Did it hurt?
One week ago I made a caption on an Instagram post “Did it hurt? When you low key fell off?” because that phrase has been bouncing around in my head since someone tweeted it back in December. In my mind nothing will top “Did it hurt? When you lowkey fell off?” Setting that aside, pretending that the greatest version wasn’t written almost a year ago, this meme is still not good. Once again our hearts aren’t in it. Not one has made me laugh and all of them I’ve read from people I consider funny leave something to be desired. People seem mad that they are even writing a version. It seems like a CIA plant that everyone feels forced to participate in despite not wanting to. No one is finding the fun in it. No one even seems to be trying to. We’re allowed to not participate. We’re allowed to scrap it and start over. Pick a new one and do better next week. Please let me know if one of these really got you, but from what I can gather none of them were funny.
We live at the behest of an amazon studios promotional push for what will certainly be the worst movie of all time. No one is excited. It seems to gather people everyone either hates or is simply not excited about. It’s August in Los Angeles and the city is already inundated with Emmy voter pushes that the rest of the denizens either stand to benefit from or be mildly annoyed by. Why not add to that confusion by having James Corden and co. push themselves into the street and perform songs from their soon to be reviled movie. I could not bring myself to watch the video but I used to watch James Corden with my parents so I’m familiar with the concept. I know what happens. Hopefully this video and subsequent movie will free us from the Tyranny of James dominating movie musicals and also Camila Cabello. Please Jesus, I need culture to take a break from these people for like three years. I need attitudes to change. We need a new crop of something. We’re getting to a point where even hating these people is overdone.
Spiderman AGAIN
No. Can’t have two memes from the same movie from 2002 in the same summer. It’s against the rules. I understand that Doc Ock is gonna be in two movies by two different directors and we’re all happy for Alfred Molina but for the love of God, shut up. In the wake of Marvel, everyone is trying to prove that there are some good superhero movies and that if directors are given free expression they come up with more interesting stories and perspectives and guess what? I don’t care. The artistry of superhero movies is the least of my concerns as long as no one will hire Nancy Meyers. Make memes about that!
Queer Bank
I think if we ignored the queer bank it would go away. That often never works but this keeps happening. People keep trying to introduce a new bank, or credit card, or something related to money that’s queer and everyone hates it. The thing is every time a new one is introduced we make a bigger and bigger hullabaloo, which to me bodes poorly. In my mind the narrative will go like this; we all talk about how much we hate the queer bank, some people sign up as a joke or to see what it’s all about, the queer bank grows, the locations are placed in very convenient locations, it becomes more and more clear that you’re losing money by not banking with the queer bank. The evils of capitalism get us once again. Something that was once a joke or a day of outrage on Twitter is now the only way to live your life. Suddenly the Superbowl is being played at Queer Bank stadium in Amazon City. It’s all evil and it’s all because we haven't figured out that the tables have turned. Our anger no longer stops something from happening but is being used as free advertising. If I didn’t see 10,000 tweets about how much everyone hates the queer bank, I would not know about the queer bank. The problem with outrage culture is not that we’re too sensitive, it’s that they’re using our righteous anger against us.
Tiktok
Sometimes All I Think About Is You
This song sucks, it sounds like a bad BTS song. It makes sense that it would be associated with a stupid saccharine trend. This trend is being used to communicate a difficult feeling that is not often acknowledged, Missing someone despite knowing that they can’t return to your life and not wanting them back. It is interesting that Tiktok trends can be used to commiserate about an experience one might be demonized for, or more simply misunderstood. What’s not interesting to me is that this is the only experience we seem to be able to do that for. This is functionally the same as when he loves me from this past winter. I would love if every aspect of the human experience can be communicated via Tiktok trend and it seems like we’re getting there but not if we keep getting hung up on the same one. We like people despite the things they put us through! We can’t explain it, like most things in life there is no closure and no greater meaning assigned to your feelings and the best thing you can do is get over it. The next trend like this needs to get at a new type of feeling, a new guilt or happiness we can all puzzle through together.
I’m pro-ironic reappropriation of the joker. It’s funny. I’m also pro whenever girls align themselves with a trend that seems like something only men would get enjoyment out of. Girls who seem normal and not that online calling themselves the joker is a good move. It makes society more democratic and more fun. The rigid subcultures marketers want us to fall into to create an us vs them dynamic fall away when people of all beliefs and backgrounds call themselves the joker. I don’t want to see anything about “hot girls” and the joker. No one should own or claim the joker. I believe we all have a joker within us.
This is the final stage of culture now and it’s one of the good ones. Heath Ledger’s Joker was a great performance and captivated the world. Hollywood misunderstood the reaction to this performance from a dearly departed actor as a love for the joker. In the following years we’ve been pumping out schlock about the joker with various middle to low brow results. Until finally it’s just memes. There’s no need to take this seriously anymore or pretend to. We should have not touched the joker as a character for twenty years but we did and now the whole idea is so silly and stupid there’s no need to do it again. We can either respect something and leave it alone, to let it be the best final version of it or we can keep remaking it and attacking it until all other versions pale in comparison.
Girl Bossed Too Close To The Sun
A common experience on Tiktok is someone thinking a sound is really popular because it’s all over their For You page when in reality there’s only about 100 videos, they’ve just happened to see all of them. That never happens to me, but I do get a lot of videos of people realizing that a sound is not that popular, which I always think are fun. Until now. I saw the original Girl Bossed too close to the sun video and knew it was going to take off. I did not realize it was disproportionately taking off with my demographic. This sound has been all over my FYP and I was shocked to discover on friday there were only about 700 videos using this sound. For context, the Joker sound has 29k videos and I see it on my FYP about half as much. This sound really spoke to us. This sound articulates a new emotion for us, girl bossing too close to the sun. It’s different from being in over one’s head and I can’t explain why. I love it and I want to see it really take off. I want to know all the ways we can girl boss too close to the sun, and I have a feeling with the Elizabeth Holmes trial starting, we’re about to find out.
I Just Had A Wonderful Conversation With A Friend
This meme was made by a Shemar Moore superfan and there’s no reason for it to exist. The moment it happens seems very ordinary and from what I can tell is just a random video from his Instagram. I thought the music was diegetic to the clip and it was similar to Trump's tiny dancer moment when RBG died but it's not. it’s just a video of him saying that phrase set to music for reasons beyond my comprehension. I have never and will never understand the Criminal Minds/Grey’s Anatomy superfans. The girls who lead more or less regular lives except for their fanaticism for those two shows and no other shows. They don’t really seem to watch other television and if they do, do not have the same level of interest. What I am saying is not one part of this meme makes sense to me. Not even the part separated from Shemar Moore. Once again no one can decide what they want from this meme. The spread is equal across you did not talk to someone at all and that both the use of “conversation” and “friend” are ironic; you talked to someone you don’t like or don’t know so only the use of “friend” is ironic; and you talked to someone you do like so both “conversation” and “friend” are not ironic, you in fact did have a wonderful conversation with a friend. I am perplexed on all levels and I simply cannot endorse this meme. It basically communicates nothing.
You’re Asking Me About My Theories
None of these are your theories. Not a single one of you has actually ever come up with a theory on your own. I think people forget that we’re all on the same internet and that if you verbatim try to pass off someone else’s twitter post as your own idea, everyone will know. Maybe not everyone, but I’ll know and I’ll think less of you and that should be enough to get you to stop. It seems like some people struggle to come up with original thoughts to seem interesting and cool. That’s not a problem I have. I have to quell my original thoughts on a daily basis there’s so many of them. I have so many theories and ideas every day it’s impossible to keep them all straight. I have a newsletter for that very reason. I need a place to put them all. Normally I would like a sound like this. I do want to hear about peoples theories, but that sound is full of hangers on trying to repurpose video essays as their own ideas. Call me when you want to play with the big boys and no one has ever put the words you are saying in that order before.
This meme might be only be on the straight side of Tiktok (or the mid alt side) and I feel like I came across it by accident. The example I included made me laugh and I was surprised when the caption said “I love this trend”. What I don’t like about this trend is that it’s all happening in the comments and they’re often just repurposing a quote. What I love about the first one is it does something I will always find funny, using old timey language or visuals to describe modern events. The episode of Zack and Cody where they go to Colonial Boston and they stay at Ye Olde Tipton? Gets me every time. This meme would be better if we all were just saying our own current situation in 1800s language and they were their own videos. I’m never really a fan of “make this comments section look like xyz” but they are often self contained and getting the most out of the format. “Make this comments section look like a Frat groupme” is the best use of the medium and can’t really be done in a different context. 1800s style can be removed from the comment section format and could be expanded on. I’d love to see it.
GUNS BLAZING! All I could think about this entire week re: “did it hurt” meme was that it was another iteration of “look at all the places we can think of” but the pop culture version. Sooooo insufferable. Love the call to action—who says substack can’t radicalize you???