man)
An under explained phenomenon in our culture is women born between 1995 and 2002 having a strong affinity for Billy Joel. We love Vienna. We love Zanzibar. In its most recent iteration, young women are showing screenshots of their boyfriends texts and the only song that can capture their heartbreak is Piano Man. Most of these girls seem to be actual love bombing victims who are at the very least caught off guard when days later the men go from non stop texting to radio silence and then asking for space. It’s sad to see their situations but really funny that they’ve all taken to Piano Man to best explain their sadness. Sorry that happened but the way these women have chosen to express their pain is so saccharine it’s making me giggle.
We Have All The Time And All The Resources
The final trend this week is also populated by young, mostly white, women. This one meets at the middle of several ongoing, well acknowledged truths. One, girls my age have an almost unavoidable connection to the Kardashians. If one is at all plugged in to popular culture, they are well aware of all of the Kardashians. No one is a pure hater, even if they try to be they might have a fondness for one clip from Kourtney and Khloe take Miami. Their opinion on this family has changed and wavered and returned to their original take. The next truth, is that we also approach several aspects of our lives with the ruthlessness and dedication of a mob boss. From birthday brunches to spring philanthropies to the Starbucks pit stop on a road trip, every event is an opportunity to judge someone’s loyalty to the organization, whatever the organization happens to be at the time. This sound combines these facts and gives the girls who epitomize these facts a chance to shine. It’s not particularly fun or clever but I do love when these characters acknowledge their ruthlessness. It’s always nice when subtext is made text.
really like the commentary on the family meme. feels like maybe there’s something interesting there about how women form and work as groups