Meme Report 6/8

The Moment We've All Been Waiting For..... Embedded TikToks

Jun 08, 2022

Twitter

As a [kind of gay person], I’m partnering with [company]

Some people might say that the Corporate sponsor pride jokes are getting a little tired. That they’re losing their edge. That what was once considered unique biting social commentary is now a watered down joke that has lost its significance. Even Lionsgate referenced it. While the political element of this joke may be lost, we can still, at the very least, make it funny again. This was a pretty solid attempt. It had all the elements of a well constructed Twitter meme: Set Up, Punchline, repeatable phrasing accounting for both. If nothing else, this was a load bearing meme. Most people were pretty good at it. I like it more for its ability to turn what has become apolitical garbage into something worth laughing at. Gay people still can be funny, they just have to try. I enjoyed the clever ones with punch lines I don’t see coming. We had our fun with it but I’d like for it to be over now. Pride is a marathon, not a sprint. We can’t waste all of our energy on one meme. Especially one with this tired a premise.

Stafford Road Man

If you have ever spent time with anyone who plays any kind of instrument, you will recognize this man immediately. We all thought he only existed post 1970, moving gear from the truck to the stage, but the internet has shown us that there’s nothing new under the sun and every version of every human has probably existed before. We’re all just doing the same things over and over again. Of course we look at this man and are disappointed that he lived before he could properly don his uniform (shredded flannel) and take up his arms (bass guitar). If we were to meet this man, he would probably be disappointed that his modern day brethren can’t pillage a village in Gaul or eat an animal they killed themselves. Maybe history has not found the true purpose of these men yet. Perhaps their bodies are best equipped for space travel or nuclear fallout. That history will look back on these men, not as products of their time but as lives wasted before their true calling was invented. RIP Stafford Road Man, you would have loved Metallica.

F- on the Bechdel Test

The Bechdel Test is dead. We have to chalk up that one up to a cultural loss. It was a fun concept to begin with but because everyone is stupid and intent on willfully misinterpreting lesbians, it got overblown. It was seen as some important marker of film criticism rather than a personal test for some lesbians to ask themselves whether or not they wanted to pop into a movie. The meme itself, which is in response to a bad tweet about Fire Island, I find lackluster and discombobulated. The only people I really saw participating in it were blue check twitter gays and comedy writers, which is fine but I always need a little more hoi polloi in memes. Otherwise it feels too much like everyone is vying for a job. By all means, get your bag but let’s be honest about what we’re doing.

Surgery Is The New Sex

Morbius? Out! Crimes of the future? IN! Everyone who’s anyone on film twitter is no longer on Morbin time but has declared that surgery is in fact the new sex. It’s my vote for film Twitter meme of the summer because it shows that we’re all still fans of cinema. We want good interesting movies but we all have stupid little brains and need to be marketed to through osmosis and memes. Surgery is the new sex. Surgery is the new sex. Surgery is the new sex. Crimes of the Future Coming to a theater near you. It reminds us that film twitter can giveth even though it’s primary function seems to be taketh-ing away.

DALL•E Mini

Listen I get that this is fun but when are we going to stop feeding the AI machine. These things learn by what we teach them and we never ever refuse to engage. Not even the most stalwart stick in the muds can help themselves. Literally everyone is doing this. Sure some of them are funny but come on. This is the Millenial/Gen Z equivalent of the scam calls asking for our social security number. Don’t train AI for free!!! I know everyone is using it now because it’s bad and weird but in six months it’s going to be better and we’re all going to do this again but this time be amazed that it’s better. This happens literally every time. Remember how bad faceapp used to be? And now its better, perhaps because everyone keeps running their face through it every six months when the introduce a new feature. Everyone is allowed their own Old Man Yells At Cloud moments and this is mine. But also if a service is free, you are the product.

My Politics are Whatever This Is

Stop getting baited by trads. This is “We Used To Be a Country” 2.0. They love saying the past was better and finding a picture to help their argument. We can’t make a meme every time they post a Thomas Kinkade painting. Figure out a new strategy for dunking on them because making memes popularizing the language they use isn’t helping. It just adds it to the vernacular.

Every woman is Bi

This week, Dave Weigel got suspended from the Washington Post for retweeting a joke that was, in the grand scheme of things, fine. It’s one of those memes that was inspired by a news story but ultimately has nothing to with the news story itself and is mostly about world play. I love word play and it’s fun to see how people are twisting words that have “bi” in them at any point.

TikTok

Some Times….