🎾TRANSCENDENCE ALERT🎾
Challengers Mania
Welcome to the summer of Challengers! The Internet has fallen in love with that tennis movie. It has all the right elements for not only a fun summer movie but to set the tone for an aesthetically pleasing summer. It came out in late April which psychs everyone up for the next 5 months. It trades on the aesthetics of tennis from one of our most stylistic directors. There’s enough time between now and the French Open (Memorial Day) for everyone to get invested in the real sport, and enough events between now and the US Open (Labor Day) to keep our interest piqued. It’s the perfect sexy summer movie to make all of the bons vivants and faux intellectuals of Twitter and TikTok excited about something. It’s also just really good. I love thinking about Challengers. I love talking about Challengers. I love googling Tennis lessons near me and then closing the tab when I see people talking about how hard tennis is. Challengers is a rich text. I’ve budgeted at least a month’s worth of genuine buzz with an unknown end to cultural permeation. This is the cultural reset I have been waiting for.
Thats That Me Espresso
Sabrina “Too Short to Ever Be Meaningful” Carpenter has a hit on her hands. In these circumstances, we would usually be lenient with silly pop lyrics that make no sense but we’re not letting her get away with it. We’ve let things get so bad that we can’t let “that’s that me espresso” slip through the cracks. Sabrina Carpenter is too much of an easy answer to the pop girlie question of Who’s next? That we have to react to it and against it. At a different time in history, we would have gladly accepted her into this world. However, we are at a confusing time in the pop girlie pantheon, and a pretty blonde girl whose songs sound like what English sounds like to nonspeakers isn’t enough anymore. That’s that me espresso is being held up to a scrutiny never before seen in the world of nonsense pop but our world is darker and meaner than it was before and we can’t keep letting her get away with it.
TikTok
This meme is the last vestiges of winter. It’s boring. It’s about individual fandom and personal repetition. It’s independent of anything anyone else is talking about. It’s a conversation for conversation's sake. We were bored, we were inside and the weather was bad. There’s excitement in this meme but it’s misplaced. You’re not obsessed with the song or the show or the quote. The feeling they are expressing here is hope for the world now that the weather is nice. That’s why this meme only conveys happiness with no real reason as to why. It’s the kind of happiness we could only have post-daylight savings.
In this meme those of us who spend too much time on the internet are the annoying bad guys but in a forgivable way. It is a light commentary on how we all talk but it does not demean or dismiss us. Outside of this meme, there is a consensus among the rest of us that people who only speak in memes in real life are annoying. Telling them this is a little too complex of an interaction for anyone to ever pull off gracefully so we just have to wait for them to get with the program. This is a meme that can help them. Even though now they are only acknowledging it in a joking manner, this is how we begin to be normal again.
I actually think you’re wrong about me espresso and what’s happening with it. The chorus may be linguistically odd but “I’m working late cuz I’m a singer” is lyric of the year so far and I think people love it, not even just gay guys with poppers fried brains this time! Girls with poppers fried brains also like it!