Meme Report 7/16
Things are getting explosive
I don’t really want to get into but a quick note before we begin. I’d like to say that while I liked The Invite, I’ve had enough of the Olivia Wilde payola. She did a good job this time, and she’s done a bad job in the past. So have we all. Let a woman be average to good!
Haley Stevens
For the first time in American politics, I could not correctly assume the political party of a candidate everyone was making fun of on Twitter. She’s an establishment democrat so hated by the cool kids, but no one can get through the videos of her speaking to call out her policy issues. She’s in the new category of American politician, total and complete clown. The Clown is neither evil nor good. They are not beloved by their supporters but instead confound those who are not supporters. We mock her not because we hate her or her policies, we mock her because we can’t get past it. It’s impossible to talk about anything else.
Jia Tolentino
Jia Tolentino is one of those people I can’t help but look up to as a woman with a blog who also wouldn’t mind doing some spon con now and again. I’d be stupid not to. She’s one of those women we (The Alison Roman Set) have to pay attention to. We need to keep track of what she does and adjust how we feel about her accordingly. The fear and greed index, but for girls who want to be Joan Didion. After years of praise, we have switched to outcry about her Instagram or publicity opportunities, considering she writes like three essays a year. This time, we’re actually discussing her writing, so it’s just on the merits of her ideas and prose, which allows us to be meaner. After much conference, we’ve decided this essay is a snooze and the moment for Jia has passed. Our worst opinion is that she is a one-trick pony whose point of view relies on her beauty first and foremost. Plastic Surgery in this day and age is such a complicated issue that if you’re going to go for you have to go big and say something at the very least new. A real swing and a miss from Miss Tolentino that those of us who still care weren’t even interested enough to tear to pieces.
Explosive Diarrhea Summer
Early this summer, I wrote about selecting a summer vibe and doing your best to achieve it spiritually if not literally. Now that we are in high summer, I remember something I always forget about: Summer is too long. This is the part of summer where the vibe shifts from achieving potential to six more weeks of bullshit. If you haven’t had fun yet, it feels too late to start, and if you have been having fun, you need to find a way to sustain it. One way the vibe has shifted is from celebration and excitement about the World Cup and the Knicks' win to concerns about, and this is the medical term for it, “explosive diarrhea”
It can’t all be fireworks and ice cream cones. Summer is as synonymous with turmoil as it is with joy. We have to pay the piper at some point. For every day by the pool, there are hours to spend watching the news to see how that whole Watergate thing is going to resolve. That’s why the best Mad Men episodes are the ones set in the summer.
The chatter about the Explosive Diarrhea is making everyone’s “outbreak” sensors go off. It’s fun that we have our version of Depression Era hoarding, and that it’s so obvious. I can see everyone freaking out the same way they did all those years ago when our big thing happened. But you know what they say, first as flu-like symptoms, then as explosive diarrhea. I laugh to myself watching everyone repeat their lines from last time, with details changed to include concern trolling about eating vegetables instead of wiping down groceries. We’ll never be normal again! This time, we don’t even have the dignity of words like “cough” and “cold” and are instead relegated to “poop” and “anus” and, everyone’s favorite, “explosive diarrhea”
TikTok
5 things that are worth the money
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The original version of this trend, where real adults with a little money tell people in their 20s that movers are always worth it, has some actually useful advice. It quickly devolved into rich stay-at-homes telling people a $150 steak is worth it. I’m sure it is, but that’s not really what we’re talking about. This is the subtext of a subtle flex at being able to say, “if you are making enough money and someone to clean your living space for you is on the table, that should be a priority.” It is a kind of adult conversation about money that most people have never had, or are participating in for the first time. This is not Carrie Bradshaw, “get the Manolos! You can eat later!” It’s practical upper-middle-class advice. Of course, no one on the internet knows how to talk about money, and no one in America understands class. Jane Wickline’s fake ones really made me laugh, and this girl with really fun options was a good contribution. Do not make a video to tell us an omakase experience is worth it. That’s not what this is about.
Dictator Mbappe
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I’ll be honest, I have not kept up with the World Cup and its memes. Everything is moving too fast and requires knowledge of a history that I don’t understand. I prefer to let the memes come to me rather than try to capture every meme from a tournament that everyone in the world is watching. And so when Hilde von Bingen asked me to write something about Dictator Mbappe, I had my meme. There are two stories to dictator Mbappe: the self-explanatory one, where he is a controlling fascistic presence on all the teams he plays for, and the second one, where he sued the owner of a kebab shop. The origin story is true, but the staying power is a result of the first explanation. It’s also in line with a recent trend (or forever trend, really) of combining the names of famous people with the names of different famous people who have committed atrocities. They were just doing it to the Love Island guy. It always makes me laugh. I think it’s really funny that people get so mad they escalate it to that level, especially when the pieces of evidence for dictatorship are “moved to a different team” and “lied to women”. I like when it happens fast, too. Straight to dictatorship. If everyone were measured in their hatred of celebrities, we wouldn’t have the rich, thriving internet culture we do. Though no one seems to have been able to make a good version stick for Taylor Swift, so point for her.
I also love the Haaland/Bellingham edits, but you knew that already.
Whopalossus
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I’ve dug myself a hole I can’t get out of. Perfectly pleasant English people are speaking to me through the phone about their preferred biscuits from M&S, Fortnum and Mason, or Tesco. They all have the same accent and talk in a sing-song voice like a primary school teacher. I’m learning so much about the easy-to-understand part of their culture. The fun stuff. I’ve moved on from Colin the Caterpillar and Percy Pig. I’m ready for more British cultural staples. But like anything on TikTok, I’ve quickly grown cynical. You think I don’t know about the whopalossus? You think I haven’t seen the inside of a whopalossus? Get real. Show me more. I want more.