Trump Lyric Tweets
Last Week I said the Trump tweets signified nothing and were therefore bad memes. This week, Trump was convicted and with the lingering idea of last week’s format, everyone made their own version. This time there was meaning! The fact that Trump was tweeting Lana Del Rey lyrics meant something and using different Lana Del Rey lyrics implied different feelings! It was far from the height of posting after the Trump convictions but it was an improvement on something that previously had no significance. Not by much though. What I truly love about criticism, and complaining in general is that you can identify a problem with something, the artist, or general public, or institution can fix that problem but it does not make the object better. Those posts lacked meaning, now they have meaning but they’re still not good.
June is Going to Feel Like This
I love Hope Core as much as anyone. We need it to combat doom scrolling and the general cesspool of the internet. It’s important even if it feels mindless. However, when it comes to these posts, I just don’t believe them. Maybe I’m too far into a doom spiral but I have a hard time buying into the idea that June is going to feel like Shirley Temple with extra cherries.
I know they’re trying to invoke the nostalgia of childhood and the thrill of a Shirley Temple but I need a more grown-up promise. I need June to feel like the cool breeze of office air conditioning or getting high by the beach. I know June isn’t going to feel like a Shirley Temple. Nothing ever does. Nothing ever can again. That doesn’t mean it won’t be good, it’s just not going to feel like childhood. We’re setting ourselves up for failure if we think it’s going to.
Cishet Boyfriend at Pride Discourse
Happy Pride! Pride memes are like Christmas decorations. We pull out the old ones and hang them on our websites and rarely ever add anything new. I thought we all knew better than to engage in cishet boyfriend at pride discourse but we literally can’t help ourselves. This week I’ve seen posters I admire and respect respond genuinely to this discourse. They try to play it off but once you’ve said your real opinion, you lose the ability to be ironic and over it all. You’re part of the problem!
Rodrick
What we’re looking at here is a picture of Rodrick from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid film. Originally this was posted with some combination of the perfect ingredients for a night in: Drug of choice/availability AND media of choice/availability. Rodrick’s joy is so evocative that it’s easy to see why this image got traction. It makes us happy to see him happy. I can picture the little smile on everyone’s face when they post their version, no matter how silly and stupid. It doesn’t matter how simplistic the execution of each version is, I’m sure it made the person posting it laugh and that makes me happy. That’s the real hope core.
TikTok
Newsflash You’re Not Gonna
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Uptown Girls is the bible for a certain kind of person. They find themselves caught between the polished put together elementary schooler and the messy unkempt 20-something. They are moving from one to the other, forever living in the tea cup scene. There has been a lot of media made to appeal to this sensibility but nothing is as pure an expression of the way they feel as this film. It makes sense that the lifestyle girls of TikTok would bring this movie to the platform. Of course, this sound has larger appeal because no one does harsh and exacting as well as a 9-year-old Dakota Fanning. She’s the role model for all of us.
Sunday in the Park with George
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Every Sondheim Musical will have its day in the sun. By now everyone should have a cultural familiarity with Into the Woods, Company, Sweeny Todd, Send in The Clowns but not the rest of A Little Night Music, and Merrily We Roll Along. Maybe Assassins if you’re a nerd. The time has come for Sunday in the Park With George (2015 Revival). Closet theater kids can now drop this in polite conversation and get away with it. It’s entering the echelon of “culturally known musicals” (sophisticated)(not a nerd). It starts with a TikTok and ends with a Tony for Renee Rapp in 2028.