Meme Reports 11/22, 11/29, 12/6
I am Suffering from a Lethal Case of Jet Lag but I did This For You
Helllloooooo. I’m back in the states (fun phrasing I picked while abroad) and I’m ready to dive in to the world of memes. While I was away I was able to keep up with Twitter, mostly, and TikTok, somewhat. If there’s anything I missed please link me to it in the comments. I was taking in culture and having fun most of the time so I did miss my favorite part of thanksgiving TikTok, seeing giant families in ugly mcmansions pass the phone to each other to answer various prompts. Christmas is good for this too but it just doesn’t hit the same as Thanksgiving, where almost everyone in America is doing the same thing. Until next year, I guess. On to what we missed…
Spotify Wrapped
Spotify wrapped is getting worse and worse. It is less interesting and fun every year. Everything post-2020 has been underwhelming and uninteresting. Even the memes about it were using a screenshot from 2021. The big draw this year was cities that matched your listening style. The three that made the biggest splash were Cambridge, MA, Berkeley, CA and my home city of Burlington, VT. At first I thought this was based on real data because I happen to live in Burlington, VT. Likely place for it to be. But then I saw everyone else claiming Burlington as their city too, and I smelled a rat. First of all, all the american places were college towns. So at least that part of the list was predetermined. No one was going to find out they had the same listening habits of the people of White River Junction, Vermont or Framingham, Massachusetts. We were always going to get college towns. From there, I think a standout artist pushed you towards one or the other. One Clairo song could probably put you over the edge into Berkeley over Cambridge. The whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense because Spotify is in the pocket of Big Phoebe Bridgers and most of have to listen to at least one of her songs a day.
I’ve lived in Burlington my whole life, aside from an 8 year sojourn to Los Angeles, and I can say there’s a lot of stolen valor here. You can’t listen to Noah Kahan and call yourself a Vermonter. It’s not all UVM students and Indie music! It’s a lot of that but it’s not just that. Burlington is getting a basic indie reputation in all of this, which is not the case for the city itself! It hurts to watch us get painted in the same broad brush as these other alternative cities. Those of you seeking refuge here will be laughed out of many an establishment for declaring your indie taste that is so mainstream it’s basically pop. It’s hard to say “you probably haven’t heard of them” when the artists your talking about play on one of our THREE dedicated alternative stations. The Burlington music scene is not for the faint of heart, or your average Lorem listener.
George Santos, Diva Down
Isn’t it funny that the day George Santos got expelled, everyone got really good at taking photos of him? Every photo from that day is hauntingly beautiful. They found his angles, and not a moment too soon. In the beginning of the year, I said George Santos didn’t have the juice. He was a relic of a bygone era. So, He stepped up his game and moved from an Obama-Era scandal to a real Post-Trump Headline Maker. He was more than a liar, he was a performer. Every video of him delivered. Every story from the halls of congress was more fantastical than the last. He was a perfect little scamp running around the house of representatives. Now he’s gone and must find a place in the real world.
In his finding of a place, we must decide how we feel about him. We do this every time with every single person who we have a less than genuine affection for. For all parties involved, let me spell this out. We are making fun of him. We are laughing AT him. Pointing and laughing is not endorsement. It is really funny to steal the credit card of another sitting member of congress. For several reasons, one of which being that we know he can afford it. He’s a diva and a stunt queen. He came at the perfect time where this kind of scheming evil gay guy could be elected by republicans and most of us can get why it’s funny. For those who understand, this is a great joke. For those who are weighed down by the moral quandaries, maybe reread Notes on “Camp”. Sometimes, for something to be camp, it has to be actively bad, and perhaps evil. Mommy Dearest isn’t all the glamorous fun you remember (or don’t remember but are constantly referencing). George Santos is camp because of, not in spite of, his evil doing. It can’t all be bright colors and drag race, some of it has to actually be depraved and ugly. That’s when the fun really starts.
You Smoke Too Tough
A meme I made a note of before I left because I was sure we would grow tired of it before I got back. I was sure we would run out of pictures to attach to this phrasing but there is nothing people on Twitter love more than phrases. As users of one of our last remaining creative text based platforms, we secret english majors love to repeat sentences with a depth of phrasing and creative structuring. This meme lives on because “you smoke too tough” makes those of us with an eye toward the development and progression of the English language giddy, and that’s just the beginning of the phrase. We also love when something we are familiar with is slightly different and cool. When a chicken is wearing boots or when Brian from Family Guy is wearing a cool jacket. It’s a spark of life for Twitter. A meme we can really sink our teeth into, and I feel we’ve only just begun to do just that. A month in and we have so much more to go.
What The Fuck Gay Little Monkey
There was a small meme revival last month. A great little meme from 2012 that we couldn’t make today because of wokeness. Before we gained a conscience about children, taking pictures of strangers, and using impact font. It’s all probably for the best that we left that in the past but we have no desire to give the things we still have from that time back to the ether. What the fuck gay little monkey never really blew up then and it’s not really blowing up now. It has achieved its greatest level of fame and floats there comfortably. It’s not a guffah but a small smile. Very few memes can produce a small smile, the same small smile, upwards of ten years after their creation. It is a testament to the meme that after all this time we still have a kid in a monkey costume at the apple store to laugh at. Probably made all the better that they have remained anonymous to most of us, allowed to grow and become someone else.
Actors on Actors
Ahhhhh!!!! It’s award season!!! I love award season!! I love PR disasters and charming actors and a narrative. God I love a narrative!!! There are a lot false starts to award season, Cannes, Toronto, Tribeca, the middle of the summer when people are just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks but for me, it really starts when Actors on Actors comes out. Who’s there? Who’s missing? Who gets paired up with who? All of it the kind of fodder I simply love to think about. I love acting incredulous about all of it and never watching any of it. It’s one of my favorite hobbies. It means we’re in the thick of it. For the next 3 months, we’ll get to argue and make bets and watch award shows and recalibrate our favorites. I am giddy just thinking about it.
In/Out lists
It is December 6th. I know a lot of you aren’t students of the old ways and don’t understand where half of your references come from but my In/Out list which I have been doing for YEARS btw, always comes out on January 1st, just like the Washington Post. I make mine in reverence and thankfulness of all who have passed through those hallowed halls. You are imitating Eli Rallo, and I am imitating Katharine Graham. We are not the same. Those with discipline and patience wait until January 1st. We are careful observers of the past and present. I don’t believe in the instant gratification of posting now. I know we all want attention early and to post now so we aren’t accused of stealing, but a true In/Out list could never be plagiarized and any similarities should be chocked up to parallel thinking. You have to believe in your work and know that a well crafted In/Out list should wait.
TikTok
Get Into It
Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Good clean fun from TikTok! I love when a dance is so simple everyone can do it, mostly and you can see the pure joy on everyone’s faces. It’s incredible to watch as people really get into and perform the dance with their loved ones. I just really love when something on this app is well executed and spreads joy. With TikTok, it has become clear the simpler the better. We need to find the lowest common denominator and stay there because that is the only way to still have fun. Everyone smart left the app long ago and anyone still there has brain rot. The simple fun dances keep the lights on.
Ballad of Song Birds and Snakes
Perhaps it was because I was in a foreign country and didn’t have time to mindlessly scroll and teach the app what I wanted on vacation, it defaulted to content about the Hunger Games prequel to which I said “sure”. I haven’t seen the movie but I might after watching what amounted to 10,000 mini trailers for it. What I appreciate about TikTok in a time like this is the mood setting the film is able to provide. This piece of media will go hand in hand with my memories of this time, as it will for you. Instead of having to search or make your own, TikTok decides for you. They say that the set dressing for this time is Racheal Zegler and her funny little folk songs, scenes from a movie you haven’t watched, and literary analysis that is simply a repetition of the text. The same way that last year it was Ice Spice.
Well You Don’t Know Me
Here we are again, longing for connection. This sound attempts to make sense of all the not quite morbid fascinations we are forced to adopt in our modern world. Everything that humans have created and destroyed in the name of modernity. Every attempt to bridge this world and the next made. Every coincidence we must make sense and meaning of. It’s a big ask for a TikTok sound but we’re trying.
We’re….
This trend is more evidence to my theory that everyone popular on TikTok is stupid now. We are totally bereft of interesting personalities with mass appeal. This is one of the most popular trends right now and it is just regurgitating hammered out cliches. It brings nothing new to the table for any demographic participating in it. People from Chicago, Older Sisters, Law students, Big families, small families, people who work at goop. Every stereotype is reaffirmed and I’ve yet to see anyone have fun with the really basic and simple form. We can all say stereotypes about ourselves. That doesn’t make it a joke.
What I Suffer From
I know we’re having fun here. I know it’s not that deep but doesn’t anyone else see the need to pathologize everything seeping through into this silly goofy joke. It’s one of the top fake problems facing people who are too online. We all think we’re Not Normal for various reasons and I see these kinds of jokes as symptoms of the larger disease that makes people think everything is a symptom of autism. It’s the least harmful part but if we’re studying trends and pointing to examples it’s hard not to see our silly little jokes revealing more about us than we ever intended. The afflictions we suffer from in this trend go deeper than I think anyone wanted to reveal here.
If She Announces/ She Didn’t Play
This has been hanging on since the summer and I love it. I am coming out in strong favor of TikTok trends that require real life participation and can only be made once someone leaves their bedroom. As much as I love that we have connected all our bedrooms and share our boredom and alone time together, we need to get back out there. We need to be social and go into the real world. This trend can be done anywhere and the farther away we get from Renaissance or Eras tour shows, the funnier it is. In June, I will throw a like to a video of someone refusing to leave their sister’s graduation because Taylor didn’t play Me!.
Mulch Gang
Does anyone remember those videos from a couple months ago from Basedredactedgang? The ones that Mia Arson Crimew revealed to be part of, to grossly oversimplify, a nazi cult/crypto scam? I have a big hunch that Mulch gang is connected to that. The aesthetics are almost exactly the same but less controversial and overtly political. It speaks in a recycled meme language that is meant to be familiar but vaguely new. If you’re new to being too online you might think this is par for the course. I, of course, am in the trenches and I recognize when someone is trying to infiltrate and indoctrinate the gullible among us. It’s too many random XD words that have been used before. It is supposed to be esoteric and weird the way we like but with the familiar memes we know and love. The problem is, usually with videos like this, you can sense there is some kind of creative vision. The first people that make things like this have a point of view and are not trying to be just another part of a fabric of familiar memes. When I look at this I see parody of parody of parody. This is not someone having an original idea and expressing it, like a Bill Wurtz, nor someone creating a meme of something that already exists but someone creating a video to seem like all of those things at once. Mulch gang sounds like something you’ve heard before but is new. It fits in too neatly. All of the features are lifted from somewhere else to make you think they’re one of us. Don’t let them get you.