Meme Report 7/31
They both reached for the Gun
Olympics
I love the Olympics. I always have and I always will. I don’t even care to mention the caveats anymore. We love Simone Biles. We love my hometown hero Ilona Maher. We love the Pommel Horse guy. There’s nothing you could say about the Olympics to hurt me or lessen my love. I’m so happy that I can enjoy any random sport Peacock chooses to show me from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep. Every day I wake up and there's a new storyline to follow. It’s a triumph of entertainment and journalism that these Olympics are as watchable as they are. It’s a beautiful summer day out there, enjoy yourself and then watch some incredible feats of athleticism.
JD Vance Couch Jokes
People are saying it's on the level of coconut tree but I haven't seen any cool gay guys or maladjusted women making those jokes. It's mostly people in their 40s who are slightly too old to be on the Zynternet. JD Vance couch stuff is from a bygone era. I find making fun of Republicans in our echo chamber a little hollow. It’s Drumpf all over again.
Coconut Tree Matrix
The hardest part of winning is figuring out what we’re going to do with all our enthusiasm. We need to develop our own belief system. The coconut tree matrix helps us further develop our internal code. When we put our guiding archetypes through the matrix, we better understand the language we’re creating. We understand nothing about our own life until we understand it through the eyes of the Girls from Girls, the women of Sex and the City, and the hellions from Vanderpump Rules.
Kamala Albums
The B-Team of Operation Coconut Tree is hard at work keeping busy. They are laundering coolness as best they can. Simple base-level stuff. We’ll never have the power of The Strokes opening up for a Bernie rally but we can generate some buzz by making it look like Kamala picked out the American Football record. Do that 20 times and we might get somewhere with the indie crowd.
Guy on the Plane (Different Angle)
America’s last Maga sweetheart. For whatever reason, he has captured the hearts of many as a cultural object to make fun of. He strikes me as a bizarre canvas to project onto. An unspecial figure, trying to get attention for his conservative views. Yet there they are, editing his regalia to reflect less politically charged but no less passionate beliefs. Like a bad boyfriend, I’m intrigued by what you see in him.
Inside Out
The snake has begun to eat its tail. Inside Out, as a premise, is too enticing to stay in the public imagination for this long. We spend all day literalizing and personifying our emotions already. When we start playing with the concept too much we get nonsensical deep-fried memes about nothing. We’re looking too far into each other’s brains and I don’t like what we see.
TikTok
They Both Reached For The Gun
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
The people who make Edits finally have enough cohesion as creators to be influenced by trends on a scale of this size. There have been micro-trends within this world before. Popular songs and styles but I’ve never felt the strength of the collective before. Each fandom is submitting their version of They Both Reached For The Gun. I love that the interpretation is generally the same for each one but there are opportunities for panache. It’s kind of like the Olympics. I’d like for this to continue, look deep into the gulf of popular music, and pull out something more interesting than our usual Lana Del Rey and Phoebe Bridgers.
While I do hope this is a seachange for the world of edits, there are several factors contributing to this unity across fandoms. It’s late July and there’s nothing on TV. If you delve into the world of edits at all, you will see a number of apologies in the descriptions for things taking so long. They often ascribe the delay to things like finals and school in general. The best times for edits are mid-December (The beginning of Winter Break) and Late July (The Dog days of Summer). People have time to practice their craft. Long days spent working on a personal project. This summer, there’s nothing on. It’s the Olympics, Love Island, and House of the Dragon. Each provides ample fodder for edits but not enough to keep everyone happy. They Both Reached for the Gun allows everyone to flex their creative muscles regardless of fandom affiliation. Hopefully, we’ll get another wave before everyone goes back to school.
The Unmasking! It’s always been clear that the social media managers walk among us. Every “Just a girl.” in the comments section is actually a professional with a LinkedIn and everything. It’s fun that they feel comfortable enough in the current culture to reveal themselves. We’re once again dissolving boundaries between the branded and the personal. It’s also good to see that Pharrell Williams could write a Despicable Me song with his eyes closed and the American public will fall in love with it in some form or another.
Brooke Schofield
I swear I’ll take a break from Kamalanalysis but it’s the first interesting that’s happened in weeks! It’s fun to see how it’s permeating the culture. What is being swept into the world of Kamala and the Democrats at large? What will we lose to cringe and what can escape it? Every line they fed Biden about youth culture was an obvious attempt to win us over, but Kamala is at least somewhat plugged in. She can more successfully align herself with certain parts of the internet. I think it’s smart to draw some connections to a person like Brooke Schofield this early on. For those unfamiliar, Brooke is a co-host of the canceled podcast with Tana Mongeau. Brooke is the current Cool Girl of the YouTube Influencer verse. She’s not just any pretty girl on the internet with a podcast. She’s a brunette who’s been in the trenches and lived to tell the tale. Using Kamala and Brooke in the same sentence only helps both of their standing. There’s more than brat summer in the arsenal.
An interesting meme summer, the politics and social power of them is visible now more than ever!