Ok so this may or may not be successful, but if I can’t trust you guys to give me solid feedback, then who can I trust 😉? This week, I wrote a paper on how cyclical internet culture is, and my supporting texts were McCulloch’s last two chapters and Chayka’s TikTok article. I think for my remix, I am going to convert my essay into a poem. I have been low-key obsessed with bringing up poetry in class this semester, so I figured to really go for it in this remix. Sorry in advance if this turns out to be more confusing than thought-provoking:
Ode to 2020 Memes
Once upon a year ago:
Sheldon looked like he was normal,
The Charmin bear haunted us in our dreams,
Having hand sanitizer was a flex,
Quarantine equaled banana bread baking,
Masks were the girlfriend
of the distracted boyfriend,
Graduation was a mass Zoom session,
Taking your temperature
was a pleasant way to start the day,
Cottage Core and Dark Academia flooded
Everyone’s TikTok becoming the new vibe,
Introverts thrived,
Extroverts died,
Bernie Sanders was once again asking of us
Teachers grew frustrated,
Students grew tired and unmotivated,
Professors required cameras on,
Students required working WiFi,
People DIY-ed everything
Their masks looking sad,
A vaccine was just a rumor
And we all became clowns trying
to guess when to see each other next
A year ago 2020 was just a bore,
Have we truly moved on?
Here’s the link to the google search I did to find popular 2020 Coronavirus memes. I was hoping to reuse/remix the idea that memes and internet culture move in a cyclical manner. And I exemplify that with the way I referenced the memes for a different purpose than they were intended for and the way I round out the end with a question reflecting on the memes that have come out of this year wondering if we have truly moved on as a society.
Thank you for reading my seriously rough take on an ode about past memes.
I loved this! So creative and funny and kind of moving? And this is a delightful take on the remix idea. Good job!
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that I found myself saying, "Oh yeah..." as I read this, also demonstrating how quickly memes can fade from our memory (until a clever poem reminds us of them).
I really liked this! Some of the parts were really dark in a poetic way, like introverts thriving and extroverts dying, and to me a bit the part about professors and students, because yeah, we really felt the technological inequality in this country this past year, huh? Wishing I was in Korea with its free country-wide high speed internet, lol.
ReplyDeleteThe "move on" narrative in America is such a peculiar one, alongside the "back to normal" one. As many have pointed out, normal wasn't working to begin with, and there's no moving on for the ones we lost. I think this poem kind of speaks to that in a nostalgic and sad way. It was a whole year of insanity, but we're just supposed to move on. Some people are probably managing that better than others!
This is really creative! It’s dark, yet true with what is going on in the world today. It’s our “sad truth” of today’s world. I’m really interested in poems like this being read by people years and years down the road. You should keep it and read it to younger generations in 15 years. It would be interesting to see their reactions.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this, Ally. This is just such a great take on a remix of your work. I loved, "having hand sanitizer was a flex," it made me lol. And it's all just so understandable, you know. Because we're still living it, somewhat. I like Hannah's idea of keeping it and looking back on it years down the road. And now I'm also really curious about the sorts of texts we'll have to look back on that document this past year.
ReplyDelete