Meme Report 7/17
What if someone tried to kill you and the big takeaway was about the nature of Photojournalism?
The Assassination Attempt
Some people will cite this as their favorite day on Twitter. We’re at our best when we’re irreverent and I’m not going to say we weren’t funny. I was laughing! But ultimately, we were crushed under the weight of our potential. Compared to two recent favorites, The day Trump got Covid and the day Shinzo Abe was actually assassinated, it just lacks the juice. It’s more fun when the narrative is clean. When there’s not a dramatic what-if haunting the incident. We lost all of our momentum in the following days and all that's left is an ear bandage and some mixed messages from celebrities. It made for an exciting Saturday afternoon but now, it seems like that's all it was.
The one genuine meme from this whole incident is a meta-narrative about photojournalism and the nature of propaganda. Boring! What’s even worse is that the conversation comes to an immediate end the second someone posts a better picture. It’s hard to consider the implications of a photo on polling and the future of democracy when it’s immediately ratioed by a picture of Bethenny Frankel.
Kamala Edits
Don’t worry about K-hive, we’ve got our worst people on the Kamala memes this week. We must have given the smart talented people the week off. Or they’re working in the shadows with Nancy Pelosi. Those who have taken center stage insist on editing the Coconut Tree speech into popular songs by Twitter’s favorite pop girlies. Not in the fun way we’ve been able to achieve with AI (even though it's morally bankrupt). They are editing it almost as if it’s a producer tag. They all sound the same and none of them integrate the speech with the lyrics or the melody of the song. I feel like I’m in week one of an Audacity editing class and we all had the same basic assignment. There’s nothing to critique because the only goal was to complete the task. Only the song choice tells me about the author but everyone in class has the exact same taste. Hopefully next week we can expand our knowledge and creativity.
Biden Mix-Ups
If you’re 35 and in a subculture this meme is for you! Biden’s so old he’s getting two Shoegaze bands mixed up! Haha! That’s so funny! Wait, why is it called shoegaze? Oh, cause of the pedals? Wow, I'm learning so much! Me and my friends were wondering if you could buy us some beer?
Woman’s World
Katy Perry is like your friend from middle school whose politics you can’t make heads or tails of. There’s still a fondness there but she’s one serious post away from an unfollow. She seems to zig-zag towards and away from certain ideologies with fascinating delicacy. Never going mask off Republican because we both know real Republicans and she's not that. None of this would matter if the music were good. Nobody cared during Teenage Dream! Now we’re left to wonder because we can’t stop asking how did we get here? We’d still be asking if it weren’t for… you know. For lack of a better phrase, bullet dodged.
Dress to Impress
If you’re not consumed by politics, you are inside in front of the air conditioner, on some kind of nostalgia trip. For many that means playing Roblox. I am not a member of the Roblox community but I’m familiar with the online multiplayer game where people build avatars and play mini games of every kind. Lately, many adults have been complaining about the game within the game “Dress to Impress” where people create outfits to fit a prompt and then vote on the best one. I have seen several people complaining about how the 12-year-olds vote on “Dress to Impress”. As an outsider, it’s incredible to watch. The heat has been getting to us all and complaining about the kids on Roblox is as good an outlet as any. It's making me laugh at least.
TikTok
Boots and a Slick Back Bun
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Boots and a Slick Back Bun was too fun and too easy to participate in. It burned too bright too quickly. We could have had a whole late summer of fun with it. The corporate girlies got to it which led the Maturity Police on Twitter to try to make sense of it. No more sambas and a little red bag. No more summer fun.
Anthems For A 17 Year Old Girl
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This sound is gaining traction as people outside the indie rock community are hearing it for the first time. There was a cover on the soundtrack for I Saw the TV Glow which I’m sure has drummed up nostalgia for the original, which in turn brings in new listeners. Its one of the best songs ever written so this comes as no surprise. TikTok nostalgia is good when it happens to a song I like. It’s even better when it happens to a song that I think everyone should listen to while they stare wistfully out a window and think about their teenage years.
Apple Dance
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Brat summer!!!!! At the beginning of Brat Summer, if you said Apple was your favorite song, it would be a hot take. Now, it’s everyone’s hot take. That’s the sign of a good album. It’s not about no-skips or correct single choices, it’s about sleeper hits. It’s mid-July and we’re still sifting through the album and building new cultural touchpoints with it. The dance is fun and sexy and even Hot New Movie Star Glenn Powell is doing it! It’s also giving us something to fight about, which is whether or not people are doing the move on the And 1 correctly. What more could we ask for?
If You Ask Me On A Deeper Level
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We did this already. This trend is so boring because at this point it’s about nothing. People talk about their hatred of pickles and the death of a loved one in the same format and there’s no way to know which one is going to show up on your fyp. Some people just need a whisper of a format to talk about whatever they want. They lack the self-esteem or creativity to venture out on their own. Make something new! We’ll all be better for it than endlessly recycling and rehashing old formats.