~Met Gala Round Up~
The dust has settled and these are the memes that we took from the met gala. All that content and here’s what we’re left with.
Kylie Jenner Close Up
There’s something about Kylie Jenner’s perfectly molded face that makes it so easily memeable. The close ups always kill. This one wasn’t our best by any means but I was worried we wouldn’t have any fun memes from the Met Gala, only brain dead Kim K Marilyn Monroe discourse. When I thought this was all we were getting I was happy to see her. At least there was something. I liked it enough when it was all we had. It shows a valiant effort to at least contribute something. It still was the only classic meme we got and for that I’m happy.
Emma Chamberlain Sub-Section
There’s a lot of talk of influencers getting invited to the Met Gala and whether or not they deserve it. There’s a simple solution to this problem: Make them work it. Emma Chamberlain is earning her keep by interviewing people and she’s pretty good at it. What we’ve learned from our current cultural climate is that celebrities feel more comfortable talking to other celebrities. That’s why Drew Barrymore and Kelly Clarkson’s daytime tv shows work so well. Who else but Emma could get two silly little clips to go viral and get memed. She’s even won me over.
Big Slay?
I love Big Slay. We’ve been throwing around slay for months and until now it’s struck me as kind of a boring addition to the gay lexicon. It’s lazy, it’s simple, it’s proof that poppers might actually be bad for your cognitive development. But after months of listening to gay guys making themselves laugh, straight girls finally picked up on it and are using it seriously to seem cool. That’s why I’ve decided it’s funny now. The cultural context has finally reached a point where using it has reached many different groups and I don’t sound like I’m trying too hard to connect to gay culture when I use it. It’s an ironic reclamation. These two geniuses engaging in nonsense conversation kills me every time. The clip is so good because you can sense Emma’s palpable fear of Gigi Hadid. It’s also just funny to watch a woman dressed like a BDSM bug queen tell a woman who’s dressed like a historical reenactor who’s costume didn’t fit, that her outfit is a big slay.
Love ya!
Relatable Queen!!!! This clip helps me work on my theory of why Emma Chamberlain is famous and continues to be famous. She’s kind of bad at being a celebrity in that every situation she’s put in seems to overwhelm her. She falters and fumbles but we only love her more. She never keeps her composure but she never truly loses it either. Jack Harlowe hits her with a Love you, she responds Love ya! And immediately regrets it. She’s funny, she’s a little weird, and she has more personality that it originally seems. Plus she’s better at her job than Giuliana Rancic.
~End of Met Gala Round Up~
Slurp Juice
We need a grand unified theory of how invested one can be in something before they’re no longer making fun of something but are genuinely interested in it. I say we call it the Slurp Juice Line (Drinking the Slurp Juice?). Making fun of the bitcoin people is necessary but there’s a line. We’re at a point where getting this joke requires a twenty minute explainer on the mechanics of bitcoin. Not even to a not online lay person, but fellow people on twitter. Slurp Juice was only funny to people who know what The Blockchain is, but like ironically. If that’s you, it’s time to reconsider some things.
TikTok
PSA: Don’t put your AP Studio Art portfolio on TikTok if you aren’t ready to learn that you’re not as creative as you think you are. Sure all art is subjective but everyone who’s taken the class will roast you for making obvious uninspired apolitical art. Sorry. The internet is ruthless and most high school seniors are not up to the task. I’d rather find out about my 2 from the College Board than from my fellow TikTok teens.
Originally this meme was people talking about different aspects of their race and ethnicity, saying a couple aspects and then ending with something like “we are black girls that grew up in the suburbs.” Not really my place to comment on a meme like that. Over time the meme changed and now it’s any group of people, which happens a lot and usually doesn’t end well. However this time, everything seemed to be mostly in good fun. The main group who has taken over the sound is nosy people and haters. I would not have said this meme was going to become girls trading the best tips for getting gossip in plain sight but I love it. I’m a hater, I’m a gossip, I’m nosy. I need new tips beyond stalking people on Venmo and this sound has become the perfect place for it.
Everyone doing this trend sounds so stupid. American life at the end of the 1960s and American life in 2018 are not really comparable. It’s not that the 60s were great, it’s just that 2018 being our pinnacle makes me depressed. Life was not good, culture was not at its peak, and even though we cannot go back to that time, it does not mean it captured a flash point in American Culture. We should want a lot better for ourselves. Also people are conflating the end of their youth with the end of the world. 2018 was not a good year, you were just younger. 2014 tumblr was not the height of culture, you were just young. I hate this sound and every time I hear it I know I’m about to read the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen. To me, it seems like people think Societal Collapse began in 2020, when really we’ve been headed this way for a while. I think a better quote for this time comes from Tony Soprano. We came in at the end and it’s been at the end for a long time. Not just now that we’ve stopped day drinking with our friends from college on a wednesday. Some of us have anyway.
Thank god I’ve seemingly extricated myself from fandom nerds enough that I only see people talking about this meme and not actual examples of it. The thing about this meme is that Heartstopper is also bad. I’m so glad the gay teens of today get a limp piece of media to pretend to see themselves in. Something devoid of edge and reason and drama and conflict. If the choice for British teens (and American teens who wish they were British) is this or Skins, we need to pick Skins. For some reason queer people have a desire to watch queer stories play out in a fantasy land where there’s light homophobia but no drugs. Even Degrassi’s gay storylines had more of an edge to them than this.
A classic meme format we do all the time. Almost constantly we get a sound where the whole point seems to be “I like this thing and I don’t care that you don’t like it and liking it makes me cool and hot.” We do this all the time and it’s getting old. As glamdemon2004 said, it seems to be mostly for brands at this point. It’s also yet another sound using the voice of a black woman that seems to be mostly populated by white people. At best, it’s a boring meme that we’ve seen before and at worst it’s making a caricature of a black woman that will eventually be used to sell the About Face fluid eye paint.