Meme Report 7/23

I was just guessing at numbers and figures

Twitter

The Coldplay Affair

Is the kiss cam an arm of the surveillance state that promotes heteronormativity? Yeah, but so is everything. All this means is that a Coldplay concert has the same amount of surveillance as a televised baseball game. We have a right to exist in public without being subjected to the scrutiny of the whole internet, but the jumbotron is fun, and comes with the announcement that they are firing up the jumbotron. While we may try to act like larger society is at fault here, at the end of the day, the major lesson is “don't act like you're having an affair.” Affairs in general are fine, but be nonchalant about it, especially on the jumbotron, which is a fine American institution. My socialist utopia that we all will one day live in has a kiss cam.

We talk a lot about the internet’s power to make people celebrities or ruin reputations, and for every Hawk Tuah, there is a CEO whose life gets ruined. Rags to Riches, Riches to Rags. I feel less bad about this whole situation because everyone involved is rich, and also it’s an affair. It’s fine. It’s one of the worst things you can do and still come out mostly fine. Especially now. It’s not like the head of HR is a ruined woman. She might be a ruined HR person, but you can always pivot.

Matcha Dubai Chocolate 24k Labubu

This is the enduring meme of the summer. It does not make me feel old, it just makes me think it’s not our year. The “our” here being anyone who wants the cultural output of the internet to be complex and thriving. This compound trend is made up of old things and knock-offs. Matcha has been popular in the United States for at least 10 years. It feels weird to me because it’s not that matcha got more popular at stores or suddenly became available; it’s just that more people started talking about it. More people are drinking it, but it’s been here and pretty popular for a while now. Next year we’re all going to get really into lattes again. Dubai chocolate has been around for at least a year now, but remains the ultimate trendy item. It’s scarce, it’s decadent, and yet it’s everywhere. Labubu is a silly band for everyone from 8 to 28. It’s also the latest in a long line of bag charms. Before there was the Labubu, there were simskis, calico critters, and sunny angels. All “Dolls for adults”. This does not feel like an explosion of new things and cultural change, but a dragging around of the old. I hate to say it, but recession indicator. In the summer of 2025, we couldn’t afford any new culture, so we had to recycle the old. This is the last time I’m talking about any of these things unless something truly insane happens.

Natalie Portman Dior Commercial

LINK TO VIDEO

I wrote a whole thing about advertisements and memes, and the American imagination, because I thought this clip was from a Dior ad and is instead from a Terrence Malik film! It was a whole thing about how advertisement often captures emotion in the abstract better and more accessibly than film. Moot point! This clip captures emotion well because it’s created by one of our finest living directors.

We Still Don’t Have A Song of the Summer.

I hate to be the one to tell you this, but it’s Moonbeam Ice Cream.

TikTok

Thinking of You

@.pzxielcc#BONRAD | team conrad 4everr | . | #conradfisher #bellyconklin #tsitp #tsitpseason3 #katyperry #tsitpedit @the summer i turned pretty

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

Edit update! We’ve moved on from Tyrant and now we’re going for more angst with Katy Perry. I think a lot of us have a soft spot for Katy Perry, even if we’ve given up hope that she will ever produce a hit single ever again. This song is the perfect amount of mid-2000s angst from her first album. This was a time when everyone had to at least try to make an emo song, just to see. Maybe there’s an open spot on the Twilight soundtrack! This song is perfect for edits and makes us all remember a time when Katy Perry was full of potential and had a long career ahead of her.

Jet 2 Holiday

@chaliecastaldoUNWELL HAHAHA #philly #phillytiktok #philadelphia #jet2holidays

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

Ok. You got me. I love regional accents, so I love this one. I love to hear how everyone says these words. Now that we’ve made the meme fully American, I like it again. The British can always take it back and give us a guide to their accents. If we could keep this back-and-forth going all summer, I would enjoy that. I would have said this meme didn’t have enough to sustain it through the previous month, but here we are. Let’s see what we can do through Labor Day.