memeified 'merica

Plus: That last season of The Bear was AWFUL right?

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Not a link but a thoughtlet: Well I certainly wasn’t expecting, even in the year 2024, to find out about an assassination attempt via…. @starworldlab?? The only other thought I will put into writing is that it’s iiiiiinteresting the warp speed at which assassination jokes have gone mainstream. You used to have to really root around Discord or some off-color Facebook groups for that! But an absurd political landscape predictably begets internet-optimal gallows humor (or is it the other way around?). And in a society where virality is the dominant mode of commanding attention, the meme basically qualifies as any civilian’s informed response. 

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More on the inevitability of memeing, from Becca Schuh at the NYT: The Meme-ification of Anthony Bourdain:

But Bourdain’s deification feels like something fresh: a parasocial relationship in which the living, yearning for a man who felt like a friend, try to commune with him via parody

Reading this made me think about memeing as a kind of co-opted ownership, not unlike writing fanfiction where you take characters that belong to someone else and imagine for yourself how they’d speak and behave according to your own narrative purposes. The existence of Bourdain memes passing into a kind of public use bonanza and now superseding actual Bourdain “IP” makes it clear how we treat both fictional characters and also public “characters” as essentially one and the same. I bet our brains don’t really differentiate between the two anymore. 

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Lena Dunham’s Q&A with Rachel Syme makes a strong case for London becoming the NY creative’s new LA. She seems happy and productive! Good for her. 

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Okay, Season 3 of The Bear is CRIMINALLY BAD??? I was willing to entertain that episode-long fan-cam flashback montage in episode 1, but what on earth was up with that self-congratulatory way this season forsook all plot development in order to become………. like a generic branded content campaign for ~small businesses~ and also ~chefs~? It felt like I was watching an ad from Maker’s Mark or Google, all those gratuitous, unending shots of **process** and **factories** and like a warm-eyed Christina Tosi babbling bland statements about passion and creativity? Jesus Christ. At least put the sponsor logo in the corner so I don’t think I’m having a stroke when nothing discernible has happened 30 minutes in. 

That last episode got me annoyed because I was like, either people are not going to know who these “famous” chefs are and so they’re not going to care, or they do know and they still aren’t going to care because hi, we all thought we were watching a television show where professional actors do dialogue and a plot happens? (Plus, for all that The Bear seems to want to honor “actual” parts of the restaurant ecosystem, they sure don’t mind making up pretend food critics…lol). Slate’s Jack Hamilton wrote a review that was amazingly scathing—that lead alone!—and includes this blistering line: “Ultimately, what’s so irksome about The Bear isn’t just its aimlessness. It’s the sleight of hand that tries to keep you from noticing said aimlessness, the incessant little gestures to remind you of other, better works of art: better movies, better songs, better shows, even better seasons of The Bear itself.” Zing!

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TikTok Corner:

• The “I am flying” filter coupled with the Enigma song “Return to Innocence” is my absolute favorite meme as of late. Great examples here, here, and here. If we wanted to get in-depth with it, I think it’s because of the way the filter falters and then makes us confront our “phone selves.” For a moment, the veil lifts!
  

• One of those real estate agents with 1000% commitment to the TikTok game (laudatory)
  

• I can’t describe it, but it’s oddly beautiful. All of @jrdnstn’s work is, really.

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