Welcome to the Friday edition of Internet Insider, where we dissect the week online. Today:
- ‘My fall plans’ meme is a lot like other COVID memes
- A woman whose neighbor sprayed her with hose goes viral
- Letterboxd will soon allow users to log adult films on the app
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BREAK THE INTERNET
The COVID memes are becoming repetitive
Did you make big plans for fall 2021? That probably depends on how optimistic you were that COVID-19 cases would decline after vaccines became widely available to teens and adults in the U.S. Over the summer, musicians began announcing tours. Movie theaters reopened. Live events were back!
But here we are, weeks away from the official start of the new season, and it’s not looking good. This week, Stevie Nicks and Limp Bizkit pulled out of their remaining 2021 tour dates, citing COVID concerns. More performers will likely follow. On Twitter, people are calling out the culprit behind all these cancelations: The highly contagious Delta variant.
Much like the “My plans / 2020” meme, the “My fall plans / Delta variant” meme uses side-by-side photos to depict a character from pop culture whose plans are destroyed by someone or something. You can find examples that reference everything from Game of Thrones to Heredity to famous celebrity feuds.
The meme became popular quickly because, like many other memes, it allows users to compete for the wittiest reference. But the Delta variant meme comes with a heavy feeling of déjà vu. Haven’t we seen several COVID memes over the last year and a half that reference canceled plans due the pandemic? There are already memes that reference 2022 approaching—just like there were last year. As 2020 repeats itself, so do the memes. Maybe we’re all too tired to come up with something new.
—Tiffany Kelly, culture editor
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FREAKOUTS
A woman whose neighbor sprayed her with hose in viral video becomes a meme
A couple of months ago, a video that captured an escalation between neighbors went viral on r/PublicFreakout, a subreddit that shares and documents public meltdowns. In this particular video, two sets of neighbors start to argue after one of them accuses another of being rude. They get in each other’s faces before the man who started filming the encounter picks up a hose and sprays his neighbors down.
Early in the video, a woman with tattoos and a gray shirt gestures her thumb off-screen. It’s that screenshot that made its way over to Twitter in the past week or two with its meaning taken away from the video it came from. The screenshot is now a meme with many uses. For instance, leaning on the “Karen” association, the woman is shown as someone demanding to know why her order isn’t ready yet.
—Michelle Jaworski, staff writer
ENTERTAINMENT
Letterboxd will soon allow users to log adult films on the app
Would you like to publicly track and review all the porn movies you’ve recently watched? If so, Letterboxd is about to make that much easier. The popular film review platform will soon include erotic cinema among its usual fare, beginning with a “curated selection” of adult films.
On Twitter, Letterboxd confirmed that a curated selection of adult movies will soon be added to its massive library. Right now, X-rated images are often pixellated on the site, but users will apparently have the option to un-pixellate adult movie posters if they wish. Letterboxd’s list of adult movies probably won’t include contemporary Pornhub-style content, but will focus more on “Golden Age of Porn” films that were intended for cinematic release and are considered to have serious cultural merit.
—Gavia Baker-Whitelaw, staff writer
MEME OF THE WEEK
Sounds good to me.
Now Playing: “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks
