Meme Report 6/15

Some Hot New Memes Enter The Villa

Is it just me or is there a Breaking Bad meme renaissance? Is anyone else seeing what I’m seeing or is it just my corner of the internet? 

Twitter

Brandon

Leftist twitter has taken their usual ironic spin on conservative memes. Reclaiming Let’s Go Brandon to be just the causal references to Brandon, and using it the way the Smurfs use smurf. It’s a little funny but to me there’s a why now? Question. Let’s Go Brandon has been around for about a year now but has neither reached an apex nor been abandoned. I don’t particularly care about the mixed messages people are likely to interpret from this meme but that is always the risk one runs when reclaiming conservatives memes. I also haven't been bowled over by any of the memes but it feels more like something you say to make yourself laugh. The only thing from this meme that has really gotten me is when someone shared their work slack after someone named Brandon got promoted and everyone trying their hardest not to say “Let’s Go Brandon” but that’s more concurrent with the meme rather than a participation in it. 

American Girl Doll

I was an American Girl doll girl. Felicity, specifically (I’m a redhead first and foremost). I read a good chunk of the books and I spent hours on the American Girl website playing the games. The Josefina game is responsible for the only Spanish I know. I have a deep love and affinity for the franchise. So there is a part of me that deeply loves this meme. However, when this meme started at the end of last week, it was a statement. This is what the 2014 American Girl doll would be. It was not asking to be given something but stating the way it was. It was original and new. But people are afraid of the original and new and prefer the familiar. They’re afraid to trust themselves without the barricades of the past. It’s the same demographic as the “we need a Disney Princess who…” meme so it makes sense that we took that language. The disaffected young women of the internet love taking their idols from childhood, before they were disaffected young women on the internet, and bringing them into our current reality. But these memes don’t have to be the same. They, at their core, are not the same. There’s more tragedies of history that young women were present for, so let’s see what cute outfits they would wear during them. Stop asking and start telling. Not everything has to be the same. Sometimes things can be thematically similar without being structurally similar. Also I like this iteration of this idea so much better than the Disney princess one which is overplayed. 

Dalle Mini (again)

All right enough!!! Stop it!!! After a week of these here’s my conclusion on this as a meme, after this I’m not talking about it anymore! It is only funny if it’s something that couldn’t be made in two seconds in photoshop. The Dalle Mini is at it’s best when given a prompt that requires some open interpretation. Not a recognizable person in a recognizable place. As much as I loved Osama Bin Laden guest judge on Drag Race, I know there’s a brilliant mind out there who could photoshop it better with the face intact. The dalle mini works best with a concept rather than specific instructions, like any true artist. I prefer something like Skeletor in the style of Edward Hopper rather than any celebrity “trail cam footage”.  Also great images are lost to the craze. I want Joan Didion at her boiler room DJ set to get it’s own day, rather than be lost in noise. Some of these deserve more time, and some of them deserve less. Do we need an AI to make one with Lisa Vanderpump on The Good Wife? Are our imaginations not enough? 

Bottom Friendly Menu

@postmates @Postmates

You shouldn't miss a good meal for a good time. That’s why this Pride, we've teamed up with @drevangoldstein and @smartthrob to create the world’s first Bottom-Friendly Menu (yup, it’s real). #EatWithPride

I have gotten diarrhea from every single restaurant in LA that is listed as bottom friendly. 

TikTok

A Bo Burnham sound and a Backyardigans sound at the same time? Is it June 2021? Are we regressing to a time when we still had hope? 

Shit Like This Brings The Movement Down

@legatogelato865Drop chicken places that are better than the bl00d of gay people #prode #pridemonth #priDEMON #humor #MadewithKAContest

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Uggggghhhhh. I don’t want to hear what the millennials on TikTok who make the Dreamworks face think brings the movement down. If you don’t meet that description, that's who you’re aligning yourself with, just so you know. Bo Burnham fans don’t understand that he’s joking, not preaching the gospel. So of course they take this punchline and reappropriate it to be incredibly serious, saying a phrase we all stopped saying because it was silly to say. I’m tired of discoursing about Bo Burnham but if you want to read my still prescient thoughts from last year when the original special aired, here they are. Assume any and all further sounds from the Inside Outtakes that go viral will meet the same criteria. 

Not Funny HaHa Funny Weird

@francescafarago @francescafarago ♬ original sound - szasgrandchildren

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Now, the Backyardigans I am happy to see again. I think that was a deep well with fun sounds that we should go back to. I want to know what more we can do with songs about being an International Superspy, rather than more songs about cheating on your boyfriend or whatever. This sound however is used for starting discourse about things we all already know are bad but not necessarily things disagree about. A sound for lukewarm takes and arguments you know you can win. Give us a hard one! 

A Hot New Bombshell Enters The Villa

@niamhadkinsa hot new bombshell indeed @laraadkins #sisters

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It’s summer so it’s Love Island season again. I have a low tolerance for Love Island because it has ten million episodes a season and I simply can’t pay attention to that much British nonsense. I love the highlights and I’m happy it exists but it’s not for my consumption. This is the first of what will probably be many Love Island memes and so far so good. I do love to see all the ways a Hot New Bombshell can Enter The Villa.