Laugh Now, Cry Later
Memes, mockery and weird culture define reset Presidential sprint
When the first meme crawled out of the primordial swamps of the internet it bound those that understood it.
This was adorable when we had a mainstream. Everyone else was wondering who REALLY wanted to be a millionaire and you were bonding with a stranger who also remembered Monty Python.
But the internet erased the mainstream. There is no cultural water cooler that reaches critical mass. We only have niches. Warlords surrounded by zealots who speak in meme exclusively.
The normie is dead. Only gated fandoms remain. Self-service communities feeding information, love and affirmation. Try to leave your bubble, you’ll come back. The only way to truly exit is to pledge allegiance to another warlord.
You might think you don’t live in one of them. You live in the mainstream. Wrong, you live in a mainstream-themed bubble. You’re in a fallout bunker pretending it’s still the 1950s.
This is why the union of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift was so interesting this year: an interaction of two of our most dominant cultural warlords. And across gender lines, no less!
Which brings me to J.D. Vance fucking his couch.
For those unaware (proving the point of this article) memes have spread over the past week about the GOP’s VP nominee writing in his famous memoir Hillbilly Elegy that he masturbated by sticking his member between the cushions of his grandmother’s couch.
This is not true.
If it was true, we would have seen it in the trailer of the movie adaptation and Glenn Close would have won the Oscar for her performance as J.D.’s grandmother instead of only earning a nomination.
That hasn’t stopped the memes. Vance has proven to be a very attractive target for a newly activated memelords on the left. They are providing plenty of fodder for their own team, something the left has been starved for this year as they enjoy a reprive of having to defend the shambling mound known as Joe Biden.
Still, be aware. Memes aren’t only a binding agent, they are also a repellent.
When it comes to internet horseshit, I am a maximalist. But if we are only looking at effectiveness, there is a lesson from Who Framed Roger Rabbit that often sticks in my mind.
“One of these days, you idiots are going to laugh yourself to death.”
Laughter is powerful because it brings a crowd together like no other but also broadcasts true scorn when heard from the wrong direction.
For example, Republicans highlighting Kamala Harris’ fake laugh is an okay signifier of her being unserious. But if they can channel it into a message of Kamala Harris is Laughing At You (with “You” being swing voters in MI, WI and PA) then you have a very complete story of a coastal elite who truly loathes the center of the country.
Similarly, if I were Vance I would bring all of these memes to every union hall and hunter’s lodge in the rust belt. I would connect on backstory and then tell the story of how, by the grace of God, he created a career for himself. He was heralded for this by the left when he was politically helpful. Now he’s become a threat and what does the Harris campaign do? Hillbilly slander. Reduce a Yale graduate to a dumb as rocks couch fucker. That’s what they think about us. Go to an Ivy League school, start a family, write a best seller, meet Glenn Close… you’ll always be weird to Kamala Harris.
The crowd Harris respects? The one she cares about? They hate you.
Don’t believe me? Watch the Retweets. Listen to the laughter.
Are your opponents weird? Maybe. Does calling them, and by extension their base, weird benefit you? It didn’t work when Hillary called them Deplorable, but who knows.
Does this mean the Harris campaign should police the memes? Of course not. That’s impossible.
You shouldn’t play to a “normie” mainstream that doesn’t exist.
Excite your own. Know that your excitement might motivate your enemy. But find the niche audiences that advance your cause.
We will know more of who they are in a few weeks when state polling evens out.
Until then, keep laughing.
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Email
Last Friday Buttigieg was on Real Time. Today, he was on The Interview by nyt in The Daily feed. He isn't allowed to be called secretary for some law.
Is this him trying for VP? Or just general party support? - Sean
He’s making a real run for VP and with rumors that leading candidates are having a hard time passing a vetting, he might get it.
There's was a common rumour that Catherine the Great either died having sex with her horse, or died on the toilet.
Both stories are probably untrue and started by her opponents.
The Vance couch-humping story might have a basis in fact after all. On her YouTube channel, Brett Cooper from the Daily Wire covered the story last week and shared a screenshot that someone found in a first edition of Hillbilly Elegy, that's not in subsequent editions.
The video is amusing - she learned more about couch-humping on Reddit than any normal person ever cares to - but she's a good sport riding the Ick Wave.