Tuesdays with Tom: Today, In Memes
When’s the last time you thought about feral pigs? Better question: have you ever thought about them? I can tell you I never did prior to August 2019. Fear not, this is not a TWT special on feral pigs. But indulge me for a minute. I was doing my daily search through social media this summer when I noticed that an unusual number of Instagram memes were referencing feral pigs. Specifically, “30-50 feral hogs”. I quickly deduced that this couldn’t be a coincidence so I searched this phrase on Google and found out the source of this new viral joke. After yet another mass shooting, country singer Jason Isbell chimed in on the assault weapon debate, essentially arguing there is no practical use for an assault rifle for common people. An Arkansas man named William McNabb replied to the tweet with a sincere reply. “Legit question for rural Americans - How do I kill the 30-50 feral hogs that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?” The tweet sparked a dearth of Internet fodder for days. It led to me reading a thorough investigation on Vox about the feral pig population issue in Arkansas and its place in the gun control conversation. But fear not again, because this is also not a piece about gun control. What is it about? Memes.
Thanks to several Internet jokes, I learned about a relevant news topic. It happened to me several times this summer. But after the feral pigs incident, I realized there must be something to it. How did this strange trend begin? Well believe it or not the term meme was originally defined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins. The evolutionary biologist wrote about this concept in his book The Selfish Gene. The etymology of the word is the Greek word mimeme -- meaning to imitate something. Expanded upon further, Dawkins argued that most of human existence can be boiled down to one word: culture. Within that culture, humans replicate and spread ideas that begin to define that culture and create the world we exist in. Merriam-Webster backs that up. If you step back even further than 1976, Dawkins is theorizing that memes have existed for as long as humans have. Memes imitate and reflect the culture of people. Therefore, cave paintings are as much memes as today’s memes. So easy a caveman could do it?
One of the precursors to contemporary human meme-ification was VH1’s I Love The… series. The premise was simple, but rich with cultural context and comedic banter. Want to get a glimpse into what 1983 was like? “I Love The 80s - 1983” is 43 minutes of “the flicks, the trends, the fashion and the tunes” about the entire year. They covered multiple decades on this series. I used to watch these episodes as a middle school child and get a quick hit of facts, stories and moments from a given year, neatly wrapped up by comedians and celebrities in under an hour. It was a very successful show for VH1, a channel mostly known for Behind The Music and terrible movies prior to the reality TV era. While there were always people in the know about popular culture, it was one of the first nationally embraced discussions about nostalgic content and examinations of the past that we’d been exposed to. Furthermore, a fellow Viacom channel Comedy Central had long before embraced satirical news with The Daily Show and The Colbert Report around the same time I Love The… was hitting its stride. Suddenly, the idea of presenting the news in a humorous way was blending together with examining cultural and comedic nonsense as piece of real history. My generation was subconsciously being trained to consume all of this on equal terms.
The Internet was far from in existence in 1976, so no one really predicted how the concept of a meme would take life in the age of computers. Attributing credit to the first Internet meme is almost impossible, but let’s just ballpark it and say that around 2012 was the first, notably established period that memes surfaced on Google Trends enough to be a common topic. Some of the original popular memes were just viral dance videos like Hamster Dance, Numa Numa or Badger Badger Badger. Quickly they transformed into highly repeatable and distinct characters like Grumpy Cat, Success Kid, Good Guy Greg among many others. Of course they dipped into the well of pop culture. Even the Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis commercials was popular fodder for jokes. Your basic formula for a good meme? Find a random photo or image from the world, add a clever top line set up and a bottom punchline and you’ve got a meme.
To understand an Internet meme is to quickly disseminate several pieces of information, with historical context, in mere seconds. Take the popular Instagram account @sonny5ideup. To get this meme post, you have to know intimate details about the plot of Monsters, Inc., the song structure of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and an entire different meme account called @bandmemes666. That’s cultural pieces from three different decades. How about this one from @shitheadsteve, with a reference to limited time only Happy Meal plates (I owned them!) from the promotion of Disney’s animated Hercules movie in 1997. Or how about this one, which combines the popular “distracted boyfriend” meme with a common joke about emo culture and dating people who are bad for you. If you follow one of these accounts, you will be served dozens of memes like this every single day. And if you follow more than one, you’ll notice several repeat jokes almost verbatim to one another. As Dawkins said, we like to imitate.
I could debate the comedic value of a lot of these memes quite literally all day long. What interests me more is how quickly we transform the news of the day into these memes. One of the most recent examples of this is the Area 51 nonsense. One person organizing a raid on Area 51 blew up online and you can Google countless memes about it. I’d argue that the movement was more than fueled by the memes. It basically turned the concept into a reality, and thousands of people went to Las Vegas and the outskirts of Area 51 to do this. But it's not just common people using memes to create mass movements. Media companies embrace the value of meme culture. They know if a viral social media campaign hits, it will drive consumers to their product. I wrote about this earlier this year with Netflix’s Bird Box. They eschewed a traditional advertising campaign for hiring comedians to create memes. It worked -- the movie was seen by over 26 million people in a single weekend. It doesn’t really matter if it’s original or funny. If it exists, it’s in your mind. That’s what matters.
It’s not a coincidence either that satirical news is one of the most popular entertainment platforms of today. If memes are the snacks of cultural dissection, shows like HBO’s Last Week Tonight and The Daily Show are the five-course meal. Watch any episode of Last Week Tonight and you are bombarded with news, cultural references, jokes, music and videos that are seamlessly edited for your entertainment. Behind it, there is painstaking research and production, but the outcome is the same as the meme. You either get it all or you get none of it. But the point is you must carry all of this institutional knowledge in your brain at all times to even keep up.
It probably sounds like I’m complaining or insinuating that a generational gap exists here. I wouldn’t quite say either. I’m occasionally entertained by a meme as much as the next person. And while I did have to explain to my mom what the Kyle meme was about a month ago, she’s just as capable of figuring out memes as a teenager. I guess what I am saying is that it fascinates me that we so instantly and regularly transform current events into the comforts of our cultural existence. Comedy and entertainment was traditionally viewed as an escape from our reality. But the truth is, I get as much news from joke entertainment than I do from the actual news. Maybe that says more about me than the common news reader, but the result is just the same. There are also plenty of news outlets who value entertainment over actual facts, which leads to mistrust and uproarious debate.
The most crucial thing I’ve come to recognize with memes isn’t that everyone is a wannabe comedian. It isn’t that we treat everything as a joke even when it’s deadly serious. It isn’t even that we are constantly searching for quick information to fill up every empty moment in our lives (although that’s a different issue). The reason memes thrive is that they make us feel comfortable about the mundane parts of life. For every ultra specific situation you can think of, there’s a meme for that. “Yes Tom, I also played Tony Hawk Pro Skater on Nintendo Gamecube and I loved that soundtrack.” Memes often make you feel like there’s someone else out there sharing your experience. In turn, that’s why people are constantly sharing these memes with their friends and loved ones. You’re saying “Hey look, this is us!”. And sure, people might roll their eyes after they see the 15th one you are tagging your girlfriend with. But do you really care? No. Because it feels like it was made just for you. Memes make the world feel like a smaller place. They reflect how we feel, for better or worse, and can be used for good and bad. And to think, it all started in a cave.
Tom’s Thoughts of the Week
If you are looking for a ridiculous and ridiculously funny animated comedy to dive into, look no further than Netflix’s Big Mouth. The basic logline is this. It’s a show about middle-school children going through puberty with an eye-brow raising level of frankness. The jokes are raw and definitely NSFW, but they’ve also done very thoughtful episodes that explain important things about sexual health in an entertaining way. This year, there is an entire episode devoted to finding out how the ghost of Duke Ellington (who lives in the attic) lost his virginity at age 13. And that’s only the 15th most absurd thing that happens this season! Nick Kroll is the brainchild behind this operation and with the new season officially out on Netflix, I can attest that it lives up to par of the previous two seasons. I crack up laughing every episode and I can’t get enough of it.
Despite my dislike of him as a player, LeBron James has been generally pretty thoughtful throughout his career. Not so with his recent hypocritical comments about Rockets GM Daryl Money and the China situation. Essentially, James is upset that Morey sent the infamous tweet a week before his promotional preseason tour in the country and that he “could have waited” before he said something. He also carefully danced around the tweet itself, which was basically Daryl Morey supporting human rights in Hong Kong. That’s pretty rich coming from LeBron, who has made his hallmark being a socially conscious athlete who speaks his mind whenever he pleases. That’s fine but of course, once something impacts his potential earnings, then it’s not fine. This USA Today writer summed it up pretty well. Make no mistake -- the NBA, the NFL and all of these sports leagues only care about money. That’s always been true and if you think otherwise, you’re not paying attention. LeBron is not a fool. He’s trying to launch an entertainment career and a movie next summer. He knows that China is a very important market for his brand. It’s rather amazing to me that a guy who has done so much good for society would suddenly say something so misguided about freedom of speech. If LeBron wants to say that other NBA people can’t speak their minds on social issues when it impacts business, then he can’t either.
The Chicago Bulls tip-off the 2019-20 season on Wednesday in Charlotte. I’ve been very critical of this franchise since 2016 and I am shocked that so many NBA writers I respect are giving them some hype as a playoff sleeper in the Eastern Conference. Some of that is a result of the East being vastly inferior talent wise to the West. But for a team that won 22 games last year with zero All-Stars on the roster, I’m surprised they’ve been given such positive reviews for their roster construction. Personally, I think their ceiling is finishing around 35-38 wins and missing the playoffs. They’re not awful anymore, but even at full strength they aren’t necessarily good. The best case scenario for them is Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr. stay healthy most of the year and take major leaps on the court together. If Zach LaVine can maintain high volume scoring without being a massive ball hog, that becomes a dynamic offensive trio. The worst case is something we have already seen. I’m intrigued, but not impressed yet.
About a month ago, I wrote about the current state of the pumpkin spice economy. If you’re a PSL fan looking for an even sweeter version of the beverage, I’ve got great news for you. For a limited time, you can get a Pumpkin Birthday Cake Latte on the Starbucks secret menu. It’s basically the pumpkin spice latte mixed with their Birthday Cake Frappuccino. Perhaps you have a late October birthday and can celebrate with this twist on a fall staple. And thus, the never ending life cycle of pumpkin spice products continues!
This is easily my favorite news story in awhile. A 20-year-old man was arrested in Iowa City for underage drinking and possession of a fake ID. When the police asked for the fake ID, it was a Hawaiian license with the name “McLovin” on it. This should be firing off alarm bells in your brain if you’ve seen Superbad. In that movie, Christopher Mintz-Plasse made his big screen debut playing Fogell, a dweeb who is friends with Jonah Hill and Michael Cera’s characters. They are flummoxed when they learn he has gotten a fake ID with the name McLovin. This leads to the memorable line from Cera “They’re either gonna say here’s another kid with a fake ID, or here’s McLovin, the 25-year-old Hawaiian organ donor.” I can only hope that this Iowa guy went all the way and made himself 25 years old on the ID. There’s more to the McLovin tale in Superbad and I highly encourage you to see this movie if you somehow missed it the last 12 years. As for this college kid, I give him major props for having the courage to make this his fake ID. Even Seth Rogen confirmed it was worth a drinking ticket.
Last thought of this week goes to Toy Story 4. Did you know that the first Toy Story came out 24 years ago? The original Pixar film was a breathtaking, watershed moment for animated movies. It established Pixar Studios as a major player in the entertainment business and launched them into the consciousness. We now have an entire generation of young adults who grow up with this movie and the subsequent franchise. Toy Story 2 came out four years later, then they surprisingly dipped back into the well in 2010 with Toy Story 3. I’ve been very happy at every turn of the franchise and I felt that the third movie neatly wrapped up the story of Andy, a surrogate stand-in for people exactly my age. I know multiple people who saw that movie with their mom and cried afterwards. Now comes Toy Story 4. I am now 27 years old, but this movie still tugs at your heartstrings even if you are childless. It’s a funny movie that adults should like and children with no nostalgic attachment to the franchise should enjoy. It also doesn’t feel like it needs to exist at all. Particularly, this movie felt like it was completely about Woody’s existential crisis as an older toy and sidelined many of the original characters as a result. We continue to vote with our dollars and even though this once again feels like a definitive conclusion to the story, I wouldn’t be shocked at all if we’re talking about Toy Story 5 in 2028. I’m also starting to wonder if Pixar movies are more for adults than the children who drag them into theaters to see them.