Meme Report 6/18
Sorry for the delay. It comes out when it comes out.
“I asked Chat GPT” “I asked Grok.” Well I asked…
I do believe memes can change behavior. I believe they can be used as a tool to fix society, but only if we don’t try too hard. The memes that inspire change have to be cool before they inspire change. We can all tell when the point of the meme is to inspire change. Those of us who are members of the AMC a-list know that a powerful meme presence is enough to grow your numbers and get your message out there. This meme is the first step in the war against ChatGPT. Our screeds and general distaste for generative AI will do nothing if there is no widespread subliminal message that telegraphs “This isn’t cool.” I don’t think this is the meme to do it, but it’s a good start. Let’s get more anti-AI sentiment in the popular consciousness. Let’s start showing it to our coworkers.
“It’s Not Clocking to You that I'm Standing on Business?”
“It’s not clocking to you that I’m standing on business” is a quote uttered by the once great teen heartthrob, Justin Bieber. Obviously, this man is Going Through Something, in addition to hating his wife, which is his constant trouble. This is the kind of iconic phrase that could only come from a celebrity crash out in front of paparazzi. Gone are the days of regular TMZ sightings of celebrities, but Justin Bieber is a child star of a bygone era, and everyone in his life who could steer him away from this behavior appears to have abandoned him. It is a nonsense collection of words by someone clinging to every ounce of coolness, relevance, and sanity he once had. The whole thing is incredibly sad!
Monitoring The Situation
In the wake of Trump’s first election, there was a lot of discussion about Bush-era satire and how people were able to talk about the presidency and make fun of it without sounding incredibly corny. These jokes have the same rhythm to them, or they almost do. Everyone wants to sound smart and above it all when talking about international conflicts the United States is at the center of. The phrase “monitoring the situation” makes everyone using it think they sound like brilliant insightful satirists. We all know that to truly understand something, you have to be able to joke about it, a truism that gets less and less true as facts become memes and vice versa. All I know is any time I see litquidity joke about something, it means I’m in the company of tech bros who are more right-leaning than they would like to admit, which means I have left my safe zone and an idea has hit something like critical mass. That in turn means we need to get more niche and more woke expeditiously.
Recommendations
Veronica - Started reading this, about halfway through. Pretty Good!
Tart - Upper East Teenage Mayhem from the early 2000s
Night At The Museum - Still Holds Up
TikTok
Manchild
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At this point, I think we have to acknowledge that no weapons formed against Sabrina Carpenter will prosper. I didn’t like Manchild at first listen, and I didn’t believe it was the song of the summer. I might be wrong (my guess for song of the summer right now is Moonbeam Ice Cream) because people have taken to this song the way we all must take to Sabrina Carpenter songs. There is something activating about them. We like them almost against our will. The trend for manchild is not particularly special or unique but exists because Sabrina Carpenter put out a song about hating the man she loves, something easy enough to make a trend about. I do like the political bend to it that people have added to it. It doesn’t all have to be mindless.
Mike’s Way
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American life has gotten worse in a lot of ways over the years, but one way it has gotten better is our nationwide access to good sandwiches via Jersey Mike. But like everything, these sandwiches come with a price. If one wants the best this sandwich has to offer, they must utter a silly little phrase. Such is the push and pull of modern-day capitalism. The give and take of what businesses require of us, both customer and cashier. It begs the question, are any of us really having it Mike’s way?