#I saw someone repost someone’s photos from Twitter with text on the photo do not repost

[childofwonder]

Guys, are you on Hannibal Twitter?

It’s a wild wild land over there.

[princessbrunette]

⊹ ᜊ(ᜊ ´ ˘)੭ ♡ … princess going digital! ♡

bsf!jj followed you on all of your social media accounts. well, he thought he did. ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱ ౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

your instagram was adorable and demure. photo dumps and stories of your daily iced coffee in your little manicured hand. you had pinterest boards too — jj had seen you scrolling through endless pictures of clothes on his bed and asked questions. you helped him make his own account so he could find new ideas on how to customise his board. he hasn’t opened the app since, but it seemed like it made you happy so he couldn’t find it in himself to delete it off his lockscreen.

he followed you on twitter too. he knew he did because he saw your tweets all up and down his timeline when he would be scrolling late at night trying to find porn. tweets about the cashier that was rude to you, or about that one song you just can’t get out your head.

he thought he’d covered all bases with you. he liked to be in tune with everything you were doing — and maybe that was wrong for a best friend to want, but the two of you were close! it only felt right. it may also have something to do with the fact he’s head over heels for you.

you were laying on your front on his bed. contrasting so sweetly against the boyishness of his room with your cute little hello kitty shirt and denim skirt — epitome of girly girl in such an unfitting space. it made him smile, and he nearly forgot to tune into what you were saying.

you were ranting about your mother again, the woman making it her mission to constantly bring you down.

“seriously jayj, if you saw the way she spoke to me...” you mutter with a frowny little pout as your fingers tap away at the screen, assumably responding to a text.

“i have seen the way she speaks to you. the lady is a nut job, no offence.” jj leans back slightly, tossing a balled up pair of socks from his laundry in the air and catching it.

“her texts are even worse.” you huff.

“s’alright. i’ll be your mommy.” he quips as you’re distracted by pulling up the correct screen.

“jj.” you tsk before turning your phone around. “look!” you whine, and he knows he’s meant to be looking at the texts displayed infront of him. but with undiagnosed adhd, jj couldn’t help but find his focus on the notification sliding down at the top of the screen. the twitter icon, notifying someone reposted your tweet — however, it was accompanied with another username he’d never seen before. an account ran by you assumably, that he no idea about.

“huh… yeah, no yeah. she’s batshit.” jj shakes himself off as he takes mental note of the username, leaning back and hoping you don’t ask any questions knowing he didn’t read the texts at all. you seem none the wiser, continuing to complain and go about your business. that evening, it’s time for you to head home. jj squeezes you at the doorway, cups your cheek and tells you that if your mom is giving you grief, you can come right on back. it seemed to comfort the pout off your face, and you skip off.

now it’s time to sate his curiosity.

when jj gets into bed that night, he types the username into twitter. it takes a few tries to get the specific spelling right, as it had been a few hours and slipped his mind — but finally, the account filled his screen.

your age is attached to the account, yet no name. there was definitely a sense of anonymity— to the point where you hadn’t even told him about it. he considered doing the right thing and clicking off — but jj didn’t always do the right thing, and this was one of those times. the first thing he notices is how clearly you the account is. the header, the profile picture — even the font in your bio was so… you. all curlicues and girly and pink — it was undeniably his best friend.

and then he scrolls.

‘want my best friend 2 hold me down n use me so bad :(’ a tweet from 3 days ago. the blonde sits up in bed, blinking at the screen. that was him, right? eagerly, he continues his scrolling — finding endless tweets about your sexual desires, fantasies, anecdotes about jj himself. it didn’t take much longer of scrolling until he comes across a video — his face heating and crotch stiffening at the familiarity of it all. it was your bedroom, and your face was cropped out. that one pair of pink panties he occasionally caught peeks of beneath your skirt hang off the ankle of your knee high clad legs, pretty pussy on display, glistening as you roll your hips, desperately fucking a pillow.

“god… damn.” he breathes, hand coming up to rub his chest as if to attempt to still his quick-beating heart. he stuffs a tongue in his cheek, part of him wanted to be mad that you were letting strangers on the internet see you like this before he got to. it was a childish type of jealousy that made his hands sweat and the back of his neck all prickly.

a bird squawks outside his window, causing the maybank boy to jump out of his skin like he was about to be caught watching his best friend get herself off. he juggles the phone, quickly checking the screen to make sure he hadn’t accidentally liked any posts. he hadn’t, and he exhales— but with the commotion, he’d accidentally refreshed the page. the loading wheel disappears with a pop, and a new tweet displays itself from three minutes prior.

‘my bsf looks after me so good :( he shld make me feel btter by letting me cum on his fingers <3’

it would be stupid to make a move. he would be potentially destroying a friendship, and on top of that — you could be mad at him for snooping. it was kind of a betrayal of trust after all, similar to if he’d read your diary. but his dick was hard and had taken over the steering wheel that operates his brain — and like he always said, stupid things had great outcomes all the time.

so with a clammy hand, he calls you.

“whats up jayj? did i leave something at your place again?” you croak, sounding all sleepy and cute. god, he couldn’t believe he’d waited so long.

“uh… so, like — imma cut to the chase, with everything goin’ on at your place, i don’t love the idea of you stayin’ there tonight. i’m comin’ to get you. you’re stayin’ here.” he makes up a quick excuse and feels kind of bad about it. his own desire toward you being masked as genuine concern for a friend. he expects some questioning, maybe even some resistance— but you perk up instantly.

“okay!”

and that’s exactly how you end up cradled in his lap with the rings at his knuckles tickling your opening from how deep in your greedy, drooling pussy they were.

“hmm— mm—huh—” you’re whining, all incoherent and fucked out with your cheek smushed against him, only two orgasms in. jj is grinning ear to ear, like some kind of sicko — never in his life thinking you’d want him like this. he almost wished he’d kept up the act for longer, preyed on your twitter account for longer to see what else you’d say, but he couldn’t help himself. he’d wanted you since you met in high school, and he was hungry.

“what’d i tell ya about not asking for things? could’ve just told me dude, i literally wanted this more than you.” he thinks out loud and you groan, pulling yourself up face to face with the handsome blonde.

“don’t call me dude when your fingers are n’side me!” you slur, lip all puffy and pouted. he smirks, unable to stop himself from finding amusement in your neediness and tilts his head a little so he was breathing right into your mouth.

“i’m sorry that’s my bad. baby.” he corrects himself, before pressing his lips to yours. that was much better.

[kedreeva]

Forgive me, but I'm new to Tumblr and thus am a bit "slow" when it comes to how things work.

I saw in your bio (status? Description? Whatever you call the thing on a profile) that you help when something something, so I figured you were a good place to start!

How does this platform work, exactly? I get that there are the posts on the front page and the questionnaire you fill when you make an account, but aside from that, they kind of drop you in without a map XD

What's with the #'s, why is everyone so forcibly autistic and gay (no problem, just a bit confusing as an outside observer), where do I go to get where I want to?

Sorry if this seems scatterbrained as a question, but I am bloody lost XD

Tyvm,

Dragon.

First of all, welcome! Of course I am happy to help!

Second of all, Tumblr is kind of the gay and neurodivergent website. Asking why we are this way is kind of like going to a food blog and asking why there are so many recipes. It's just sort of the place we've chosen to gather amongst friends.

As for how the site works... well, most days it doesn't, but through the power of will you can make it do stuff.

So if you look at the top bar of the site (or if you're on mobile, the bottom corner with the little pencil in a colorful circle), you'll see you can make several different kinds of posts. MOST posts on this site are going to be text or photos, very few posts will be anything else, but it happens. You can make your own posts ("posting") or you can use the circular arrows button to reblog someone else's post ("reblogging"). Reblogging a post places a copy of a post on your blog for others to see, and is highly encouraged as the main form of community. Reblogging maintains connection to the original poster, who retains credit and can see where the post goes and who likes it. This is good!! There is another form of post that is BAD, and that is taking the content of someone else's post, making a new post, and posting it as a fresh post- this is called reposting, and it WILL get you blocked by... pretty much everyone as it's widely considered stealing. Reblogging (using the arrows button) is GOOD, stealing someone's stuff and making a new post is BAD.

The #'s are called tags, and they are NOT like tags on instagram or twitter (at least, not ONLY). On tumblr, the first few tags in any original post are used as a way for the site to file posts you MAKE into "the tag" (singular) which is what comes up when you use the search function. So, if you tag something "Birds" and then you go search "birds" you post should show up in that tag's feed. HOWEVER. Since this ONLY happens for original posts, and you can add tags when you reblog stuff, tags on reblogged posts are just for talking in ways that aren't designed to follow the post. People use the "the tags" (plural) to talk to their followers, to talk to OP, to add clarification, to answer other tags in the notes of posts, etc, and they use it as a filing system for their own blogs (if you search ON THEIR BLOG only, you can search the words they normally use for tags to find stuff, and this works for reblogs too. it actually doesn't WORK work, you'd be better off using google to find stuff on people's blogs. tumblr is a functional website). So if you MAKE post, your post gets seen in The Tag of each tag you add for the site's general search function, and if you REBLOG a post the tags only matter to your blog's search function (and whoever is following you or reading the notes). If you want, you can reply in the body of a reblog post, but what you reply will follow the post around if someone reblogs it from you. Most people try to keep that form of post addition to relevant info. Tags are kind of like using your indoor voice to talk to a little group of friends, vs adding to a post in the body which is like having a megaphone.

You get to "the notes" by clicking on the number in the bottom left of any given post. You can see replies, tags and comments, and likes, on different tabs. "Liking" a post does not feed an algorithm here; this is a place which scorns algorithms. We spread things by hand, by reblogging them.

If you want to find creative work here, you can search the site for tags that might interest you. If you like birds, for example, you might search the site for "birds" or "bird" or "feathers" or "peacock" or "bluejay" or whatever birds you want to see. You have the choice to follow a tag (not recommended, as anyone can post spam to tags) or to scroll through the tag and click on the usernames of people posting things you like. Scroll through their blogs a little ways (10-20 posts) to see if you like their general vibe/whatever they're posting, and if you do like it, follow them! Following another user will then place them on your dashboard (the little house icon at the top or bottom takes you to your dashboard, or dash). Your dash amalgamates all the people you follow into a feed that you can scroll, kind of like following reddit forums (maybe?? I don't really use reddit so don't quote me).

You can scroll your dash to see posts you like (typical) or if you have the fortitude, you can become a tag diver. Tag divers are time honored and respected members of the tumblr ecosystem. These are folks who go into the main tag (for example, search the site for "birds" and scroll it) and look for good posts to reblog/queue. People then follow tag divers to see just the good posts from The Tag, without the spam or off topic or whatever stuff.

There are other sections of the site, like "for you" but idk what they do. Hardly anyone that's been here long term uses that. It's the closest to an algorithm as you'll get on the site, and we're very anti algorithm.

I mentioned a "queue" and that's another vital part of tumblr, and something unique to tumblr that makes it very special. You have the ability to either post instantly, OR.... you can add a post to your queue. The queue collects posts you put into it, and spits them out at regular intervals throughout the day, according to the preferences you set. So, mine is set to post I think 3 times a day. I've had it set as high as 20 times a day before, but it's usually at 3-5 depending on how many posts are in it. You can queue up to 1000 posts at a time. If your queue is full, you can add posts to your "drafts" section to queue or post later (or just post them). There's a post limit per day (I think it's 300? I could be wrong), so you can only make 300 posts a day. You may or may not ever hit that, but it exists.

If you want to view your notifications, you can find them in the lightning bolt on the webpage, or the little chat bubble on the app. You can filter activity, which is a great tool.

I think that's mostly the basics, although I am sure people will add more info in reblogs. You can find their added info by clicking on the "notes" in the bottom left of this post and then clicking on their reblog title. You can try doing a reblog by reblogging this to respond!

[2myl0ver]

☾ txt reaction to you getting shipped with another member !

genre : fluff / wc : 700 / tw : mentions of food / masterlist

CHOI YEONJUN ¡

- some fans saw you and taehyun go in a bakery together and they had assumed you two went there for a "date" when in reality, you two just went to buy yeonjun a cake for this birthday.- sends you a message as soon as he sees a post abt u 2

- "damn 😞😞"

- he will never stop bringing it up, you're jealous? remember the time you got shipped with taehy-

- definitely told the staff members to scold taehyun, scolds taehyun himself too. (but ofcourse that doesn't mean you dont get a scolding)

CHOI SOOBIN ¡

- you were in the crowd of an award show for your boyfriend, soobin when fans thought you were looking at yeonjun.

- poor baby probably thinks you were looking at yeonjun until you show him your camera roll that was full of pictures of him from the award show 😭

- "how would i take these pictures if i was looking at him?"

- you have to keep reassuring him the whole day. he trusts you but hates the thought of you being with anyone else especially with one of his group members

- you'd have to cuddle him for him to get over it </3

CHOI BEOMGYU ¡

- you were on beomgyu's vlive, while you were on your phone. fans noticed that you kept smiling and assumed you were texting someone. (not beomgyu because he was right beside you eating lol)

- he'd laugh about it before texting you about it after seeing it all over twitter and weverse.

- "LOL, everyone thinks you were texting someone else here"

- "maybe i was"

- you jokingly texted back, just to see a reaction from him. soon enough, you hear a knock at your door and a notification.

- "open up."

- you open the door and beomgyu immediately started asking questions. "you were joking right?" "what did you mean by this?"

- you answered all of his questions by giving him your phone, he looked and found nothing. "then.. what were you smiling about?"

- "i was looking through the live comments and fans pointed out how red your face looked because of the ramen you were eating dummy. i have screenshots of it too, look at my camera roll."

KANG TAEHYUN ¡

- you had posted a mirror selca on your instagram with a photocard at the back of your case, and people thought it was kai's.

- he knows you wouldn't, so he doesn't even question you but the topic is brought up by you one time when you two were sitting on the couch together.

- "did you ever see the rumor that i had a hueningkai photo card on my phone case?" he laughs, remembering when he first heard it.

- by the time that you decided to mention it, he had already forgotten about it. neither of you saw the point in mentioning it, because he and you knew you wouldn't do something like that.

- "yea, i did." he smiles whilst looking at you. you look up at him, "how come you never asked me about it?"

- "because the photo card is me. i was there when you opened the album and put my pc behind your phone case dummy"

KAI KAMAL HUENING ¡

- on a vlive, you showed the time on your phone to fans, which also showed them your wallpaper. your wallpaper was a picture of you and kai turned back from the camera, fans thought kai was soobin because of his height, and seeing as the picture was taken at night.

- like taehyun, he laughs when he sees the rumors because he remembers when you two took that picture.

- two days later, while you two were eating lunch he decides to bring it up.

- "do you know about the fans that think it was soobin in your wallpaper?"

- "what? no. what happened? i've been busy with college, i have no idea what's the latest media right now."

- "well, when you showed them the time on your phone.. it showed your wallpaper. and because of my height, they thought it was soobin."

- you laughed, "really? because of your height?"

- "i know. i don't know whats up with them either."

- "i don't know whats up with them, but honestly you have grown a lot." you both laugh.

© 2myl0ver Copyright 2023. Do not copy, repost, or translate without my permission. ♡ ︎and ↻ are very much appreciated !

a/n : it's been so longg!! i'm actually so proud of this 🥹

[rilesjellybean]

On doll collectors and Leaks

I have been part of some online doll community (mostly specifically Monster High) for a couple years now. Not very long, as I haven't really been *collecting* all that long. But I have made some observations that I just want to write out, just to put them all together in one spot. This may not be a very organized post but it Might turn out kind of long lol so strap in.

I want to start this post off with saying I am someone who really doesn't like leaks. As soon as I hear that an upcoming game has leaked, for example, I'm immediately going to twitter, or bluesky, or here when I still used this regularly, to mute any terms that I think will be used on posts about the leak. I've had things like "leak" "leaks" "leaked" perma-muted for ages on twitter. Even stuff like early concept art I avoid unless it got released (officially) in an art book or something.

This is something that has turned out to be *impossible* to do in doll communities. Nobody tags things as leaks, nobody uses the common terms to signify a post as a leak. Mute/block the leakers? Doesn't matter, the people who follow them will screenshot, repost, share around anything they post as soon as it's posted anyway.

The worst part about it with these doll communities is the fact that leakers know of doll lines up to a year before they release, it seems (I don't keep track of full timelines, this is just a guess). They talk about them, hype them up, share around the text info that would be on the online sales listings or on the boxes when the dolls are available, which then leads to people wanting More. I see collectors shouting daily "where are the leaks for x line?!" I see posts comparing the timelines for when certain lines got leaked compared to when leakers first posted about them to see if a doll line is leaking slower than previous lines. I see people getting worked up about certain lines only having early early prototype leaks, and sometimes of only part of the line and not every single character. I even see people complaining when a line only has stock photos leaked and not the in-box photos. All of this also just culminates into nobody seeming all that excited when these dolls release. I feel there have only been a couple Monster High dolls that I have seen people genuinely get excited about seeing when they properly released, and that's only because I don't remember widespread proto leaks for them.

And then of course this brings about the point that made me want to write this post... collectors comparing stock photos and in box photos months before the dolls come out.

The stock photos and in-box photos are clearly taken at different points of development, considering the fact that some lines you can clearly see where they've made changes. Sometimes it's an accessory color, sometimes it's the hair rooting, sometimes it's a lot of things. And collectors spend time poring over every little detail, every little difference... and for what? to turn around and just be negative about the dolls? to complain about the changes? to be mad that they saw a prototype that wasn't meant to be public only to then not get all the details exactly the same when the dolls actually release?

I understand to a point, Mattel is pretty bad about actually advertising their dolls. There have been cases of their collector dolls coming and going (selling out entirely on release) and then weeks later, a promo post for them shows up on Mattel's social media. But is it not a bit... unhealthy? to obsess *so much* over a doll before it's even meant to be seen by the public, to the point where you can't even enjoy the doll when it comes out because you know of what could have been?

There are some collectors that I wonder if they even like the dolls they collect. They focus so much on the negative that it feels like every time they talk about a doll it's to point out how it changed (for the worse) from the leaked protos, or how they don't like certain details of the outfits, or how "Mattel is cheap" because they didn't paint any accessories so all the details in the sculpted accessories are invisible.

I attempt to engage, to be part of the community, but when a majority of the conversation is about something I dislike (leaks) or people complaining, how am I supposed to have fun? How does anyone have fun with this?

If you do have fun with leaks, with complaining about dolls, then good for you, genuinely. I just cannot feel the same. I don't find it enjoyable. I collect dolls because I like them. I don't buy the ones I don't like. I try to minimize my engagement with leaks, as best I can anyway, but as I've said, that's pretty difficult in these spaces.

I think that's all I want to say, maybe I'll come back another time and write more, idk

[tonguetiedvalentine]

why though? — calum hood

word count: 853

warnings: none

a/n: i wrote this when i was v v soft for calum ((thats why it’s all lower case i hope u don’t mind))  and wanted to share. hope you enjoy!!

my head was places on calums chest while my body rested next to his. i was mindlessly scrolling through my phone as he picked on the strings of his guitar which was sprawled over me. i couldn‘t decipher which melody he was playing, but it calmed me nonetheless.

his hands let go of the guitar and he grabbed his phone from the nightstand beside me. i didn’t even realize, until i heard the typical camera noise going off. almost instantly, my head shot up to look at him in confusion. „it‘s just for instagram“, he lazily said without even looking at me. i just shrugged it off and continued browsing twitter as he got back to strumming the strings of his acoustic guitar.

a few minutes went by until i got a text from keara, my band mate and favorite person in the world, asking me about calum‘s recent story. i already forgot about it but then decided to take a look at it.

the picture he took showed my frame laying on top of his and the guitar which was still on top of body. a small caption he put said „imagine being that comfortable with your best friend“ which made a smile find it‘s way onto my face.

people always thought we were dating and even continued telling us to do so, when we told them we were just friends, but that‘s exactly what it was. we spend a lot of time together since we were roommates and touring together but i‘d never get tired of how funny he is or the way we could talk about anything without ever getting bored of it. calum was like a soulmate to me. in fact, maybe all the people were right. maybe we are actually meant to be.

i giggled at the photo he took and decided to repost it, adding a text that said „yes, both of us are still single“, which made him laugh when he saw it.

we enjoyed the silence that fell upon us, when calum decided to break it by randomly asking „why though?“

i turned my head to look at him. „hm?“ „why are both of us still single? i mean, is it considered normal to just be that close with someone you call your best friend?“ i turned my gaze to the window, looking at the sky which was lit up by all the stars that were visible tonight. the beautiful view nearly made me forget about the conversation we were having. „i don‘t know, isn‘t it?“, i asked, looking back into his eyes. they were staring right at me, sometimes shifting down to my lips but then coming back to meet my own. he put his guitar next to us, onto the side in bed that was empty due to us laying so compressed against each other and draped his arm over my shoulders, making shivers run down my spine. „i don’t even care if it is. i feel very comfortable with you and that‘s all that counts, right?“ i nodded to respond to his rhetoric question, catching his eyes going back to my lips. some kind of reflex made me look at his too. they were red and plump, extremely kissable no matter when you looked at them.

both of us felt the tension that was in the air. still, none of us had answered the question why were single while we basically behaved like a couple each and every day. but before i could even think of a reason, i noticed his arm pulling me closer to his body while slowly bringing his face closer to mine.

i didn’t know what led me, because it clearly has not been my head, since my thoughts were completely blacked out, but i copied his actions until i finally felt his warm lips on mine. we started moving in sync, as if we had kissed a billion times before though it was actually our first kiss that should have happened way sooner.

it didn’t feel wrong. it felt like finally finding something you didn’t know you were looking for. it felt like coming home. like pure bliss and happiness.

when we broke the kiss after a few seconds, filling our lungs with air, i opened my eyes to find his already looking at me. his hand found it‘s way to my cheek to carefully caress it, making a tingling sensation appear in my stomach. we didn’t have to say anything. we felt so safe in each others embrace. eventually, i tried raising my voice, barely making a whisper come out. „i didn’t know i waited for that to happen“ he just chuckled and put his forehead against mine. „neither did i“

after a few seconds of just smiling about all that happened just a few moments ago, i put my head back onto his chest. he grabbed the guitar, returning to playing another song while i just closed my eyes and enjoyed his company.

everything just went back to normal, the only thing that changed being the way we felt even better around each other now.

[jeremiahdowney]

I run a cursed images website, the recent submissions are scaring me

——————————————————————

I run a cursed images account. You probably know the type if you spend any time online, I like to joke that my site is the eleventh most popular cursed images account, and if you can think of one it’s probably a competitor.

Well, I used to run one, it’s down now, though I don’t think it matters much anymore.

The site was downright simple to run and I got a lot of submissions. Most days I woke up and checked the various places people sent me photos to consider. Email, dropbox, facebook, twitter, instagram. Once I had enough followers, people made the rest of it almost automated for me. I picked out four images for the day and scheduled them to post on my website. Once they went live on the website, they automatically reposted on all my social media, where people shared them, and then more people saw them and followed me and sent me stuff. It never made any money, but I had a lot of followers and it was fun. The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes a day before work.

What is a cursed image? It’s hard to describe, but it’s a photo that makes you uneasy. A picture that, as you look at it, gives you a gnawing feeling of dread. I don’t like the edited ones, like the pictures where someone’s mouth has been photo-shopped over each of their eyes. I like real photos, ones that get under your skin and are eerie and unsettling and creep you out just a bit. The heavy feeling that starts in your gut and crawls up to your head.

The first picture arrived just about 3 months ago. I checked my dropbox and there it was, 100.jpg. I opened it and saw a patch of disturbed dirt in a field at night. Not a great one, honestly, and I stuck it in a folder with the rest of the rejections before continuing my day.

The next day I had another in the drop box, 99.jpg. I opened it and immediately recognized it as the same place I saw the day before. In this one I could see a shallow grave dug in a field, with what looked like a body laid at the bottom of it.

This might sound crazy, but it really used to happen all the time. People tried to scare me, they pulled elaborate pranks on me, they hoped to get a fake photo on the site they could brag about fooling me with. This one didn’t even look entirely real. I moved it into the rejection folder and forgot about it.

The next morning another photo appeared. In this one, a horribly flayed body laid on the ground next to a shovel. There was too much blood to see much of it, and honestly it still didn't look real. 98.jpg went into the rejection pile, though I was amused at this point. Most people either sent one fake photo or overloaded me with them, this one was working in reverse order and being clever about it.

The next day I got a movie, 97.mov. I watched it. I watched it again and vomited. I watched it a third time and called the cops.

This one showed the death of the person in the first two videos, and there was no doubt it was real. The victim, who had been horribly tortured, was stabbed over and over.

The police were disgusted, but also unimpressed. They took a copy of the files and told me to email them if I got more, but that it was probably a prank. Even if it wasn’t a prank, there was no way to know where in the world this happened. They probably didn’t have jurisdiction.

The next day switched back to photos, still in descending order. Each one showed the victim in a cell, in the midst of being horribly tortured. Each one was the same, no metadata, nothing distinguishing, I couldn’t even see the victim’s face in any of them. I just knew I was looking at a relatively young man tortured for a very long time.

After a month I finally snapped and deleted my dropbox. The police weren’t responding to my emails anymore, even to confirm they received them, and I couldn’t keep looking at these photos.

The next day, photo 68.jpg landed in my facebook DM, from an account with an obviously fake name and photo (that of a fairly well known celebrity). I blocked the account, but each day the photos still slipped through.

I changed my facebook settings so I couldn’t receive messages anymore, then I did the same with my twitter. I deleted my email address, and used a new one that I didn’t post online.

I also reduced the number of images posted. I had a lot of submissions left over, but people started to complain. My social life suffered, I would come home and lock myself in, feeling anxious about the arrival of the next day’s photo.

Still the pictures made it through.

My personal facebook, my personal email, a text message on my phone. Every time I deleted an account it just showed up in another, even ones I had never posted online. I scanned my computer for viruses, but nothing changed.

50, 45, 20.

For some reason I was growing increasingly frantic as each day passed, feeling that I drew closer to some awful truth I was better off not knowing.

7, 5, 2.

One morning the photo was an email in an alumni account I forgot I had. The next it printed out of my printer.

The first photo showed the victim lying in a clean cell, they had a bag over their head and seemed to have just been put in there. It was horrible to know what followed, but it had a feeling of finality, somehow.

The next morning I woke up and realized there was no picture.

With a sense of freedom I logged onto my website to post the day’s photo, and saw there was one already there.

It was the cell that I had seen so many torture photos in. But now it was empty, clean. An old fashioned sign that said “vacancy” hung on the bars. The file name was 0.jpg.

I deleted my website and every account I had, if someone could hack my account I didn’t want it anyway. I threw my laptop in a drawer and called my internet company to cancel my service. I tossed my phone in the trash after that, and picked up a new one on sale at a place down the street.

I woke up the next day feeling uneasy, but hopeful. There was really no way to reach me, I hadn't even given the new phone number to my parents. I went to work and settled in nicely, until the mail came. Tucked in along with some packages I was expecting was an envelope with the number -7 on it. I opened it and found a photo of someone sleeping. I couldn’t make out any details, it was taken in a dark room, and you could see someone in bed, but nothing distinguishing.

I got fired about five minutes later, right after I unloaded on Betty, the nice lady who did our mail. She had no idea what was wrong, I still feel bad about that.

The next morning I woke up and, still trying to figure out what to do with my day, almost slipped on the next photo. The envelope, marked “-6”, had been slipped under my front door during the night.

This photo showed the same sleeping figure in bed, but this time it was taken from further back. I could see the room. I saw the framed poster over my bed of my favorite movie, the lamps I bought at a garage sale because I thought they looked cool.

I saw myself, sleeping. Worse, I could see the beer can I left on my nightstand last night, something I never did. This photo had been taken just hours before, while I slept, by someone in the room with me.

I dug my laptop off and powered it on. I looked through all the horrible photos again, this time ignoring the fact that I couldn't see the face of the victim. Now I noticed the scar on my side from where my best friend caught it with a stick in second grade. I noticed the birthmark on the back of my knee, the mole on the side of my neck. I watched myself be slowly tortured, over the course of several months, before dying. I watched the video again, realizing that the screams were mine, or what would be left of me by then.

I’m on the road now but I don’t know where I'm going. I know I have just a few more days before that empty cell is supposed to be full, only a few more days before whoever or whatever is hunting me plans to begin torturing me to death, slowly.

[I’m going to run. I don’t know if I’m going to make it, but I’m going to try.]

[theycallmebeccawrites]

Adventures in Parenting: One Shot - Birthday Twins

With Tumblr holding my original writing blog @beccaheartschrisevans captive (aka flagged as explicit), I have made a secondary writing blog and may end up closing the other all together. In the meantime, I am reposting all of my stories on my new blog.

Pairing: Chris Evans x Nikki Evans (OFC)

Rating: G

Warnings: n/a

Summary: Baby Rachel's grand arrival!

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

Chris & Nikki One Shots & Shorts Masterlist | Chris & Nikki Masterlist

Birthday Twins

June 13, 2017

Lisa Evans watched the clock as it struck midnight; it was officially Chris's birthday. Exactly 36 years ago, she'd been in the hospital having her second baby and now that baby was at the hospital with his wife preparing to have their third baby. She wished she could be at the hospital with them, but Nikki's mom, Pam, had gone and Lisa had stayed at the house with the boys, who were both sleeping.

Two days past her due date, Nikki had started experiencing some contractions earlier that afternoon, but they hadn't been close enough to bother Chris at the studio. They had increased slightly by the time he'd gotten home, but it still hadn't been enough to keep them from their normal routine of eating dinner as a family, taking the dogs for a walk and getting the boys put to bed.

Once the toddlers had been in bed, Lisa had joined Chris, Nikki and Pam in the living room. She and Pam had sat on the couch while Chris had massaged Nikki's back and neck while she'd bounced on a yoga ball. Her contractions had increased since dinner, but still not to the point where she had needed to go to the hospital. Therefore, she had done everything she could to help the process.

Things had gotten exciting around ten. They'd all just decided to try and get some sleep, when Nikki's water had broken. What had followed had been organized chaos. Chris had helped Nikki out to the car while Pam had followed with the hospital bag. Once they'd left, Lisa had sent a text to the family members back in Massachusetts to let them know what was going on.

Now, two hours later, Lisa was sitting in the living room doing a puzzle that she'd found in the hall closet of Chris and Nikki's Georgia rental home. She was too excited to go to sleep, she'd been the same way with all of her grandchildren. Of course, this was the first she was at home and not in the delivery room or pacing in the waiting room.

The first photo came to Lisa a quarter after midnight, showing a screaming baby resting in Nikki's arms post birth. A second photo followed with a closer look at the baby's face. It was more than love at first sight for Lisa as her heart swelled at the images of the baby girl.

It was roughly an hour before Chris called to talk to her. He sounded exhausted, but excited as he gushed about Rachel, his baby girl. He confirmed that she'd arrived shortly after midnight, meaning that father and daughter shared a birthday. She had a full head of blondish hair and weighed 7.5 pounds and was 19.5 inches long. He also assured his mom that baby Rachel was perfect and healthy and that Nikki was doing good, too.

They talked for a few more minutes before hanging up. Lisa took a minute or two to put the puzzle pieces back into the box before she made her way to the guest room to get some sleep, knowing that she'd have two rambunctious toddlers to deal with in a few hours.

-----

Later that morning, Lisa came out of the guestroom to find Pam in the kitchen drinking coffee. Nikki's mom revealed that she'd gotten back to the house about 1:30 and had gotten enough sleep. She then encouraged Lisa to head to the hospital to see Chris, Nikki and baby Rachel, explaining that Chris intended to come back to the house to get the boys around ten to take them to meet their baby sister.

Returning to the guestroom, Lisa showered quickly and got dressed. Before she left the house, she gave both of her grandsons kisses on the top of their heads as they ate pancakes. On her way to the hospital, she stopped to buy a bouquet of flowers for Nikki at a nearby grocery store.

Arriving at the hospital, she sent Chris a text, letting him know she was on her way up and found him waiting for her when she arrived at the birthing center. He led her back to Nikki's room and her heart skipped a beat when she saw her daughter-in-love holding her newest grandbaby.

It wasn't until she'd been holding the baby for a good twenty minutes that she remembered it was her own baby's birthday. Looking up at her son, she said, "Happy birthday, my sweet boy."

Both Chris and Nikki blinked at her and then looked at each other. Surprised smiles spread across their faces and revealed that in the exhaustion and excitement of having Rachel, they'd both completely forgotten that it was Chris's birthday, too.

"Thanks, ma," Chris said, chuckling. He shook his head. "I can't believe we forgot."

"You've been a bit busy," Lisa said, glancing down at her perfect grandbaby. Said baby chose that moment to yawn and slowly begin the process of opening her eyes post nap. Grandma and granddaughter were soon looking at each other for a blissful thirty seconds before Rachel began to wail. Lisa handed her back to Nikki and then sat down in the chair near the bed.

She stayed with Nikki and Rachel, who fell asleep again as soon as her belly was full, while Chris went back to the house to pick up Pam and the boys. When he returned, he was carrying a toddler in each arm and brought them over to Nikki's bed so they could see their baby sister for the first time.

Three-year-old Josh was curious about the baby and wanted to hold her while two-year-old Aiden just wanted to snuggle with Nikki. While Nikki and Aiden snuggled, Josh joined Lisa in her chair and she helped him hold baby Rachel while Chris and Pam took photos of them.

With help of an understanding nurse, they arranged the family of five on Nikki's hospital bed for their first family photos. Chris sat on the edge of the bed with Aiden in his lap with Nikki held Rachel in her arms with Josh planted on the bed between her and Chris. The baby slept through it all, even with her brothers wiggling around and making lots of noise.

They attempted a photo of the three siblings, but by then all three kids had had enough. Neither boy wanted to sit still and, as a result, Rachel woke up crying. In a twist of fate, Chris was recording a video when the crying happened and both Aiden and Josh covered their ears with their hands simultaneously with Josh then shouting, "someone turn it off!"

That video was the first thing that Chris shared with the public via his Twitter account with the hashtags: #andthentherewerethree #wereoutnumbered #lettheadventurebegin. He supplemented that with a second tweet; sharing the best photo of the five of them where, instead of looking at the camera, all of their eyes were focused on baby Rachel. It hadn't been a posed photo, the baby had let out a funny sounding squeak just before the photo had been taken and mom, dad and her brothers had all glanced at her with amused looks on their faces.

Want to find me off tumblr? I’m @beccatheycallme on twitter. I also post my stories on AO3.

My tag list is always open, just let me know if you’d like to be added!

[meme-aesthetics]

what memes had to do to us: breakdown for the meme-illiterate

What is a meme?

We talk about them all the time, but does anyone actually know how to define a meme? The most common form of meme is the image macro (pictures that get passed around with edited text/captions on them). But what about reaction gifs, planking/dabbing, Photoshop memes, Twitter hashtags, etc.? The image macro is only one kind of meme, though it’s the most archetypal kind of meme there is. How would one define “meme” in a way that encompasses all of these?

Time to dive into meme theory.

I’ll be basing this first part on a paper called “The Anonymity of a Murmur: Internet (and Other) Memes” by Simon J. Evnine. According to Evnine, a meme is a set of norms (Evnine 308). Or, more specifically:

Memeₒₙₜ: A meme is an abstract artefact made out of norms.

Meme𝒸ₒₙ: M is a meme if and only if M is made, as part of memographic practice, out of norms for producing things as parts of that memographic practice.  (Evnine 315)

Where memeₒₙₜ = meme (ontological) and meme𝒸ₒₙ = meme (conceptual).

The ontological is just a more general definition answering what kind of category a meme falls under, while the conceptual specifies the exact thing within that category. For example: What is a teenager? Teenagerₒₙₜ = A person. Teenager𝒸ₒₙ = A person from the ages of 13-19 (Evnine 304).

Now...Unless you’ve read the paper, chances are that means next to nothing to you. Let’s break it down, starting with the ontological definition.

By "artefact", Evnine is referring to the result of someone imposing a concept onto some sort of matter in an intentional act of creation (Evnine 314). Basically, if you take matter and have a specific concept of what you want to make out of it, then go and intentionally create that thing out of that matter, you have an artefact. The meme is an “abstract” artefect because the "matter" it is made of is a set of norms—aka, it is made out of something that is not real.

How is a meme made out of “norms”? Well, take for example the distracted boyfriend meme, one example of the image macro. For the meme-illiterate, an example meme:

(Source x)

The “norms” of the distracted boyfriend meme is to use this picture, place text over the three figures, and have the relationship between the 3 labelled figures be that the boyfriend is distracted by/appears to prefer the girl in red over the girl in blue, who is presumably the girlfriend.

Now for the conceptual definition.

Meme𝒸ₒₙ: M is a meme if and only if M is made, as part of memographic practice, out of norms for producing things as parts of that memographic practice. 

“Memographic practice” is kind of like the "meta-level" activity around a meme (Evnine 305). It is the process of sharing it, recreating it, riffing upon it, transforming it, etc.

Here are some examples of the distracted boyfriend meme that participate in memographic practice, which I found just by searching “distracted boyfriend meme” on Tumblr:

(Source x)

(Source x)

(Source x)

So basically, a meme is something that someone intentionally makes by imposing the concept of a "meme" onto a set of norms that were already pre-defined by memographic practice for the purpose of continuing memographic practice. Continuing the tradition, so to speak. 

What about the first instance of a meme? When/how does a meme actually become a meme? Evnine has an answer for that, too. The first instance of a meme, i.e. the first time someone used the distracted boyfriend picture before there was memographic practice surrounding it to establish it as a meme, is part of a more general instance of meme that the Evnine calls MEME (Evnine 313).

MEME is just a meme𝒸𝒸 that results from the overall general existence of memographic practice, where meme𝒸𝒸 = meme common contents (a specific kind of meme, like the distracted boyfriend meme), and memeᵢ = one instance of a meme𝒸𝒸 (the example meme that I showed above).

So MEME covers initial instances of different kinds of meme𝒸𝒸 by being an overall meme𝒸𝒸 where its norms is the existence of memographic practice in general.

A diagram I made to illustrate this concept:

Additionally, a memeᵢ need not comply with all the norms in meme𝒸𝒸 (Evnine 317). For example, other photos of the same people in the original distracted boyfriend picture can be used, or a completely different picture could be substituted in if the relationship and positioning of the figures in that picture are recognizably similar to that of the original picture. Sometimes it isn’t text that is put on the figures, but the heads of characters from someone’s favorite show.

Some more examples:

(Source x)

(Source x)

(Source x)

The point is, not all of the norms must be followed—just enough for it to be recognizably part of that meme𝒸𝒸 tradition. Thus, the norms within meme𝒸𝒸 may change/transform over time (Evnine 318).

So that’s what a meme is. Or at least, one conception of what a meme could be. What about memes in the wild? How do they function, what is their appeal?

-

How memes work

What’s unique about memes, then, isn’t that they’re participatory, or that they remix visuals and stock figures. What makes a meme a meme instead of a cartoon, a joke, or a fad is...a meme is an atom of internet culture...Creating, sharing, or laughing at a meme is staking a claim to being an insider: I am a member of internet culture it says, and if you don’t get this, then you aren’t (McCulloch, location 3668) 

The above quote is from Gretchen McCulloch’s Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language (which, by the way, I highly recommend.) 

The in-jokes, the drawing of boundaries between those who “get it” and those who don’t, the group-bonding—that, is essentially, the heart of memes.

According to McCulloch, the internet is a “third place”:

The first place is home, the second place is work, but people also need a third place to socialize that’s neither home nor work, like a coffeeshop (McCulloch, location 3161)

This makes the internet a major site for linguistic change and innovation. It’s a place where people who may not have had pre-existing strong ties come together and socialize or exchange ideas. This aspect of the internet is also what allows the meme to thrive: ideas that catch move fast, and they spread further than they would have if they were otherwise confined in tightly-knit groups.

However, despite the fact that the internet functions on a network of (mainly) loose connections (I’m not saying that internet friends aren’t real friends—I’m simply referring to the fact that you probably follow more people and have more mutuals than you have internet friends), memes gain popularity because they create a sense of community.

Popular posts tended to strike a balance between somewhat obscure but not too cryptic—in-jokes and references that appealed strongly to a distinct subset of people (McCulloch, location 3292)

But what makes a popular post a meme? After all, it’s not as though any post that reaches a certain number of likes, reblogs, replies, retweets, upvotes, etc. automatically becomes a meme. Well, according to McCulloch:

A meme in the internet sense isn’t just something popular, a video or image or phrase that goes viral. It’s something that’s remade and recombined, spreading as an atom of internet culture” (McCulloch, location 3431)

In this sense, McCulloch’s idea of a meme aligns with Evnine’s. What makes a meme a meme is the existence of memographic practice surrounding the meme.

What was unique about the memes that took off was not the in-jokes, but the scale: in a world where in-jokes happen all the time and distribution costs are zero, a few of them can get really big because their in-groups are actually very large, like “people who agree that this particular cat looks very grumpy,” or “people who saw the previous very popular in-joke.” (McCulloch, location 3537)

“People who saw the previous very popular in-joke” is key. A lot of memes have a kind of absurd, incomprehensible humor to them. Why are they funny? No one knows. You can talk about dada-ism (or e-dada, like this Tumblr post suggests) and the state of the world but really, the humor behind the most popular memes are self-referential. They’re funny only because you get the reference, even if the reference itself doesn’t make sense. 

-

Aesthetique™

Now that we have a working definition for what memes are and how they work, I would like to talk about what memes do. The affective qualities of the meme. Or, the aesthetic.

To explicate this, I will be using, of course, loss.jpg and Lucky Luciano (aka “you know I had to do it to em” guy). 

Since this is written for the meme-illiterate, I'll be using copious examples of memographic practice in an attempt to illustrate the way memes overall affect us.

Let’s start with loss.jpg.

Loss.jpg starts with this comic, drawn by Ctrl+Alt+Del:

(Source x)

According to the KnowYourMeme page, the meme started out as “mockery” of the strip, generating countless parodies across the web. Though, at this point, I’d argue that loss has become so ubiquitous that even if it started out as mockery, it’s looped right back around to a kind of awe. 

(Source x)

Most notable, however, is the fact that “norms” that make up loss have expanded and transformed to include minimalist portrayals of the comic.

(Source: the KnowYourMeme page)

Some examples:

(Source x)

(Source x)

(Source x)

Lucky Luciano started out on Twitter, in a post that is no longer available to the public. Of course, the internet being what it is, it has been preserved for our viewing pleasure:

(Source: the KnowYourMeme page)

KnowYourMeme classifies this meme as type “Character, Photoshop”. The common norms of using this meme is to take a picture that someone else posted, and then repost it while hiding Lucky Luciano somewhere in the photo, “Where’s Waldo?” style. The meme became so popular that several blogs dedicated to documenting and furthering its memographic practice were created (wherethefuckishe​, where-the-fuck-is-he​ and locate-lucky-luciano​ are the ones I’m aware of). 

(Source x)

(Source x)

(Source x)

(Source x)

(Source x)

And my personal favorite:

(Source x)

And just for fun, here’s a combo meme:

(Source x)

For those who don’t get that last one, the icon was edited to have both Lucky Luciano and loss.jpg:

The replies also included a Rickroll, which KnowYourMeme classifies as a “bait-and-switch” meme.

You might have noticed a lot of mixed reactions in the screenshots I included. “I am tired and I will never be free”, “fuck you op” (op stands for original poster in this context), or this fantastic reaction image provided in the last one:

What feeling do these reactions represent? What emotion is being evoked?

I would argue that the answer to these questions is “stuplimity”, a term coined by Sianne Ngai in her article “Stuplimity: Shock and Boredom in Twentieth-Century Aesthetics”. As the title suggests, stuplimity is described as a mixture of shock and boredom.

The sudden excitation of “shock,” and the desensitization we associate with “boredom,” though diametrically opposed and seemingly mutually exclusive, are both responses that confront us with the limitations of our capacity for responding in general. Both affects are thus frequently invoked in responses to radical art usually dismissed as unsophisticated... (Ngai)

Not all memes are created equal. Or perhaps, though they may start out somewhat equal, through memographic practice, some rise above others. I’d argue this is the case with loss.jpg and Lucky Luciano, which have become so well-known and common on the internet as to be veritable cultural phenomenona. Memes, being abstract artefacts created out of norms, are necessarily a group effort. Norms can’t be established by an individual. Memographic practice is a communal project. The first few times we see a meme, the first few times we “get” a meme, we may be delighted. But eventually, over time, many people become tired of the meme. Bored. And yet, they cannot revoke their own knowledge of the “joke”, and each time they come across a new iteration they are both astonished that there are versions they have not yet seen and bored by the same joke being used over and over. “I am tired and I will never be free” is the common sentiment, and I would label this sentiment as “stuplime”.

...a rethinking of what it means to be aesthetically overpowered: a new way of theorizing the negatively affective relationship to stupefying objects previously designated by the older aesthetic notion of the sublime. One way of calling attention to the affinity between exhaustion and the astonishment particular to the sublime, invoking the latter while detaching it from its previous romantic affiliations, is to refer to the aesthetic experience I am talking about—one in which astonishment is paradoxically united with boredom as the stuplime... (Ngai)

But this isn’t the result of a single instance of a meme. It’s the collective effect of all memographic practice surrounding a meme𝒸𝒸 that constitutes stuplimity. 

Stuplimity is thus the final destination, the final form if you will, of the meme.

-

In conclusion,

(Source x)

Get it?

-

References

I’ve collected all the Tumblr memes in a tag here (though not in any particular order) and all non-Tumblr references are collected in a works cited page here (link will only work in browser).

[bangtan-spells]

Jimin Scenario: You Were Beautiful.

Request: Heyy,Can you please make a Jimin songfic about DAY6's song called you were beautiful because i love love love you guys's songfic and my bias is jimin but theres only one songfic with him as the main characterㅠㅠ,Thank you so much for your beautiful writings💓

Genre: Romance.

For Jimin thinking about you, thinking about your relationship, all the events, all the moments you lived together was like watching a movie, a bit shy and slow at the beginning, romantic and full of happiness at the middle, like all the movies it had had its conflicts, without a conflict how could a movie be interesting? Yours hadn’t been a boring relationship, you had had your bumps but overall Jimin smiled when thinking of it, only that in this movie he already knew the end, and unfortunately this one had ended bad for him.

Laying on his back on his bed he thought about you, as he did most of the nights, and not only because he felt lonely, but because he couldn’t erase the custom of waiting for that “Goodnight” text, always accompanied by an “I love you!”, you’d never forget to send it and Jimin had never stopped waiting for it even after you broke up.

Jimin took his phone and went through the little routine of checking out social media, instagram, twitter and all that, answering a few things, reposting others. Then he ended up where he always did, your contact number and the empty conversation, your last connection had been just a few minutes ago so you were probably awake. He wondered what could he say, if he could say anything at all, how to start a conversation and not made it all awkward and lame. He didn’t know, he just wondered if he would be able to have enough courage to talk to you again, he wondered if you ever thought of him like he did of you. Because he always did, specially at night, Jimin hadn’t failed to realize every time he let his mind wander a little it always went to you, what your relationship had been, the things you did, the things you were. 

He sighed, staring at your picture some more before going into his gallery, it was hard knowing he still had all these pictures and videos of you, Jimin liked to think he was ready to move on but every time he encountered with the decision of deleting these files he found out he couldn’t.

His fingers moved across the screen and he pressed play, he knew very well how the video went on but the squeal you let out on second four always made him giggle. You were out in the snow, a little sky trip that at that moment had left you with sore muscles, a certain cold but more in love than ever. Jimin was the one filming, he listened to his own voice as he saw the video he had taken, the beautiful snowy landscape and in the center you, laughing and doing silly faces.

-You look pretty Y/N, aren’t you a snow angel?-

-I am an angel, you’re right on that-

He heard himself laugh at your flirty tone. -My angel-

-I will show you my wings- you said before laying down on the snow.

Jimin laughed in the video. -What are you doing?-

-I am an angel, aren’t I?- you said as you moved your arms and legs drawing in the snow. The video was unfocused for a moment, Jimin remembered he hadn’t been able to not kiss you after that, he crouched down, putting the camera aside not even noticing that it would capture your kiss or the sound of your laughter after that. He sighed as the video ended, in all his memories you had been beautiful.

You hadn’t ended up in bad terms, in fact, if you were to meet right now Jimin would be sure you’d greet each other with a smile, which left him wondering, why had you broken up to begin with?

He was getting out of the gym, working out after his job to then head home were he would pass out smashed, not without seeing the videos, not without thinking about you and your relationship.

At the moment it had seemed like your relationship couldn’t go on beyond of what it was. High school sweethearts that encountered with a world that was bigger than expected, college had taken a lot from both of you and Jimin guessed while living that world you had drifted apart.

But you never met after that, not even once, which led him to think that you were somehow avoiding each other, he had thought it would be better that way since he couldn't undone breaking up with you, he had thought that you wouldn’t really want to do anything with him. But Jimin had also came to realize that those were lies, he wanted to see you, every day he wanted to and thus he reached for those videos. He had lost you because he thought his future was something else, but what if he was wrong? Jimin didn’t want to think he had ended your relationship over something you could have overcome. 

But what if he was right? Then that meant these videos were the last memories he would live next to you. It made him sad, it made him be disappointed with himself.

That night Jimin saw another video, in this one he was yet again filming you, he did that quite a lot actually, you sometimes joked it was his kink which got Jimin laughing way too loud and blushed to his neck. He recognized the place, the streets of Hongdae at night, full of people, sounds and light but the camera only followed you as you spoke about a movie you had just seen. Then you got excited after seen a display of clothes in a closed store.

-How is a store closed in Hongdae?- you nagged getting closer to the glass.

-It’s pretty late jagi-

-But I want to try these clothes, I like them- you pouted and then started posing as you were a model, moving your jacket around making Jimin laugh again.

His present self laughed too, how much had you made him laugh? Always, you had this thing, this spark that no other girl he had met had.  How could he ever thought he would get over this kind of feeling? 

Jimin realized that night he was a fool, he was more focused on his own things now but at the same time the thoughts of you were flooding him constantly. It had been a bit more than six months since the last time he saw you and still just the thought of you had his heart beating faster.

The next morning he woke up still feeling like a fool, if he talked about this with his best friend Taehyung he would reassure him he was a fool, his friend was a strong believer of true love and had told him he’d regret breaking up with you. Jimin regretted it, but did you?

Maybe you had moved on, Jimin kept tracks on you to some point, he knew you weren’t seeing someone, a least not something public. The thought of you with someone else made a sour flavor appear in his mouth, he wouldn’t like that one bit, but then you being or not with someone else didn’t mean you wanted him. Jimin sighed, he thought if he should just call you, or not, calling might be too strong, a text, something simple. But then he felt too awkward, too nervous of what might  happen. At that time you had agreed to the break up, easily, like you were feeling the same as him. But did the feeling fade away or maybe the same thing as him happening to you, maybe you were the same and couldn’t  stop thinking about him. Him following you with a smile, telling you how pretty, how gracious you were. He wanted you to know, to at least know that he couldn’t get you out of his head, that the memories were on him, repeating in those videos, replaying nonstop in his mind.

Jimin was now sitting in front of his laptop, this time the video showed you singing, it was a KARA song, you didn’t sing that well and your dance moves were improvised, but you put all your effort in the performance and it showed you were having the time of your life while doing it, he had adored seeing it and he remembered how every time you went to the karaoke you two would have a blast. 

You sang and made flirty faces for him, making it all an spectacle just for him, at the end getting your chin over your shoulder as you threw him a kiss. Jimin spend quite a while in front of the computer, going through videos and photos of you two, a selfie of you two at the movies, that one time he took you to a romantic date at the park because it was your birthday, Jimin had documented all your relationship and seeing it now he couldn’t believe all these moments were a waste. Whatever you might feel at the present Jimin was sure he would always remember you as you were at that time, as you would always be.

You went to work that morning not expecting something out of the ordinary would ever happen, your life was nothing more than routine these past few months, totally focused on college and your job it was hard not to, even when you felt there was something that was missing. 

You opened your email as it was the first thing you did to check if your boss had sent anything new or you had a new assignation, and as usual you did, but besides that you saw something else. You let your cup of coffee aside as you read the name of the message again, the person who had sent it.

You didn’t say his name out loud but your lips spelled it. Park Jimin.

You frowned lightly clicking on it, watching behind your back and at your side checking there wasn’t anyone around yet. It was a zip file so you had to wait a bit for it to download, your boot tapped the floor impatiently as you waited for it and then you saw the folder’s content, at first with your mouth agape and then with your hand over your nosee and mouth trying to hide whatever expression you might be having at the moment, you weren’t sure of how you felt seeing this but as you clicked on more files. the image of you singing on a terrible pitch Kara’s Pandora made you giggle loudly and then you laughed seeing all the footage he had on you, all the moments you had lived and wouldn’t ever be forgotten.

 You playing with water pistols, pictures of you two at the park. You had done a lot of things together, lived a lot of things together. Jimin was constantly in your mind, no matter the time you knew he would always be.

You weren’t sure what this meant, him sending you all this, but you bit your finger and felt yourself blushing lightly whenever you appeared kissing either on video or photos, you had a lot of those. 

-His kink- you whispered laughing again, as you used to tease him about it.

You were curious to know why Jimin had sent this, if he ever thought of you, why he kept all this. But in the email there was only one sentence, it didn’t answer all your questions but in a way it made you feel warm inside, it made you smile and bite your lip suddenly with a mix of happiness and nostalgia. You read it again.

You were beautiful.

[biofunmy]

100 Best Memes Of The Decade

Debora Westra for BuzzFeed News

This decade, memes became something not just for a handful of internet nerds who lurked on message boards; memes are now for everyone. The online culture of this decade hasn’t just changed the words we use, it’s changed how we express ourselves. Huge technological shifts of the 2010s led to this: widespread smartphone adoption and the rise of newfangled social media platforms like Vine. Memes also became a business — brands used meme-speak and accounts like @fuckjerry made big bucks by reposting memes.

To determine the ranking of this list, we considered the overall popularity of a meme, its longevity, and historical importance — what kind of impact it had on other memes and internet culture. Here they are:

100.

Yodeling Walmart Kid

View this video on YouTube

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In 2018, 10-year-old Mason Ramsey sang a Hank Williams song in a Walmart, and the internet went nuts. But this time, the reaction to a precocious kid singing somewhat oddly (a sort of yodeling) was very different than it was in 2011 when Rebecca Black sang “Friday.” Instead of mocking the kid, the internet loved him, declaring the clip a “bop” that “slaps.” This is the change that happened over the decade: Instead of relishing cringe, the more memetic and ironic thing to do is embrace and love something like a child yodeling in a big-box store. Ramsey has gone on to have some version of mainstream success, performing country music to live crowds, and, well, good for him. —K.N.

99.

Moth Memes

Twitter: @thebobpalmer

Much like a moth is drawn to a flame, we were drawn to memes about moths and their unquenchable thirst for lamps in summer 2018. They got their start with a Reddit post that July, a close-up photo someone took of a moth, which people soon began captioning and photoshopping until it took on a life of its own as a meme. There’s really not much you can say about moth memes, besides that they are funny and good and I will love them until I die. —J.R.

Every generation has its subcultures, and in 2019, Gen Z’s was undoubtedly VSCO girls. The aesthetic comes with a number of signifiers: scrunchies (piled high on the wrist), Hydro Flask water bottles (covered in stickers), puka shell necklaces, oversized T-shirts, Crocs, Fjällräven backpacks, metal straws (save the turtles!), Carmex lip balm, and the ubiquitous catchphrases, “sksksk — and I oop.” The easy-breezy look, named for the photo editing app VSCO, was essentially “Tumblr girl” meets “basic white girl.” Though the style became trendy in earnest through Instagram and internet stars like Emma Chamberlain, it catapulted to popularity (and mockery) on TikTok. —J.R.

97.

Duck Army

View this video on YouTube

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Kevin Innes, a Norwegian twentysomething, was in a store with his girlfriend one day when they came across a bin of squeaking duck-shaped (technically, the toy is a pelican) dog toys. To embarrass his girlfriend, he pressed down on the whole bin, and an unholy cacophony that sounds like the wheezing sum total of human misery was released. Innes posted to Facebook, then YouTube, and then someone else ripped his YouTube video and posted it to Vine, where it went viral. The beauty of this 2015 meme was a perfect Vine: absurd, easy to understand, surprising, and based on something that happened in real life. —K.N.

96.

Deep-Fried Memes

reddit.com

You might not even know what they’re called if you saw them, but a deep-fried meme is one of those pictures that has been screenshotted, edited, and reuploaded across Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit so many times that has started to degrade in quality. At first this deep-frying process was largely genuine, kids refiltering and remixing each other’s images. But as the phenomenon became more known, a second wave of ironically deep-fried images started to appear. It’s a fairly silly thing on its surface, but it also speaks to the innate desire for people to share stuff online. If Instagram had a share button, there’s a good chance this sort of thing would have never started happening in the first place. The walled culs-de-sac of proprietary platforms will never be able to stop the world’s teens from sharing a picture of Peter Griffin from Family Guy smoking a huge blunt. —R.B.

95.

Twitter Sign Bunny

|￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣| vaccines save lives you stupid motherfucker |＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿| (__/) || (•ㅅ•) || / 　 づ

02:12 PM – 01 Dec 2019

A series of ASCII image memes popped up on Twitter this decade: “Howdy, I’m the sheriff of,” “In this house we…” “got dat” cat, a stick figure falling off a building, or even the simple ¯_(ツ)_/¯ or (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻. These work in part because they visually take up a lot of space on the Twitter timeline, making them stick out and be more likely to be interacted with or remembered. Plus, there implies some element that the poster has some technical abilities to be able to summon the ASCII. But it’s the bunny that’s had staying power over those other ones. —K.N.

94.

Doggos and Puppers

This is Rey. She’s a very puptective doggo mommo. Will grrbork bork at any potential threat. 13/10 heartwarming as h*ck

12:00 AM – 20 Oct 2017

Dogs have been man’s best friend for thousands of years, but only around 2015 did they evolve into “doggos” and “puppers.” “Doggo-speak,” as NPR called it, arose in Facebook groups like “Dogspotting” before exploding on Twitter with the @dog_rates Twitter account. The lingo is characterized by cutesy nicknames for dogs (Samoyeds are “floofs” or “clouds,” corgis are “loaves,” any huge fluffy dog is a big boofin’ woofer) and onomatopoeia (a doggo can “bork,” or stick their tongues out and do a “blep” or “mlem”). To me, it’s a fascinating as “h*ck” thing that an entire dialect, with all its own grammar and syntax and vocabulary rules, could spring up in an organic way online. —J.R.

93.

Planking

CC BY-SA 3.0 / Donkey100 / Via commons.wikimedia.org

In 2011, everyone was taking pictures lying facedown on the ground, rigid as a board. It was a thing, and that thing was called planking. Plankers would assume the pose in unexpected places — atop a car, inside a supermarket freezer, even across two camels — then get a buddy to snap a picture. The trend got so big The Office even did a cold open about it. Soon, it spun off into other photo pose trends, including owling and leisure diving, but it also sadly led to at least one death.

Eight years later, these photo memes can feel a bit old-school, but they represent a key moment when ready access to cameras (both the digital kind and iPhones, which were still pretty new) was still a novelty, and people were leaning into ways to use it creatively. —J.R.

The point of bros icing bros was simple: At any point during the day, present a warm bottle of Smirnoff Ice to your bro, and he has to get down on one knee and chug the cursed beverage. However, if he produces his own bottle immediately, he is exempted, and it is you who must chug. This prank was the peak of IRL-memeing in 2011. Smirnoff denied any sort of marketing stunt, which makes sense if you consider that the central conceit is that being forced to drink a Smirnoff Ice is a form of punishment. The meme threatened a resurgence in 2017, but never really caught on again. —K.N.

91.

Bone App The Teeth

In 2016, someone posted a pic of white bread just absolutely smothered in corn and captioned it with a phrase that ignited a million memes: “bone app the teeth.” Those four words — sometimes edited to “bone apple tea,” “bone ape tit,” or even more bonkers iterations — became the battle cry for shitty food porn posters everywhere. It’s a pretty simple meme, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a picture of Goldfish sushi or a chicken noodle watermelon without completely losing it. —J.R.

90.

Clowns

Instagram: @davie_dave

Remember that brief moment in fall 2016 when towns around the US were overtaken by mass hysteria over scary clowns being spotted in the woods (which then immediately stopped being a concern when Trump got elected and everyone suddenly had other stuff to worry about)? Yeah, that was a thing that happened. Clowns had quite a ~moment~ in the latter half of the 2010s. Less than a year after the clown sightings, a remake of the horror movie It came out, prompting a ton of memes of Pennywise in the sewer and dancing (and, of course, people wanting to fuck the It clown). The clown memes just kept going from there, with clown photos being used as reaction images to illustrate our most dumbass moments. Sometimes I wonder if those clowns are still in the woods. I hope they’re happy. —J.R.

89.

Kim Kardashian Breaks the Internet

Jean-Paul Goude / papermag.com

In November 2014, Kim Kardashian appeared on the cover of Paper magazine bearing her whole entire ass. It went massively viral, and people immediately got to work photoshopping it into a centaur, Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” (which had just come out), the turkey in a Norman Rockwell painting, you name it. The phrase on the cover “break the internet,” would go on to become timeworn, but it all started with Kim K and her big, glossy butt. —J.R.

88.

Bed Intruder

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In July 2010, Antoine Dodson appeared on the local news in Alabama after a home invader attempted to assault his sister, saying: “He’s climbin’ in your windows, he’s snatchin’ your people up… So y’all need to hide your kids, hide your wife…” The news clip went viral, and a few days later, Dodson’s words were remixed into the Auto-Tuned “Bed Intruder Song,” which made it onto the Billboard 100 charts and become the most-viewed YouTube video of 2010.

“Bed Intruder Song” captured two powerful vectors that would come to define the rest of the decade: a normal person being propelled to some sort of viral fame, and a critical backlash over the exploitative race, gender, and class dynamics. At the time, some people pointed out that turning a video of poor black man expressing anguish over the attempted sexual assault of his sister was problematic. Years later, this feels even more true. Dodson went on to a strange post-virality career, with a reality show that never got off the ground, celebrity boxing matches, controversial statements about being gay, and a Trump endorsement. —K.N.

87.

Alex From Target

Alex LeBoeuf / Twitter: @auscalum (deleted)

In November 2014, a young woman tweeted a photo of a teenage checkout clerk at Target with Alex on the nametag. Her tweet was simply, “YOOOOOOOO,” signaling that, well, this teen boy was cute. The tweet went viral, and people fell in love with this mysterious Alex from Target, creating memes and tributes in his image, leading anyone over the age of 23 to wonder: What the fuck is happening here?

There was some legitimate confusion over how and why Alex’s photo blew up. An internet marketing company stepped forward, claiming that it had gotten the original girl to tweet the photo of Alex as a viral marketing stunt, and seeded the meme with inorganic retweets and promotion. But the woman who made the tweet (whose Twitter account is now suspended) said she had never heard of the marketing company, and that she just randomly found the photo on Tumblr and tweeted it out, and it seems that the marketing company was trying to claim stolen viral valor.

But the ending wasn’t so great for the guy at the center of it. Alex LaBeouf, who went by Alex Lee as a stage name, eventually dropped out of high school because he had missed so many days to fly to Los Angeles for appearances on talk shows. He was homeschooled and joined the 2015 DigiTour, a tour for social media stars, mainly Vine stars at the time. In a 2017 video, he said that his managers at the time had stolen $30,000 from him, and since then he’s abandoned his public social media accounts. —K.N.

86.

Insane Clown Posse’s “Miracles”

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The music video for “Miracles” debuted in April 2010. The song had been kicking around since 2009, but the video is what really did it. It’s been viewed 18 million times — and watching it back in 2019, it is still just as deranged as it was when it debuted. A lot of the meme songs on this list exist in that uncanny valley of like “misunderstood banger.” I want to be clear: “Miracles” is not that. It is a nonsense song. And while it’s best remembered for its “fuckin’ magnets, how do they work” and “Magic everywhere in this bitch” lines, I would argue the best part is the line about pelicans: “I fed a fish to a pelican at Frisco Bay / It tried to eat my cellphone, he ran away / And music is magic, pure and clean / You can feel it and hear it but it can’t be seen.” Damn, that’s real. —R.B.

85.

First-World Problems

Thinkstock / Twitter: @ughshaye

When you’re eating nachos and one stabs the roof of your mouth, when one pillow is too low but two pillows is too high; these sorts of issues — annoying, but generally indicating your life is pretty easy and privileged — were best summarized by the early-2010s macro image “First-World Problems.” A lot of things feel dated about “first-world problems” memes, ranging from the style of the image all the way to the use of the concept of countries being first world vs. third world. But the meme was also one of the first concerning social privilege, which many people would learn about for the first time in the 2010s. —J.R.

84.

Kylie Jenner Lip Challenge

vine.co

Kylie Jenner dominated the 2010s, particularly with the launch of her Kylie Lip Kits in 2015. The now-billionaire’s lips had been the subject of gossip and envy that year when she suddenly debuted thick, pillowy lips (the result of lip fillers, though she denied it until two years later). The star kicked off something of a lip-plumping craze, and teens starting trying to plump their own lips by sticking them in shot glasses and sucking till they swelled up. Needless to say, it did not come doctor-recommended.

The rise in popularity of injectable fillers and the instabaddie takeover are inextricably linked to the Kardashian/Jenner family’s influence. Each trend made way for the other, clearing the way for a bunch of teens to damage their faces to score Kylie-level lips. —J.R.

83.

Sad Keanu

nerdlikeyou.com

Keanu Reeves kickstarted the decade as a meme after a paparazzi photo of him eating a sandwich on a park bench was shared on 4chan. “Instead of Chuck Norris, let’s make Keanu Reeves a meme,” one redditor wrote as the image started to spread. Which is interesting to think about — that this particular decade, one so heavily shaped by increasingly radicalized social media platforms, began with users of heavily male communities like 4chan and Reddit deciding to abandon an aggressively masculine meme like Chuck Norris and instead embrace a picture of disheveled loneliness. Splash News, the agency behind the photo, has attempted to remove the picture from the internet via DMCA takedowns, but Reeves and his sandwich have proved too popular (and photoshoppable) to really scrub away. As for how Reeves feels about the whole thing, at the time he told the BBC, “Do I wish that I didn’t get my picture taken while I was eating a sandwich on the streets of New York? Yeah.” —R.B.

82.

“Haven’t Heard That Name in Years”

Twitter: @goIfkart

As you read this list, you’re probably at various points looking at a meme, taking a drag on a cigarette, and saying, “Gangnam Style? Haven’t heard that name in years.” —K.N.

If you dumped a bucket of ice over your head in summer 2014, it was probably to raise money for ALS research in the Ice Bucket Challenge. The challenge involved participants dousing themselves in ice water on video, then nominating others to either do the same or make a donation to fund ALS research. Many did both, using the viral videos to promote the cause, and the ALS Association wound up raising more than $100 million in a month. The rare meme that did demonstrable good. Sadly, the man who inspired the meme died in December 2019. —J.R.

80.

“I’m in Me Mum’s Car, Broom Broom”

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A Vine of a British girl in her mum’s car (broom broom) was a perfect Vine: It makes no sense, it doesn’t follow any known comedy format, it’s vaguely cringe, and yet it’s so silly it’s guaranteed to make you laugh. The brief and glorious life of Vine thrived on these moments of surprising and unexpected humor. TikTok is the closest thing we have now to Vine, and yet it requires a certain knowledge of its memes and tropes to “get” it. “I’m in me mum’s car, broom broom” only requires you to be a human with a pulse to find Tish Simmonds’ 2014 masterpiece funny. —K.N.

79.

The Rent Is Too Damn High

Kathy Kmonicek / AP

The thing about Jimmy McMillan’s slogan for the 2010 New York gubernatorial campaign is that he’s absolutely correct: The rent IS too damn high, and he was accurately predicting the coming housing market crisis in New York City. McMillan was a minor local politics figure, having run for mayor a few years earlier. But it was the televised debates for the governor’s race in 2010 that brought him national fame for his flamboyant facial hair, gloves, and his one-issue campaign platform. He was parodied on Saturday Night Live, and a meme was born. —K.N.

78.

“What Does the Fox Say?”

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Few music videos of 2010s hit it bigger than one by Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis, as they tried to answer a perplexing question: What does the fox say? The video — which featured a cast of people dressed up in animal costumes and a whole slew of sounds a fox might purportedly say — was named the top trending video on YouTube in 2013. It’s a video that feels definitively old, and it’s hard to imagine it coming out now and being earnestly enjoyed, but we were doing lots of things more earnestly back then. And I’d bet you anything you still know the words. —J.R.

77.

Hot Dogs or Legs

times-new-romann.tumblr.com

Showing off your tan in 2013? The trendiest vacation humblebrag in 2013 was snapping a pic of your thighs and captioning it “hot dogs or legs.” The meme first went viral on Tumblr but had a long life on Instagram afterward. This was mostly annoying, unless it was actually hot dogs, which was pretty funny. –J.R.

76.

Darude’s “Sandstorm”

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One of the bright spots about the 2010s is the way that young people immediately understood and identified the parts of shit culture of the ’90s and ’00s, and mercilessly mocked it. Guy Fieri, Shrek, Bee Movie, and the hit 1999 techno song “Sandstorm” by Darude. To be fair, “Sandstorm” is probably the best and most well-known trance song, but still, it’s incredible silly. It also became a huge meme to namedrop the song in the comment sections of random YouTube videos. What’s silliest about it is the idea that it has lyrics (it does not), and they’re simply dun dun dun dun dun dun DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN dun dun dun dun. —K.N.

75.

*Record Scratch*

*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yup, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation.

03:44 PM – 25 Aug 2016

*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yup, that’s me. I’m a meme you could not stop seeing all over your feed in 2016. The meme was based on the clichéd movie trope in which a protagonist would begin to explain how they got themself into a ~wacky situation~. The meme spread quickly, with Twitter users aligning the text with all sorts of images. This was not the first text-based Twitter meme, nor would it be the last, but its takeover was so big it eventually became a Twitter trope in and of itself. —J.R.

74.

Double Rainbow

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What makes Paul Vasquez’s effusive awe at seeing a double rainbow distinctly from 2010 as opposed to 2019 is how it’s barely what we’d call a “meme” now. It’s a viral video, sure, and it was one of the first truly huge and popular ones. In many ways, even though it happened in 2010, it resembled the memes of the 2000s more: It went viral after Jimmy Kimmel’s show account tweeted it, and it spread over email and Gchat from person to person.

The things we think of as memes now are mostly defined by being iterative: a photo you can write new captions over and over ad nauseum and can mean a million different things. But “Double Rainbow” is just a funny video – you watch it once, you laugh, and that’s it. It’s more of the Tosh.0 version of the internet where there are funny things to be found than the Distracted Boyfriend or Pepe the frog version where there are existing memes that we make our own meaning out of. The monetization of the video was also (by current standards) primitive: He appeared in a Microsoft ad. —K.N.

73.

Mannequin Challenge

There were a lot of dance crazes and video fads in the 2010s — the suddenly widespread use of phones with cameras made it possible — but few grew as big as the Mannequin Challenge of 2016. The videos involved standing as still as a statue, usually with the song “Black Beatles” by Rae Sremmurd playing. The meme’s origins lie with a group of Florida high schoolers, and within just a few weeks there were Mannequin Challenge videos from pro sports teams, then– presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and quite possibly your family on Thanksgiving. The Mannequin Challenge went viral because it was the stationary dance craze version of the “Cha Cha Slide” — it was family-friendly, everyone could catch on pretty quickly, and it was something that could bring everyone together. —J.R.

72.

“Harlem Shake”

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In early 2013, a dance meme was born. Set to the techno song “Harlem Shake” by Baauer, the premise was to start off dancing very mildly, and when the beat drops, all hell breaks loose and a large group of people dance wildly. It’s stupid, I know. As quickly as the meme came to life, it died: A few days after the first few videos went viral, BuzzFeed’s office did a version (Ryan is in the horse mask; I run and hide into a conference room), and six days after that, the Today show anchors did one, which seemed to everyone to signal the end of the meme. But the real nail in the coffin was in 2017 when FCC chair Ajit Pai did a video to help explain the end of Net Neutrality. —K.N.

71.

Bottle Flipping

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If you were a teen in 2016, you probably flipped a bottle or two. The trend really took off when high school student Mike Senatore executed a flawless flip at his school talent show to rapturous applause. After that, everyone was flipping bottles, and a “replica bottle” signed by Senatore himself fetched over $11,000 on eBay. Teens do all sorts of kooky things, but to this day, it’s hard to watch a video of a perfect bottle flip and NOT feel unbridled joy and triumph. —J.R.

70.

Bronies

Katie Notopoulos / BuzzFeed News

The world first learned of bronies when in 2011 Wired wrote about the adult men who loved the rebooted My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic show. For the next five years, bronies seemed to dominate every aspect of internet culture — they were rampant on Reddit, 4chan, DeviantArt, Twitter, Tumblr, and even IRL conventions (and of course, horrible, horrible version of pony porn, known as “clop”). The fandom morphed through every phase of an online community, including a small faction of fascist bronies, creating fan art of the colorful horses in Nazi uniforms.

No group since furries has been as routinely mocked as the bronies. And yet, now that they’ve sort of faded away slightly, we sort of miss them. —K.N.

68.

Bee Movie

quilavastudy.tumblr.com

According to all known laws of memes, there is no way Bee Movie should have been able to go viral. And yet, posting the entire script to the 2007 movie somehow became a big Tumblr meme. The reasons for this semi-flop movie becoming a meme aren’t totally clear. Perhaps it was the realization of how grotesque the plot is (a bee and a human woman fall in love), perhaps it was that star Jerry Seinfeld was having a moment. Or maybe because it was just because it’s random and shitty movie, which is inherently funny. Unlike beloved childhood characters Shrek or SpongeBob, Bee Movie’s mediocrity is what makes it memeable. The crummier, the more nonsensical the meme, the better. The layers of ironic detachment have to be so thick that to pretend to love Bee Movie and post its entire script is something only someone with a truly online brain in 2015 could be capable of. —K.N.

67.

¯_(ツ)_/¯ (Shruggie)

Fun fact: The symbol in the center of the shruggie is a Japanese Katakana character called “Tsu.” It’s commonly used in Japanese fiction to represent the end of a line of dialogue. Kind of perfect right? Nothing left to say? Shruggie time. The shruggie was the perfect emoticon of the Obama era: a slightly worried-looking, yet pleasantly numb smirk, throwing its hands up at everything’s lack of meaning. Also, it just looks really cool! Things are going to probably only get worse over the next decade, so I say we bring the shruggie back. Let’s all really get into casual nihilism. I mean, everything’s fucked, so why not, right? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ —R.B.

66.

Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe”

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The infectious pop song became a hit in early 2012, and by late spring, the distinctive rhyme scheme of the chorus had become a meme. Example: This still of Marty McFly and his mom in Back to the Future: “Hey I just met you / and this is crazy / but I’m from the future / and I’m your baby.” Or a tweet by @jwherrman: “HEY, I JUST MET YOU / AND MY DOG IS CRAZY / WOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF / HE HAS RABIES.” —K.N.

65.

Dashcon

notsafeforweabs.tumblr.com

There was a time right around the middle of this last decade where the internet was a largely more innocent place. Nerdy fandom subcultures built around TV shows like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Supernatural weren’t quite in the mainstream yet, nor did people fully understand the realities of what happens when you bring a bunch of people from the internet together in real life. That giddy naivete died with Dashcon. The unofficial Tumblr-based convention wasn’t quite a Fyre Festival–level disaster, but the level of secondhand embarrassment it generated seems to have killed an entire mode of internet use. One could even argue that Tumblr — the little social network that could — lost its last bit of grip on the larger culture of the internet. From the sad photos of cosplayers sitting in a weird ball pit to the haunting photos of empty of showrooms to accusations later of fraud, for fandom internet there was a before and after Dashcon. Based on things like Tanacon and Fyre Festival, though, it seems like those who do not learn from Dashcon are doomed to repeat Dashcon. —R.B.

64.

Galaxy Brain

reddit.com

This 2017 meme has staying power because it’s so simple and applies to so many things. The format shows several different concepts in increasing order of brainpower, culminating with something ridiculous. It speaks so perfectly to how we argue and discuss any topic online: a basic idea, a smarter take, slowly devolving into anarchy. —K.N.

63.

Loss.JPG

cad-comic.com

There’s really no way to sugarcoat what loss.JPG is. It’s a four-panel web comic about a miscarriage that has evolved into some weird Where’s Waldo? game played on social media. The story behind the infamous comic is that Ctrl-Alt-Del creator Tim Buckley wanted to make his series more mature. His audience recoiled at the mature storyline and found the whole thing incredibly lame. To make matters worse, the text-less comic was uploaded to the site with the filename loss.JPG. There’s a good chance you’ve come across loss.JPG parodies and never even realized that’s what they were. Buckley has spoken a bit about the meme over the years. “Perhaps I had miscalculated my demographic’s ability/willingness to approach such a sensitive subject matter,” he said. “As much as I hate to admit it because I certainly don’t want to make light of the subject matter itself, I found them quite amusing.”

But still the meme remains. And there’s a good possibility it will continue to stick around well into the next decade, if only because it’s too tasteless to ever really address directly. —R.B.

62.

Baby Shark

View this video on YouTube

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The origins of why a techno version of a public domain campfire song became accurately described as “‘Sicko Mode’ for babies” isn’t totally clear. Normally, internet culture has no interest in what the parents of young infants and toddlers are doing (gross, old people). And yet somehow the catchy story of a multigenerational shark family (doo doo doo doo) meant for babies became inescapable. In a review for the live stage show of Baby Shark, the New Yorker wrote, “It wasn’t Disney or Nickelodeon executives who plucked it from among the millions of other videos on YouTube. Instead, babies themselves made it a juggernaut, by relentlessly clicking Play on their parents’ phones. It might be the first genuine example of baby pop culture.” —K.N.

61.

Infinity War Memes

yoongis-home-moved.tumblr.com

TV shows and movies that become their own sort of visual meme language all tend to come from the same place emotionally. There seems to be a certain secret sauce for cracking through the zeitgeist, and it largely comes down to particular kind of glee people get from taking the piss out of something serious. Avengers: Infinity War wasn’t the first Marvel film to get memed (Bruce Banner’s “That’s my secret, Cap” line from The Avengers was the first big one), but Infinity War hit in a big way. I’d argue that all came down to its shocking ending where literally half of everyone’s favorite superheroes all died horribly. First were the Infinity War spoilers-without-context posts, followed by the “I don’t feel so good, Mr. Stark” memes, and then there were even thicc Thanos memes. Ultimately, Infinity War memes didn’t have a huge staying power, but it seems to have rewired the way audiences digest big blockbuster movies; if you jump on Twitter right as you get out of the theater and start retweeting memes, you suddenly don’t feel so silly for crying when Spider-Man dies. To be honest, thicc Thanos is much more traumatizing. —R.B.

60.

Binders Full of Women

bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com

Mitt Romney made a truly weird gaffe in a 2012 debate when he answered a question about pay equality — describing how, as governor, he asked to see more women candidates for Cabinet positions and was shown “binders full of women.” Twitter, in peak parody account mode, immediately latched onto this weird and vaguely sexist turn of phrase. A parody Tumblr was made that posted photos of binders. People flocked to Amazon listings of binders to write funny reviews.

Now it seems laughable that this was the biggest gaffe of the election, the most shocking thing a politician said. Yet in the 2012 internet ecosystem, this perfectly played out a cycle of political memes that we don’t really have the stomach for anymore. No one’s making a “grab them by the pussy” Tumblr. —K.N.

59.

“Gangnam Style”

View this video on YouTube

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Here’s the thing about Psy’s 2012 hit: It’s extremely good. The song is catchy, but it’s the visuals in the music video that propelled it to an international hit and the most-viewed YouTube video for years. It’s a video you want to watch more than once, one you want to show it to your friends. The fact that it was by an artist unfamiliar to most people outside of South Korea didn’t matter. The videos that would later best its YouTube record — “Despacito,” “See You Again” — did so more because of how long their respective songs stayed at the top of music charts than the nature of the video itself.

But “Gangnam Style” is a wildly entertaining as a video. The sets and backup characters change constantly, Psy’s style of deadpan serious rapping while lying on an elevator floor with a man in a cowboy hate gyrating over him is funny. Psy’s pony-riding dance is funny. It was the dance, of course, that people did at weddings and high school dances and flash mobs. —K.N.

58.

Forever Alone

knowyourmeme.com

Constructing a linear narrative out of internet content is extremely complicated — things connect across time and space in ways that make a traditional retelling almost impossible. That said, if there is a story of the internet in the 2010s, I’d argue it’s about loneliness and the bizarre and surreal ways people try to overcome it. So perhaps it’s fitting that this decade started with FunnyJunk user Azuul’s May 2010 rage comic “April Fools” — the first appearance of the phrase “forever alone.” Azuul’s swollen-faced character has more or less gone extinct, but the phrase, and more importantly, the meaning behind the phrase, have gone on to define the core irony of the internet: We are deeply isolated, yet connected enough to each other to commiserate about it. —R.B.

57.

Wholesome Memes

Twitter: @tenderfiresign

Ah, wholesome memes. In a decade in which things online (and offline!) tended to be pretty bleak, wholesome memes were a salve. In these memes, the punchline lies in the genuine surprise of an online joke actually being pure and good — particularly about “loving and supporting” one’s friends, significant other, or yourself. —J.R.

56.

There’s Always a @dril Tweet

Without a doubt, @dril is the most important person on Twitter of the 2010s. He has a specific absurdist take on living in some modern digital hellworld where his boss doesn’t let him kiss his ferrets at work, people keep asking him about fucking the Betsy Ross flag, and his candle budget is out of control. He never breaks character — there’s never a “but seriously folks, I’m sorry about that last tweet” — and has, miraculously, nearly maintained his anonymity.

@dril’s fans have taken some of his tweets and turned them into specific terms for online existence: “Corncobbing” is when someone has been owned and refuses to admit it; “help my family is dying” is a reference to the candle budget tweet.

During and after the election, people noticed that often there was an old Trump tweet that said something almost the opposite of what he had just said, coining the phrase “there’s always a tweet.” Soon people started to notice that Trump’s tweets had an odd similarity to @dril tweets and that you could often find an old @dril tweet with a parallel message. —K.N.

55.

Game of Thrones Memes

reddit.com

Like Infinity War, Game of Thrones became its own genre of meme. It wasn’t the first peak TV drama to do so — I’d argue Breaking Bad set the stage for it — but GoT did something both Breaking Bad and movies like Infinity War didn’t: It got much worse over time. Game of Thrones, especially in its early seasons, was an outrageously grim, dark show full of sex and violence, which made the memes it generated feel even more fun and risqué to share. But as the show’s ratings increased and its digital footprint became nearly unavoidable, it also became a much stupider show. Somewhere in that uncanny valley of extremely serious and incredibly stupid was the perfect breeding ground for memes. Much like the army of White Walkers pouring into Winterfell in an episode shot so dark people had to desperately try to readjust their TV settings, once internet users smell blood in the water, they’re going to swarm. —R.B.

54.

You Know I Had to Do It to Em

Twitter: @LuckyLuciano17k (deleted)

There’s something so visceral about the YKIHTDITE photo. You either get why it’s funny, or it’s just a random photo. I also think people notice things about this photo in different orders. For instance, I notice the sock tan lines and the diamond earrings first. The tweet also begs us to answer the question of what exactly “it” is that he had to do to ‘em. Luciano’s pose — hand in hand, loafered power stance — has evolved into something akin to an internet-wide Where’s Waldo? with people photoshopping him into anything they can. People even go on pilgrimages to where the photo was taken (it’s in Florida, obviously). Like I said, I can’t explain why it’s funny, but it is. Maybe that’s the “it” that he’s doing to ‘em. —R.B.

For a brief time in early 2017, people were transfixed by Turkish chef Nusret Gökçe, who would slice steak and sprinkle salt on it, but, like, in a sexy way? (See #13) A still image of “Salt Bae” tossing on the salt like it’s fairy dust became a meme representing any time we’re being our most extra selves. (Oh yeah, and then he hugged Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at his restaurant and Marco Rubio doxed him for it. Becoming a meme is a rich tapestry.) —J.R.

52.

Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams

timmie-cee.tumblr.com

The theory that 9/11 was an inside job, as evidenced by the fact that jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, was floated in the 2005 documentary Loose Change, which, despite being Alex Jones–level conspiracy theory, became incredibly popular on YouTube. It takes countless levels of irony to use the phrase (along with “Bush did 9/11”) as a joke. On some level, it’s not unlikely that a young person has been exposed to Loose Change or some other truther and perhaps believes it a little bit. On another level, they’re making fun of boomers and truthers who actually believe it. And then there’s the gallows humor of laughing at a tragic event that only those too young to remember could exhibit. It’s not callousness that made this a meme; it’s a reaction to the noxious conspiracy theories that flourish online and the disillusionment of an event that led to a war that’s lasted the entire lifetime of the young people who make the joke. —K.N.

51.

Cringe

knowyourmeme.com

True cringe is something posted in earnest, and being earnest is the enemy of internet culture in the 2010s. Irony is the online currency. Cringe as a concept started on Reddit, where r/cringepics and a YouTube-focused version posted awkward and embarrassing earnest photos and videos taken from social media. R/CringeAnarchy, a more cruel board that tended to make fun of women and minorities, was banned in 2019 by Reddit (other forms of cringe boards are still active).

“Cringe” became a catchall for something embarrassing and uncool. Hillary Clinton tweeting in meme-speak was cringe. Your old LiveJournal is cringe. BuzzFeed is cringe. Everyone has posted cringe; it’s universal, and that’s why we’re so obsessed with it. —K.N.

49.

Drake/”Hotline Bling”

imgflip.com

Drake has been a massively popular and famous rapper for the entire decade, and there’s always been memes about pop stars. But Drake has managed to be more memeable than his musical peers, except for maybe Kanye West. There’s been the “In My Feelings” dance challenge, where people dance out the side of a moving car to his 2018 hit, the “hope no one heard that” lyric from “Marvins Room,” Drake’s myriad of faces and expressions while he watches basketball games, images of his character from Degrassi: The Next Generation, and the handwritten scrawl of the cover art for his album If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late.

But it’s the video for “Hotline Bling” that was memed a million times. The Day-Glo colors and goofy dancing made for perfect GIFable moments. The meme was nearly killed when Donald Trump danced to it on Saturday Night Live, but a version managed to live on: Drake shaking his finger to one thing, and smiling in acceptance to another thing. —K.N.

48.

Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life”

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“Bring Me to Life” is like the goth cousin of “All Star.” It works for the same reason. It’s from that ridiculous Ben Affleck Daredevil movie. It has a call and response. Its sadder lyrics definitely fit my general mood about all of life right now. Also, Amy Lee can sing! This song is a genuine banger. When is the Evanescaissance coming? —R.B.

47.

Ryan Gosling

feministryangosling.tumblr.com

Hey, girl. Ryan Gosling was more than just a Hollywood heartthrob in the 2010s — he was also the basis of multiple memes. First came the Tumblr “Feminist Ryan Gosling,” in which photos of the actor were superimposed with quotes that mixed feminist texts with shit your imaginary hot-yet-sensitive boyfriend might say (this was 2011, so the sheer concept of a man openly calling himself a feminist was still a Big Deal and kind of a pantydropper, which is bleak in retrospect!!).

On a completely different note, the actor became an online sensation again in 2013. In the Vine series “Ryan Gosling Won’t Eat His Cereal,” creator Ryan McHenry would feed real-life spoonfuls of cereal to an onscreen Gosling, who would “reject” the bite by turning away or appearing to slap away the spoon during intense movie moments. In 2015, McHenry died of cancer when he was just 27 — and in his memory, Gosling made a Vine of himself actually eating cereal. —J.R.

46.

ASMR

me drinking iced coffee on an empty stomach knowing it’s going to make me feel like shit

05:00 PM – 11 Aug 2018

One of the decade’s hottest trends was getting a bunch of tingles down your spine. Among the biggest genres on Youtube, “autonomous sensory meridian response” videos usually involve people whispering, tapping on a glass, or even crunching on pickles straight from the jar. For some, the sounds provoke a sensory response that feels extremely calming and euphoric, and may help listeners go to sleep. Though many had long experienced the strange tingly feeling, it wasn’t until recently that people knew what to call it. Following conversations on message boards about the nameless sensation, a woman named Jennifer Allen coined the term in 2010 and made a Facebook group in its name.

From there, it entered the popular consciousness, becoming gradually more well-known over the decade. Many enjoyed it in earnest, but it also was widely parodied. There were celebrity ASMR videos, and ASMR creators became YouTube celebs in their own right. One of the biggest ones, a teen girl named Makenna Kelly, became the basis for a ton of memes. Some of these YouTubers became famous for their funnier themed ASMR videos, such as “1300s A.D. ASMR: Nun Takes Care of You in Bed (You Have the Plague).”

Self-care and wellness were major buzzwords in the 2010s, which helped popularize the relaxing videos. But perhaps the most interesting part is how social media helped many people name the bizarre neurological phenomenon they’d experienced their whole lives and find out they weren’t alone. —J.R.

45.

Cropped Gay Porn

Instagram: @http://bit.ly/2ElyLuw

Porn! It’s the central driving force of the internet (see #13). So much of the web culture created in this last decade has been defined by an explosion of diverse and global points of view suddenly entering the mainstream (and the conflicts that sometimes rise up when that happens). So it makes sense that most defining porn meme of the 2010s is cropped gay porn. It’s cheeky, it’s wildly inappropriate, and, fuck, it was so big. The meme really climaxed with the “Right in front of my salad” clip, where two adult film actors interrupt a woman peacefully eating her salad by having sex behind the kitchen counter. It’s sort of nice to think that no matter how crazy things get, there’s one thing that can still bring us all together online, and that’s porn. —R.B.

44.

Cash Me Ousside

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Imagine you’re Dr. Phil. Having helped families and individuals through countless crises on your television show, you’re feeling pretty good about your abilities. There is nothing you, a couch, and a camera can’t fix. Then one day, a 13-year-old Floridian named Danielle Bregoli comes on set and rocks your world. After she calls your audience a bunch of hoes, you repeat the accusation, just making sure you heard right. When she confirms, the audience goes berserk, and Bregoli gets upset. You hear her say “Cash me ousside, howbow dah?” five magical words used to challenge the audience to a fight. The phrase lives on in infamy. And now you, Dr. Phil, are part of one of the decade’s greatest memes. —Alex Kantrowitz

43.

Spider-Man Pointing at Spider-Man

ABC / MARVEL

It’s simple: Spider-Man points at another Spider-Man. What’s not to get. It’s us, looking at ourselves. Iconic. —K.N.

42.

Nickelback

youtube.com

The Canadian band has miraculously remained untouched by the trend of critical reassessment and appreciation of pop music. They occupy an uncanny valley of being wildly popular AND wildly reviled by anyone who considers themselves a person of taste. For a while, they occupied a space as the punchline to something bad (there was a time in 2014 where you could use a Facebook graph search to find which of your friends “liked” Nickelback and unfriend them).

But it was the still from the video for “Photograph” where singer Chad Kroeger holds up a photo, along with the memorable lyric “look at this photograph,” that blew up in the second half of the decade. The meme ultimately died when President Donald Trump tweeted a version where the photo Kroeger holds is of Joe Biden golfing with his son and another American who also served on the board of a Ukrainian company at the center of the impeachment inquiry. Nickelback’s label filed a copyright claim, and the video has been removed from Trump’s tweet. —K.N.

41.

Rebecca Black

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It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday! In 2011, then–13-year-old Rebecca Black made her debut with “Friday,” and looking forward to the weekend was never again the same. The music video went enormously viral, but it was widely dubbed the “worst song ever.”

Still, it was also a hit, and the song debuted at No. 72 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was covered on Glee, and Black even appeared as herself in Katy Perry’s music video for “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).” Two years later, Black got in on the joke, releasing a sequel to “Friday” — named, of course, “Saturday.” Whether you think “Friday” slaps or is a nightmare, I’d bet you anything you’ll know all the words until you die. —J.R.

40.

“Come to Brazil”

diorc.tumblr.com

If you’ve ever clicked through on a tweet from any sort of celebrity, chances are you’ve seen the phrase “come to Brazil” written over and over in the replies. According to Know Your Meme, the first time the phrase was tweeted at a celebrity was April 2008. Then, when Justin Beieber joined Twitter in 2009, it exploded in popularity. I once asked some members of BuzzFeed Brazil why exactly it was such a common occurrence among Brazilian internet users. I was told the answer is actually pretty simple — American musicians rarely tour Brazil. But to really best understand why Brazilians mass-send it though, on a deeper level, you probably need to know the concept of “zuera,” Brazilian slang for “zoeira” which means “heavy fun.” It basically means that moment when a meme becomes a meme and spirals completely out of control. COME TO BRAZIL, MIGAAA. —R.B.

Guns or glitter? Touchdowns or tutus? One of the most inescapable party themes of the 2010s was that of the gender reveal. At gender-reveal parties, expecting parents and their loved ones gather to find out what kind of genitals their unborn child will have. This is often accomplished by cutting a cake, with pink or blue frosting revealing whether it was a boy or a girl.

Party planners tried to one-up each other, sometimes executing the big reveal using explosives — which, as you might guess, often had disastrous results. In 2018, a father-to-be accidentally ignited a wildfire in Arizona. The following year, a grandmother was killed in an explosion, and there was even a gender-reveal plane crash.

As our understanding of gender (and how it was not the same thing as sex) evolved over the decade, so did criticism and mockery of gender-reveal parties. And some people had changes of heart; in 2019, Jenna Karvunidis, the lifestyle blogger who had the first viral gender reveal in 2008, criticized the parties, which she said put “more emphasis on gender than has ever been necessary for a baby.” She added, “PLOT TWIST, the world’s first gender-reveal party baby is a girl who wears suits!” —J.R.

38.

*tips fedora*

Twitter: @MoonOverlord

One of the most magical things about the internet is when we all collectively realize something is a thing. For instance, sometime between 2010 and 2012, everyone on the internet realized that every town has a couple weird guys who wear fedoras, trench coats, fingerless gloves, have terrible facial hair, and talk to women like they’re 12th-century knights. Long before these dudes turned into violent incels, there was just a really nice moment where we could all agree that these dudes were goofy and awful and fun to rag on. Swag is for boys; class is for gentlesirs, m’lady. —R.B.

37.

This Is the Future Liberals Want

36.

Ted Cruz, the Zodiac Killer

During his run for president in 2015 and 2016, a widely circulated, joking conspiracy theory accused Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of being the Zodiac Killer, the unidentified serial killer who murdered at least seven people in California between the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Cruz was born in 1970 — after the first killings — so he is probably not the Zodiac Killer, in my expert journalistic opinion. But for many people he just…seems like kind of a weird dude, right? He pretty much made the perfect candidate for a bonkers conspiracy theory about a decades-old serial killer.

It seems like Cruz got a kick out of it eventually, though. He later acknowledged the meme, tweeting an image of the Zodiac Killer’s cypher on two separate occasions. —J.R.

35.

Confused Math Lady

TV Globo

If there was one dominant theme in the 2010s, it was “I have no idea what’s going on right now.” This was expressed in a bunch of different ways, from the fact that teens and the internet curled up with increasingly obscure memes and terms meant to confuse the Olds (the boomers don’t know what “sksksksk” is) to the rise of explainer journalism like Vox or email newsletters/catch-you-up-quick news like the Skimm. We are all confused. We have no idea what’s going on. If you take the time to catch up on one story, you’ll miss what’s happening elsewhere.

Hence, Confused Math Lady, a meme featuring an actor in a Brazilan soap opera looking confused, spread on Brazilian internet. By 2016, the GIF of the confused woman became a four-panel comic with various math symbols over it, suggesting she’s trying to solve some complex calculus problem. Confused Math Lady is us, trying to understand it all. —K.N.

34.

“Old Town Road”

youtube.com

Country music fandom went mainstream in the 2010s, and with it came the rise of the “yeehaw agenda” at the end of the decade. The term described a reclamation of country aesthetics among black Americans, who have long been erased from extremely white cultural depictions of the Wild West (despite the fact that 1 in 4 cowboys were black).

The concept exploded in popularity at the end of 2018 when rapper Lil Nas X released his breakout hit “Old Town Road,” a country rap song that became one of the biggest singles of the year — only getting bigger after being disqualified from the Billboard Hot Country chart over claims that it did “not embrace enough elements of today’s country music.” In response, the artist released a remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus, practically daring critics to say it wasn’t country enough.

The song was a viral hit, and videos featuring it — particularly one of Lil Nas X surprising a bunch of elementary school superfans, and countless transformation TikToks — only boosted it more. The song broke records as the longest-running No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100, and Lil Nas X became the first openly gay black artist to win at the Country Music Awards. —J.R.

33.

American Chopper Yelling

vox.com

Paul Teutul Sr. and his son, Paulie, were the stars of American Chopper, a 2000s reality show about their custom motorcycle shop. Not infrequently, they argued. The show was popular at the time, but not particularly cool or internet-y during its run. So it was slightly surprising when in 2018, stills of a scene of an argument between father and son became a meme. The more esoteric the argument — the role of media communication in science, Lord of the Rings plot holes, linguistics — the better. Part of the joy of the meme was seeing macho men argue about anime, but also acknowledging that a lot of our online lives is over-the-top screaming arguments about trivial things. —K.N.

32.

Brands Acting Like People

At the end of the day, consumers are people. And people crave authenticity. It’s what they look for in their relationships, their entertainment, and, yes, their brands. Which is why the orange juice account pretends to have depression now, and everyone likes it, and it’s good.

05:06 PM – 04 Feb 2019

Largely inspired by the Denny’s Tumblr in 2013, brands’ tweets over the decade have steadily grown to become surreal, humanoid, and Extremely Online. As the companies tried to figure out how to navigate their role in online spaces, there were missteps (who could forget the SpaghettiOs tweet about Pearl Harbor, or the time DiGiorno used a hashtag about domestic violence to make a pizza joke?). Eventually, many came into their own with genuinely fun and bonkers tweets, with MoonPie, Steak-umm, and Wendy’s being standouts. But in early 2019, things kind of jumped the shark when SunnyD just really went for it with a full-on depression tweet.

“I can’t do this anymore,” SunnyD tweeted in February. Immediately, all the other memey brand accounts got in on it, basically staging an intervention for the orange drink brand in crisis. “Hey sunny can I please offer you a hug we are gonna get through this together my friend,” Pop-Tarts tweeted. “Buddy come hangout,” tweeted Corn Nuts. It was pretty bleak, and many saw it as making light of mental illness and suicide. Most recently, brands started, uh, acting horny, in a nightmare Twitter thread started by Netflix. Who knows what other horros we’ll see in 2020? Brands! —J.R.

31.

Arthur’s Fist

The children’s show Arthur turned 20 in 2016, and with it came a ton of Arthur memes. But none had nearly as much staying power as a still image of Arthur’s clenched fist. Just a flat cartoon image of an aardvark’s curled-up hand, it somehow embodied such passion, such fury, that the meme became instantly relatable. —J.R.

30.

Florida Man

Florid Man Charged With Assault With a Deadly Weapon After Throwing Alligator Through Wendy’s Drive-Thru Window http://bit.ly/2Ppcn9P

11:48 PM – 08 Feb 2016

A meme that mocks someone’s shoes might seem to be more mean-spirited than other memes of the decade. It’s a catchphrase to laugh at someone for wearing ugly footwear, after all. But the most effective examples of the meme, including the Instagram video (and then Vine) that started it all, are always about punching up — taking a small shot at someone more powerful, like a teacher, a celebrity, or even Jesus.

But like “on fleek” and other viral catchphrases and memes, the “what are those” meme spread without any control from its creator, Brandon Moore. In a 2018 interview with HuffPost, Moore said that he “felt sick” when he heard his catchphrase in the movie Black Panther, because it was a reminder of how he had missed a chance to copyright or watermark his video and had seen his creative work monetized by others without him benefitting at all. Six months after the interview, Moore died in his sleep at age 31. —K.N.

28.

Kanye West

Twitter: @kanyewest (deleted)

Is Kanye West a meme? Is he a collection of memes? Is he the original material that gets remixed into memes? Is he all of these things? Perhaps. Kanye’s “Imma Let You Finish” moment happened in September 2009, but was still humming along by the time the decade started (the internet was slower then). For a while, his Twitter account was an endless source of internet content: “I hate when I’m on a flight and I wake up with a water bottle next to me like oh great now I gotta be responsible for this water bottle.” Damn. Huge mood. And then, of course, like many memes, he went full MAGA after the election of Donald Trump. For much of the decade, it seemed like all of culture either flowed from or through West. Based on the reviews for his newest album, Jesus Is King, and the general lack of buzz around his Sunday Service project, that might be something we’re leaving in 2010s. Although, he did just bless us with Silver Kanye, so who knows really. —R.B.

27.

Dat Boi

ppt.wz51z.com

In the same way that a bunch of the X-Men are all blue for some reason, the internet really likes green frogs. Sadly for Dat Boi, he hasn’t had the same staying power as Pepe or Kermit. The version of Dat Boi that we all know was first posted in April 2016. In many ways, he’s the last meme specifically from Tumblr — a nice, wholesome shitpost featuring a picture stolen from an AP physics textbook that doesn’t really make any sense but is just kind of funny. Dat Boi, in my opinion, is the platonic ideal of a meme: It’s funny, it works as a cute little wink for superusers, it doesn’t make a lot sense, and it disappears before getting turned into some dumb brand tweet. —R.B.

26.

Harambe

On May 28, 2016, a gorilla who went by Harambe was fatally shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after attacking a 3-year-old boy who had climbed into the enclosure.

The incident absolutely dominated the news cycle, and it quickly spawned a ton of memes. People made videos of Harambe’s banger of a funeral, paid homage in their yearbook photos, and even painted street art in his memory. All across the land, dicks were out for Harambe.

It’s more than a little dark for a dead gorilla and an injured toddler to become meme fodder, but that’s exactly what happened. Harambe memes should not be funny, which means they totally, always will be. —J.R.

25.

Damn Daniel

View this video on YouTube

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High schooler Josh Holz loved taunting his friend Daniel Lara by following him around, filming him, and commenting on his sneakers. When he compiled the videos and tweeted it, the world loved hearing a creepy voice saying “Damn, Daniel, back at it again with the white Vans.” The teens boys went on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and received a lifetime supply of Vans. In 2019, both Daniel and Josh are in college. Josh is studying fashion and works for, you guessed it, Vans. —K.N.

24.

Tiffany Pollard

Vh1

A still of Tiffany Pollard, best known as New York from the VH1 dating show Flavor of Love, lying on a bed in her clothes, hands folded in her lap, sunglasses on, seeming to stew in quiet anger, became a meme in 2015 and continued for the rest of the decade. In an interview with BuzzFeed News, Pollard described what she was actually feeling in that moment: “I just remember being so alone, so pissed off; I wanted to get away from those girls … I was really having a rough time in that moment and I think me sitting there was actually me just trying to center myself, centering myself through this bad energy I was dealing with.”

Pollard’s memeability goes beyond that one image of her lying on the bed. Her over-the-top personality is what made her a standout reality star in the ’00s, and that same quality made her perfect for reaction GIFs in the ’10s. —K.N.

22.

Blinking White Guy

Drew Scalon / giantbomb.com

One of the biggest reaction memes of the decade, the “blinking white guy” perfectly summed up when you truly just could not believe what you were seeing. The man is Drew Scanlon, and the specific blink came from a gaming video he appeared in in 2013, though it wouldn’t become a meme until early 2017. It’s a simple reaction, but it seemed to say it all at a time when the world was a confusing mess and people were feeling pretty dang incredulous a lot of the time.

“As long as they’re not mean, I don’t have a problem with the tweets,” Scanlon told BuzzFeed News in 2017. “I think we need more positivity on the internet these days.” —J.R.

21.

Minions

Universal Pictures

Ah, yes, the official mascots of every boomer’s divorce announcement Facebook post. These little bastards took over the internet with a speed that was honestly unparalleled. Their disgusting yellow bodies flooded news feeds like a DDoS attack. I think to understand exactly how the great Minionfication of the internet happened you have to separate it out into two movements. First, there were people genuinely posting Minion memes. Then came the second wave, where people started using Minion memes to make fun of the people who posted Minion memes. I’d love to say that we’re in the clear now and we can leave these beasts in the 2010s, but Minions: The Rise of Gru is coming out on July 3, 2020, so get ready, everyone. —R.B.

20.

Milkshake Duck

The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the duck is racist

08:07 AM – 12 Jun 2016

Coined by @pixelatedboat, a milkshake duck is some person or entity that enjoys a viral moment and then is swiftly exposed as problematic. The ultimate example was Ken Bone, a man in a distinctive red sweater and mustache who asked a question during a presidential town hall debate in 2016 — who after becoming the meme of the night, was discovered to have a spicy sexual Reddit user history. Cancel culture may not be real, but milkshake ducking certainly is. —K.N.

19.

Gavin

Twitter: @gavinthomas

There’s a good chance you know Gavin’s face even if you don’t know Gavin’s name. It’s sort of incredible to include Gavin Thomas on this list because he was literally born in 2010 at the start of the decade. He first went viral when his uncle Nick Mastodon started putting him in Vines. Gavin really solidified himself as a meme when he turned 5 years old. Suddenly, he was everywhere. He had this extremely relatable confused grimace that really seemed to capture the zeitgeist in 2015 and 2016 (not totally sure what was going on at the time that would explain why). He’s 9 years old now and has a million followers on Instagram. For all the cautionary tales out there about what life after being a meme is like, so far it seems like Gavin’s doing all right. His family seems to be looking after him and, more bizarrely, it also feels like the internet at large is looking after him. He grew up on social media, and it does feel like we’re all invested in making sure he ends up OK. —R.B.

18.

Shrek

Dreamworks / reddit.com

Even though the first Shrek came out in 2001, it took a few years for the internet to really embrace the green Scottish ogre. Ever since, it feels like he’s buzzed just below the surface of mainstream internet culture — always there, always talking about onions. My theory as to why he’s stayed so popular? Aside from maybe a postmodern riff on the extreme overcommercialization of children’s entertainment (see Minions), I think there’s actually something really relatable about a big, fat ogre who doesn’t want to leave his swamp. It’s the perfect metaphor for being online. —R.B.

17.

“Do It for the Vine”

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Vine shut down on my birthday, and because of that, I’ve always felt a weirdly intimate connection to Vine. A good friend once told me he thought of a Vine as one sentence in the visual grammar of video. Everything you need to convey one idea in a video you could do in a six-second Vine. It was a revolution and you could argue it has had a more profound legacy on how we create and share videos than bigger platforms like YouTube or Netflix. For a long time, I, like many people, believed that Vine was shut down too soon. Now, I think it actually shut down exactly when it should. Social networks probably shouldn’t last! It’s weird that we still use Twitter.

The phrase “do it for the Vine” comes from a song created by YouTuber Kaye Trill and it immediately became the anthem of a summer full of people doing extremely outrageous things. Many of the original great “do it for the Vine” posts have been deleted, sadly. But, luckily, we’ll always have the YouTube compilations. —R.B.

16.

Real Housewives

Bravo / Instagram: @smudge_lord

Memes are often tied to some technological advance, such as the six-second looping video or the quote-tweet format. At the start of the decade, animated GIFs were actually hard to make. You needed Photoshop, which is expensive and hard to use. Sourcing high-quality video to turn into a GIF was also harder. In a pre-Giphy world, truly good animated GIFs were prized and hoarded, saved in folders on a desktop to use in reactions. On Tumblr, the main source of GIFs, there was a vast gulf between the number of users actually making GIFs and the amount of people reposting them. One of the early and prolific makers of high-quality reaction GIFs was the RealityTVGIFS.tumblr.com, made by a man named T. Kyle McMahon (who now works for Bravo), who pumped out GIF after GIF from the Bravo universe, particularly the Real Housewives series. Because of the format of the show, where the women were literally asked to react directly to the camera, the Housewives were perfect for emotional reaction GIFs.

The enduring power of the Real Housewives through the decades was proven in 2019 by the popularity of an image of an early season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, where one Housewife is yelling while another holds her back, juxtaposed with a white cat named Smudge scowling at a dinner table. —K.N.

15.

The Joker

The Joker obviously existed long before social media, but the character’s glee-filled take on chaotic nihilism has, for better or worse, become inseparable from how we imagine a very specific kind of kind internet user: angry, insular, often violent, male.

Over the last decade, a symbiotic relationship has evolved between new Hollywood iterations of the Joker and the internet’s digital underbelly. Starting in 2008, Heath Ledger’s anarchist, anti-capitalist Joker became the unofficial mascot of 4chan’s Anonymous hacktivist movement. The idea of a nameless grungy psychopath burning piles of dirty money, throwing a city into chaos to satisfy his twisted rage, was a perfect avatar for a generation of Occupy-adjacent millennials graduating into a global economic recession and harnessing technology to claw back control of their own lives. Jared Leto’s 2016 take on the Joker, even though none of them would ever admit it, mirrored the rise of Gamergate somewhat perfectly, giving the world a sniveling misogynist covered in face tattoos, singularly focused on controlling the anatomy of Suicide Squad’s standout woman character Harley Quinn. All the clown prince was missing was a vape to better embody late millennial toxic masculinity. So it’s fitting, then, that we close out the decade with Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker, a chain-smoking, self-described mentally ill loner who hijacks mainstream media via an act of extreme violence and sets off a reactionary protest movement.

The Joker isn’t always a serious meme, like with the most recent Joker film giving us the scene of Phoenix dancing down a flight of stairs in Harlem. Instead, it’s something closer to SpongeBob, a visual and emotional language we use to express a part of ourselves online. As for whether the Joker will continue to evolve alongside social media, well, there are rumors already circulating of another Phoenix-led Joker film, so it’s likely he’s not going away anytime soon. —R.B.

14.

Why You Lyin’

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

The beauty of Nicholas Fraser’s Vine in his backyard singing “Why you always lyin’” over the music of “Too Close” by Next is that it makes no sense for why it exists. Why is his shirt open? Why is there a toilet in the yard? Who is lying and why is he so seemingly happy about accusing someone of lying? And yet, it turns out 2015 was the right moment for this meme to exist and serve as the perfect totem for the impending post-truth internet. Now, replying with a screenshot of Fraser’s smiling face is internet shorthand for “this is a lie.” —K.N.

13.

Being Horny

.@tedcruz my young daughters and sons follow you for good wholesome content can you please explain this???

04:40 AM – 12 Sep 2017

If you think about it, being horny is like when content trends before it becomes a meme (sex is the meme). And whether it’s Ted Cruz faving a porn tweet on 9/11 or Kurt Eichenwald screenshotting Chrome tabs full of hentai, if someone is online long enough, they will be caught being horny and it will be embarrassing. The only silver lining is that it can happen to any of us. My hope for the next decade is that we all just accept that most of the time people are online, they’re also probably looking at pornography or sexting with each other. That’s what this whole thing was made for! Horny users of the web, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! —R.B.

12.

Distracted Boyfriend

Stock photo memes had a moment in 2017, but none became as big or enduring as the one that became known as “Distracted Boyfriend.” The photo depicted a man checking out a woman while his own girlfriend glared at him with disgust. It quickly became a meme, though photographer Antonio Guillem told the Guardian at the time he “didn’t even know what a meme [was] until recently.” The photo has now been around a few years, but it’s still a classic, popping up as a meme pretty often and perfectly embodying so many emotions: deception, distraction, heartbreak, loss, and hope. —J.R.

11.

Doge

shibaconfessions.tumblr.com

The only meme of the decade to inspire an actually used form of blockchain currency, Doge was a breath of fresh air in 2013 when people were starting to feel burned out about what the first iteration of what “memes” were. “Memes” now means something different — funny tweets screenshotted and posted to Instagram, or absurd teen humor. But in a darker, earlier time, “memes” were something like rage comics or the Forever Alone Guy. They took themselves seriously in a sense, and were the domain of redditors or angry 4chan guys, or something a brand used in a Super Bowl ad to seem relevant. Then, a friendly Shiba Inu appeared with funny language and words around him, just being amused and delighted by the world. This wasn’t FFFFUUUUUUU, it was such wow. Doge was here to make us happy. Of course by now, the phrase “such wow” is cringey and outdated, but it had a good long run. —K.N.

10.

Kermit

Lipton Tea

The lovable green amphibian became one of the most memeable nonhuman characters of the decade, next to perhaps only SpongeBob and Shrek. Two massive memes, Kermit sipping tea and Evil Kermit, earned the Muppet his place in meme Valhalla, and made a bunch of smaller memes (Sad Kermit puppet, Kermit in the car) take off. There’s something deeply funny about children’s characters behaving like naughty adults, by the idea of Kermit having shady opinions about others while he sips his tea or encouraging you to do something dangerous or sexual or drug-related. Part of the joy of Kermit memes is that everyone knows Kermit; he’s not obscure or niche. And yet someone, the official Twitter account for Good Morning America to be precise, called the Kermit-sipping-tea meme “tea lizard.” —K.N.

9.

Reaction GIFs

NBC / Via giphy.com

It’s hard to remember a time when reaction GIFs weren’t ubiquitous, but they really rose to prominence in 2012 with the launch of the Tumblr blog #whatshouldwecallme. The blog posted GIFs paired with ~relatable~ captions — for example, the GIF of Homer Simpson disappearing into the bushes, captioned, “When I’m in an argument with someone and realize I’m completely wrong.” This blog was a huge deal at the time, inspiring countless spinoffs, particularly at colleges. Though it was a pretty fresh meme format at the time, #whatshouldwecallme posts just look a lot like the way we communicate online today. —J.R.

8.

Guy Fieri

Fun fact: Guy Fieri is so ubiquitous and embedded in the language of American social media that we basically got to the very end of making this list and realized he didn’t have his own entry, even though he’s referenced throughout. Becoming a meme these days is pretty easy: You do something or appear in a piece of media, people latch onto it because of some innate and relatable reason, and voilà, you’re viral. But to stay a meme is a much harder feat. Usually it involves a bizarre and inexplicable alchemy of having chaotic high/low culture energy and a total lack of self-awareness. Memes can’t know they’re memes. Guy Fieri is embodiment of this. He looks like a failed ‘90s energy drink marketing campaign, he drives around in convertibles eating absolute garbage (he literally has a recipe for nachos made in a trash can) and seemingly cannot fathom that his entire persona is ridiculous. Even when he does lean into his memeness, he still doesn’t really seem to get it, like with his recent Baby Yoda photoshop. Whether Gen Z continues to latch on to the Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives host is unclear. Only time will tell whether or not Flavortown can survive the ages. —R.B.

7.

The Dress

Cecilia Bleasdale

“Black and blue or white and gold?” was the question that seemingly everyone on earth was asking on one day in early 2015. A woman in Scotland showed her friends a photo her mother took of a dress she planned to wear to a wedding, and a friend of the woman posted it to Tumblr, asking for help — “what colors are this dress?” She submitted it as a question to BuzzFeed’s Tumblr, and former BuzzFeed employee Cates Holderness reposted it to our account. From there, it blew up as a fun visual gag that was infuriating and odd.

The Dress was posted to BuzzFeed the same day two llamas escaped in Arizona, and a live TV police chase of the two animals enthralled the internet as adorable mayhem broke out. In retrospect, that two such happy, carefree, unproblematic things took over the internet on the same day seems like wild serendipity. It also feels like the last day the internet felt purely joyful, before the onslaught of the 2016 election took place and things took a darker turn.

The dress is, indeed, black and blue, even though over two thirds of the millions of BuzzFeed readers who voted said they thought it was white and gold. In 2018, a similar sensory illusion, this time auditory, went viral over whether a voice was saying “yanny” or “laurel.” But somehow, the special feeling just wasn’t there again; it felt like trying to recreate some old magic that was lost, like kids who have graduated hanging back at high school. —K.N.

6.

“This Is Fine” Dog

K.C. Green / Via kcgreendotcom.com

The dog engulfed in flames, denying that anything is wrong, is from a 2013 webcomic Gunshow by K.C. Green. In the full comic, the dog’s face eventually melts, while he continues to drink his coffee and insist he’s OK, but the version that became a symbol of the decade is just the first two panels where he says “this is fine.”

The meme has been used a lot to describe various political situations: The official @GOP Twitter used it once, and a senator even described the comic on the House floor while describing how Russian election interference was not fine. But the staying power of the dog is about how we all grin and bear it through everything that’s happened over this decade that feels like the house is on fire — the climate crisis, elections, the disappointing last season of Game of Thrones. There is nothing that captures the 2010s more than “this is fine” dog. —K.N.

5.

Smash Mouth’s “All Star”

me.me

Like Shrek, Smash Mouth’s “All Star” is another one of those millennial nostalgia points that has evolved into something bigger than itself thanks to the internet. It’s lasted for several reasons: One, it’s just a damn good song; two, the lead singer of Smash Mouth looks like Guy Fieri; three, it was on the Shrek soundtrack; four, it’s a cheery song about how shit everything is — which is exactly how it feels to be online. —R.B.

What makes “on fleek” a crucial meme for understanding the 2010s is not simply why the meme was catchy, but what happened to the meme after it left the hands of its creator and what that says about the commercialization and monetization of memes — i.e., who gets paid and who gets credit. Kayla Newman, who goes by Peaches Monroee online, was a teen when she posted a Vine musing that her eyebrows were “on fleek” because she thought she looked good. The Vine caught on because it’s simple and fun and enjoyable. Soon, brands were using the phrase on their social media. IHOP tweeted “pancakes on fleek.” Denny’s tweeted “Hashbrowns on fleek.” JetBlue and Taco Bell also used it, and the phrase all of a sudden seemed inescapable in marketing. Corporations were using Newman’s invention of a phrase without giving her any credit or compensation.

In the Fader, Doreen St. Félix wrote how “on fleek” is an example of an endless trend of black teenagers creating the memes, lingo, and jokes that make up internet culture, and how those black teens are often uncredited and don’t profit when brands use their creative works. This is in contradiction to a handful of white teens who also went viral around the same time: The “Damn, Daniel” boys got free Vans and appearances on talk shows; the Walmart yodeling boy got a record deal, as did Danielle Bregoli, the “cash me ousside” girl.

In 2017, Newman started a GoFundMe campaign to launch a beauty line, but it only raised around $17,000 of the $100,000 she was hoping for. In a 2017 interview with Teen Vogue, Newman said if she had known the phrase would catch on like it did, she would’ve been more aggressive about it, adding that she was trying to trademark the phrase. —K.N.

3.

Pepe the Frog

Matt Furie

None of us wanted to write about Pepe. What’s even left to be said about him that hasn’t been said already? He started as a chill frog in a 2008 comic by artist Matt Furie. He then became a consistent, but largely forgettable fixture of 4chan in the early part of the decade. The first time I saw him was in a meme that read, “We are the middle children of history. Born too late to explore Earth, born too early to explore space.” I thought it was pretty funny. Sometimes he’d be in memes about blasting the toilet bowl with piss to clean it. He’s something different now — a literal hate symbol that is still being used by far-right extremists and white nationalists.

In the course of his transition from slacker goof to hate symbol, he’s taught us a lot about symbols — not just how the internet works — but he’s also maybe revealed something deeper about how symbols work. Furie has famously tried to litigate Pepe away from fascists, but it hasn’t really worked. Pepe’s effectively theirs now. It’s a grim, but important reminder that all culture can be hacked and warped and poisoned. All speech, online and off, is political. And all symbols, even chill frogs, require protection and upkeep. Feels bad, man. —R.B.

2.

Crying Jordan

Stephan Savoia / AP

Michael Jordan wept during his 2009 induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, but it wasn’t until at least 2012 that the still of his face, red-eyed with tears streaming down both cheeks, became a meme. It started with sports fans but soon spread to become an enduring and universal image for faux sadness. It’s a bit of an anomaly for a celebrity photo meme; Michael Jordan isn’t particularly memey otherwise, and although he was one of the biggest celebrities in the world in the ’90s, he hasn’t been in the spotlight this decade. Perhaps his role in the movie Space Jam has lent him some level of internet irony that makes the meme so satisfying. Jordan has said through a spokesperson that he doesn’t mind the popularity of the meme, so long as it’s not used for commercial purposes. However, his former teammate and friend Charles Oakley did tell TMZ that Jordan actually isn’t amused. That feeling Jordan may have — a moment of vulnerable emotion being plastered all over the internet for laughs — of course would be best depicted by, well, the Crying Jordan meme. —K.N.

1.

SpongeBob

Nickelodeon / dearnville.tumblr.com

Did anything result in as many memes in the 2010s as SpongeBob? The show, which started in 1999 and is still going 20 years later, is so deeply entrenched in pop culture it would be hard to count how many memes have come out of it. But let’s try: There’s been caveman SpongeBob, mocking SpongeBob, tired naked SpongeBob, “ight Imma head out” SpongeBob, traveling SpongeBob, Krusty Krabs vs. Chum Bucket, evil Patrick, blurry Mr. Krabs, sleeping Squidward, and so many more.

The meme’s staying power can be attributed to a few things. It was an enormously popular show with a nearly universal sense of nostalgia for millennials and Gen Z’ers, who are the most prolific of meme creators. The simple art and animation style also beget some of the most instantly understandable reaction memes. May SpongeBob memes continue to prosper until [SpongeBob narrator voice] one eternity later. —J.R.

CORRECTION

Dec. 14, 2019, at 19:59 PM

T. Kyle MacMahon’s name was misstated in an earlier version of this post.

Drake starred in Degrassi: The Next Generation. An earlier version of this post misstated which Degrassi series he was on.

Sahred From Source link Technology

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Vogue apologizes for misidentifying activist Noor Tagouri as a Pakistani actress

‘Vogue’ issued an apology after misidentifying activist Noor Tagouri. (Photo: Twitter/voguemagazine)

Journalist, activist and speaker Noor Tagouri had been anticipating a life-changing feature in American Vogue after finding out months ago that she’d be included in the magazine’s February issue. But when she came across the publication on the shelves of John F. Kennedy International Airport on Thursday, she turned the pages to find her photo and instead saw an upsetting mistake — the Libyan American had been misidentified as Pakistani actress Noor Bukhari.

Tagouri took to Instagram to post a video of her reaction, where followers can sense her inevitable disappointment. Although she’s excited to simply see her face within the famous magazine’s pages at first, Tagouri expression quickly turns when she notices the misprint.

“I’m so heartbroken and devastated,” Tagouri wrote. “I have been misrepresented and misidentified multiple times in media publications — to the point of putting my life in danger. I never, ever expected this from a publication I respect so much and have read since I was a child.”

View this post on Instagram

I’m SO heartbroken and devastated. Like my heart actually hurts. I’ve been waiting to make this announcement for MONTHS. One of my DREAMS of being featured in American @VogueMagazine came true!! We finally found the issue in JFK airport. I hadn’t seen the photo or the text. Adam wanted to film my reaction to seeing this for the first time. But, as you can see in the video, I was misidentified as a Pakistani actress named Noor Bukhari. My name is Noor Tagouri, I’m a journalist, activist, and speaker. I have been misrepresented and misidentified MULTIPLE times in media publications – to the point of putting my life in danger. I never, EVER expected this from a publication I respect SO much and have read since I was a child. Misrepresentation and misidentification is a constant problem if you are Muslim in America. And as much as I work to fight this, there are moments like this where I feel defeated.

A post shared by Noor Tagouri نور التاجوري (@noor) on Jan 17, 2019 at 5:35am PST

Tagouri goes on to point out that misidentification is “a constant problem if you are Muslim in America,” and is among the obstacles that she continually faces through her work as an activist. With this latest incident, she wrote that she feels “defeated.” Still, she continued the conversation on Twitter in order to educate people on what had just taken place. Tagouri even posted an email she sent to Vogue to ensure that there wouldn’t be an issue with mislabeling.

I feel sick. This isn’t the first time this has happened – but this is print. it’s Vogue.

I was so excited to share this w my younger sisters — bc 13 year old me would have been ECSTATIC to see someone who looked like her in Vogue.

Only to realize there is so much work to do.

— Noor (@NTagouri) January 17, 2019

We even sent this email to @voguemagazine last week bc we this isn’t the first time I’ve been misidentified in publications. Got no response. pic.twitter.com/G5YVzSozqd

— Noor (@NTagouri) January 17, 2019

Soon thereafter, Vogue issued an apology on its social media channels.

“We were thrilled at the chance to photograph Tagouri and shine a light on the important work she does, and to have misidentified her is a painful misstep,” the post reads. “We also understand that there is a larger issue of misidentification in media—especially among nonwhite subjects.”

View this post on Instagram

In the February issue of Vogue the writer and activist Noor Tagouri (@noor) was misidentified in a caption as “actor, director, and model Noor Bukhari.” We are sincerely sorry for the mistake. We were thrilled at the chance to photograph Tagouri and shine a light on the important work she does, and to have misidentified her is a painful misstep. We also understand that there is a larger issue of misidentification in media—especially among nonwhite subjects. We will try to be more thoughtful and careful in our work going forward, and we apologize for any embarrassment this has caused Tagouri and Bukhari.

A post shared by Vogue (@voguemagazine) on Jan 17, 2019 at 9:10am PST

People responded to the incident on Twitter, sharing their own disappointment in the publication. However, one pointed out that the incident has since allowed Tagouri to do exactly what her job entails, which is to speak out against misrepresentation.

In my opinion, this is her biggest campaign for social change yet. Unfortunately though fortunately, @NTagouri is doing her job by very nature of being a product of this incident.

— riddsta (@riddsta) January 17, 2019

Tagouri reposted the magazine’s apology and noted that people should “teach, grow, build” from these mistakes.

“It isn’t always easy,” she wrote, “but this is why we keep fighting.”

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

• ‘Do all dark-skinned black women look the same?’ New York Times under fire for mistaking Angela Bassett for Omarosa Manigault Newman • New Zealand newspaper mixes up Stan Lee and Spike Lee in obituary • Woman’s obituary deemed too ‘negative’ because it said her death was ‘hastened by her continued frustration’ with Trump

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REPOST,   DON’T REBLOG !

IM GONNA SET THIS IN MY MODERN CANON ADAPTION (so modern radio verse) AND I JUST WANNA SAY, BC I KNOW IT’S NOT ON HERE AS A QUESTION

HERB IS A REDDIT TROLL

HE’S TROLLIN’ THE TROLLS THAT TROLL TROLLS ON REDDIT

J U S T S A Y I N ‘

SOCIAL  MEDIA .

TWITTER  NAME :  PROBABLY @bigherb BC HES TERRIBLE (that’s probably taken and he’d just do a keyboard smash on the numbers to make it unique while threatening the life of whoever has it) NUMBER  OF  FOLLOWERS  ON  TWITTER : .... PROBABLY UNDER 50 LOL WHAT  DO  THEY  POST  ABOUT ?: REALLY AWFUL THINGS. like. it’s probably all just complaining tbh ??? all problematic views and complaining about how sensitive kids are these day and blah blah and PROBABLY REALLY NOT OKAY POLITICS TBH but if you dig far enough down in there you’ll find O N E tweet that’s @ lucille’s twitter that he posted on their aniversary that just says mth silly like “i love you lots gorgeous” or smth and WHY AM I GOIN OFF ABT THIS STOP ME FACEBOOK  NAME : Herbert Ruggles Tarlek the Second (BECAUSE LIKE I SAID HE’S TERRIBLE) NUMBER  OF  FACEBOOK  FRIENDS : HE’S PROBABLY ADDED EVERY CLIENT HE’S EVER HAD SO LIKE.. . OVER 1K PROBABLY also he won’t actually just add hot girls bc he feels a lil bad abt it and he’s not sure why so instead he accepts the ones from those like, bots with almost topless girls as the profile pic HE KNOWS THEY’RE NOT REAL BUT THAT’S THE POINT, IT’S JUST FOR LOOKS............................ WHAT  DO  THEY  POST  ABOUT ?:  basically the same as his twitter but worse, ALSO HE’S SUCH A DAD ON FACEBOOK, i would hate his FB page if i saw it, just saying, but redeemable qualitues include content regarding his children (CUTE LIL VIDEOS OF BUNNY & HERB THE THIRD STAB ME) INSTAGRAM  NAME :  U KNOW WHAT I BET HE ALSO MAKES THIS ONE @BIGHERB BUT HIS KEYBOARD SLAM FROM TWITTER IS T A K E N AND HES SOO MAD ABT IT he probably send whoever has that one hate mail for weeks NUMBER OF INSTAGRAM FOLLOWERS: LIKE MAYBE 40 SMTH??? WHAT  KIND  OF  PICTURES  DO  THEY  UPLOAD ?: HIS INSTA IS A TERRIBLE PLACE MADE TO MAKE HIM LOOK COOL which uncludes picures of him in front of expensive cars he does not own that are cropped just so you cant tell it’s on a lot and just generally AN ARRANGED LIFESTYLE LOL and also his face is in 89% of the pictures bc he’s vain and a prick SNAPCHAT :  tarlekchats TYPE  OF  PICTURES  THEY  UPLOAD  ON  MY  STORY :  his snapchat is probably just for his friends, like all his other social media he;s TRYINNA BE AWESOME AND COOL AND DRAW ATTN TO HIMSELF SMH but his snapchat is just given to ppl he deems friends and its like, personal stuff thats actually real, like lil videos of the kids or pictures documenting his day with mildly funny (if sometimes problematic) captions that are usually v salty (but u can sorta tell hes kinda kidding) TYPE  OF  PICTURES  THEY  UPLOAD  DIRECTLY  AT  PEOPLE : i don’t imagine he does this often but he probably will send something to his closest friends sometimes, probably pictures of like, something really ugly and the caption is just “it’s you” OR on the rare occasion of genuiness he’ll just send something to someone if it reminded him of them

MOBILE .

TYPE  OF  PHONE  THEY  OWN :  ITS ABSOLUTELY AN IPHONE, ITS THE NEWEST ONE, HE THINKS OWNING AN IPHONE MAKES HIM COOL AND BETTER THAN ANYONE WITHOUT AN IPHONE AND HALF HIS REDDIT TROLL BATTLES ARE AGAINST THOSE “ANDROID FANBOYS” AND PROVING WHY HE’S BETTER FOR HAVING AN IPHONE IM GONNA KILL HIM, 5  LATEST  PEOPLE  THAT  CALLED  HIM :  a client, lucille, a client, mr. carlson, andy WHO  WERE  THEIR  LAST  5  MISSED  CALLS  FROM : THEY’RE ALL FROM LES AND THERE MIGHT BE ONE FROM HIS DAD that he couldnt bring himself to answer bc even though he felt he SHOULD want to he didnt bc he wasnt in the mood to convince himself they have a healthy relationship bc it was like rly late bc his dads inconsiderate of timezones ?? IM GONNA SHUT UP ABT THAT NOW CUZ IT MADE ME SAD LOL LATEST  TEXT  AND  WHO  FROM :  "Can I see you in my office in five? I’m calling a meeting!” - Mr. Carlson LATEST  PICTURE  THEY  TEXTED : PROBABLY A PICTURE OF LIKE, A THING IN A STORE TO LUCILLE LIKE “is this the thing you want me to buy” BC HES C L U E L E S S and he hates grocery shopping LATEST  VIDEO  THEY  TEXTED : I RLY DONT KNOW TBH OML i dont even think he knows u can do that HES LUCKY TO TEXT PICTURES TYPE  OF  PICTURES  ON  THEIR  PHONES : MOSTLY PROBABLY THE KIDS AND LUCILE AND LIKE..... JENNIFER LOL. but he almost nver takes pictures w his phone tbh TYPE  OF  VIDEOS  ON  THEIR  PHONE : HE NEVER RLY TAKES VIDEOS OML if he did it would like be of him grilling smth bc he thinks hes Cool ANYTHING  ON  THEIR  PHONE  THEY  DON’T  WANT  PEOPLE  TO  SEE :  PROBABLY,  there’s candy crush and he makes fun of ppl who play it but he’s secretly addicted AND NO ONE CAN KNOW also there’s probably at least one inappropriate photo that was for lucille JUST SAYIN 5  MOST  USED  APPS :  reddit, browser, CANDY CRUSH (and/or angry birds tbh), A MIRROR APP, twitter WHO  THEY  CALL  MOST  OFTEN :  ITS PROBABLY LUCILLE, ASIDE FROM VARIOUS CLIENTS WHO  THEY  TEXT  MOST  OFTEN : ANDY OR BAILEY not bc he wants to but bc they’re the most Hip of his friends and they text him (and everyone else) a lot LATEST  VOICE  MESSAGE  AND  WHO  IT’S  FROM : “Herb, I know you’re hiding from Mr. Carlson, but it won’t work. I know where you are, and I want you at my desk now.” -Jennifer WEBSITES  THEY  VISIT  MOST  OFTEN : REDDIT, youtube, and ??? maybe a cheat site for candy crush LOL BACKGROUND  PICTURE  ON  THEIR  PHONE :  ITS PROBABLY A SERIES OF BROADWAY ACTRESSES, NOT BC THEY’RE HOT BUT BC HE’S A FAN OF THEIRS, BUT IT ALSO SERVES AS LOOK MY LOCKSCREEN IS WOMEN THAT ARENT MY WIFE” orrrrr ITS A PICTURE OF BUNNY

TAGGED  BY : @piper-aileen-lenox (THANK YOUUU MY DEAR OML)

TAGGING : @innocentmanwithabounty @iwillmakemystandhere @themostpowerfuleditor @annastrxng @detectiverickitubbs @deu5exmach1na IDK EVERYONE I KNOW WAS TAGGED LOL but IF U WERENT FEEL FREE TO SAY I DID AND DO IT

[wolfenm]

The Problems with Reposting

Recently someone reposted my work -- as in, downloaded it and then posted it from their computer -- on their Insta and their Twitter. I politely but firmly pointed out that they did not have my permission, that they really should reblog / retweet an artist’s work rather than repost, and asked them to take it down. They BLOCKED me without responding on Twitter. I THINK they took it down from Insta, but I'm not 100% sure it’s *their* gallery that I'm seeing (which would mean they didn’t block me there), or one with a similar name and theme, because the one I saw before had less images. Anyway, I'm betting they did indeed remove it.

To their credit, they DID @  me on both posts, which I do appreciate. I know what some of you are thinking: Wolfie, that’s like a link, and you’re getting exposure -- why are you still upset? Except it’s really not.

Keep in mind that I am not some mega-corporation -- I don't have a huge following, I don't make tons of money (practically none, really -- I do it mostly for the joy), and my work is not instantly recognisable (although, really, if a famous artist posts their work, you should hit that reblog / retweet / share button in those cases, too). And for those who are thinking, “well, posting on the internet means you give up your rights” -- NO. That is 100% false. Read these:

https://sarafhawkins.com/copyright-online-photo-etiquette/

https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/faqs/copyright-protection/

https://about.deviantart.com/policy/copyright/

Here are some of the problems with reposting instead of reblogging/etc.

1) With it reposted in someone else’s space, if I want or need to change or even take the work down ... I can’t, because I don't have access to their account. 

2) It adds a level of distance between the artists and the work, with dangerous potential for further separation. Even if the one who reposted gives the link to the artists’ site, that doesn’t guarantee that someone who then takes it from THEM will share that credit.

Once, someone took an image of my Grootmas tree, stripped my credit from the photo, and posted it on their page, saying nothing about who it was by, so as far as anyone knew, they had made it. It was shared by over a thousand people before I learned about it. I contacted the poster, and he laughed and said “You didn't make it -- it’s not yours.”) So I showed him the original, with my credit still on it (meaning it had the part of the photo that his version was missing, not just the credit) -- and he insisted that proved nothing. So I took a pic of myself with Grootmas, with a sign saying who I was. *Finally*, he conceded and took the post down, but those people who reposted it would never know who really made it.

3) Too many people only link to the parent page of the artist, not the display page of the image. For artists like myself who post on DeviantArt, if a person does actually follow the link (many do not!), they then have to hunt for the image in the gallery -- if they don't find it, we don't get the pageviews. That makes it a lot harder to judge the success of a work, because we're not aware that people are even seeing it in those cases.

4) Not everyone who sees a repost speaks the same language as the reposter. This means they may not get that the reposter isn’t the originator, and is crediting someone else in the description, rather than just tagging a friend they want to show the work to, or a client who paid for a commission, etc -- context is lost.

5) Sometimes those credits get lost by the way the social media site displays on certain devices -- people may not see the actual credit at all, as it gets hidden behind a “see more” link.

6) It’s basically stealing “likes”. I mean, if someone reblogs my work, MY numbers go up, and helps my work to be seen more. It’s pretty much the same at Twitter. But if someone ELSE posts it directly to their social media, as a separate post not connected to me, it’s only THEIR numbers that go up, THEIR exposure that increases, not mine.

Putting a lot of work into something, only to see someone else get more recognition for it than myself, doesn't exactly encourage me to make more art, ya know? If you like an indie artist’s work, SUPPORT THEM, in the best way possible: share THEIR posts. Don't take control of their work out of their hands. If you want to use it for something outside of just a simple post, GET PERMISSION.

Once, some fanzine informed me, *after* the fact, that they had used art of mine in a post of theirs, but added that they would take it down if I wanted them to. Let me say right now that, even if I had been okay with the post it was included in, I still would have been hella annoyed that it they hadn't asked permission FIRST. As it was, I was even more upset when I discovered HOW it was used: it was art of Harry and Petunia that I had done for a fanfic of mine, and they were using it as a header for a ficrec of someone ELSE’S fanfic. (Seriously?? They used my work for my story to celebrate someone *else’s* story?? HOW could that be anything but rude??) At any rate, I saw on their site that you have to fill out a form to opt *out* of your stuff being used!! Outraged, I pointed out that inclusion in their zine should be opt-IN, not opt-OUT ... and they replied that it would take too long then for them to gather content, so they wouldn't be able to share artists’ works with the world, framing it like they were doing people a favour and we should be grateful, even if we never asked them to do it. 

Don't be like that, please. You aren't loving the artists when you act like this; you’re acting entitled and using them for your own benefit.

I know, I know,  “Wolfie, you hypocrite, you do fanworks! You aren't getting permission from the original artists!” Putting aside that I tend to gravitate more towards creators who welcome and encourage fanworks than ones who don’t .... you're right, and I entirely understand if you lump me in with the very people I'm complaining about. Any justifications I make are, in the end, me rationalising and excusing, whether I’m right or not.

So what are my justifications? I'm remixing hella well-known works, often owned by corporations (ones that I likely have given more than a little money to). I'm taking something that has become part of the fabric of our society, a touchstone, and participating in the conversations about it. I’m sharing my own thoughts about the stories by framing those thoughts in the form of new stories -- save for occasional quotes, I'm not sharing the actual original text. I give credit to the originators. When I do portraits, I typically use promo art, and often compile multiple images and otherwise put my own spin in things. My brain forms the words that my versions of the characters speak, and the actions they do, and my hands lay down the lines. (And I don't sell the fanworks, but that’s a whole other discussion.) 

I don't make gifs, but yes, I do share them -- these soundless, quick scenes that are used on the internet as a form of conversation, as well as a means to  study, re-experience, and share favourite moments of a show. They’re no substitution for the real thing, In fact, I have started watching shows BECAUSE of gifsets! (And showrunners aren’t, unlike me, ever going to need or want to take down old versions -- presumably they have put forward the best version they ever expect to do. Once a work is distributed en masse, that ship has sailed.)

There is no risk whatsoever of anyone mistaking me as the creator of the franchises I make fanworks for. Everyone knows where to find the source material. Everyone SHOULD be smart enough to understand that the originators are not actually participants in fanworks; if the reader / viewer doesn't like something, they should know not to hold the originators responsible for what a fan does with their characters (and if they aren’t smart enough, gods help us; we’re doomed).

(Also, if I know that a creator has forbidden fanfic, I *respect that and don’t do it*. And as I said, some of the fandoms I indulge in have even actively welcomed fanworks, rather than simply turning a blind eye. Like, Sony sent me a bunch of stuff for being “Fanartist of the Month" for October of 2004 on their Spider-Man website, and my Iron Man / Tony Stark painting ranked #1 for a while on the movie site for the first film, and James Gunn shared my Grootmas -- yes, he reposted, but I let the content-originators slide on that point. Hell, Warner Bros actually had a fanfic thread on their Harry Potter website years ago, Rowling having given her blessing, and had files for fans to use to make fansite graphics ....)

[clarencenicholsonata]

The Comprehensive Guide to Effective Social Media Marketing

The buzz has well and truly died down.

The years in which I wrote "Top 10 Strategies to Get Facebook Likes" or lines like "social media is the future of marketing!" are in the past.

We're now in the era of "Teens Are Leaving Facebook like a Sinking Ship" and lines like "Wait, Google+ is still around?"

Does social media still offer a platform for business growth?

Can you take advantage of Facebook's 2 billion users without paying for Facebook Ads?

Can you utilize Instagram's high user engagement and demographics to drive brand awareness or, dare I say it, final sales?

This article will take an in-depth look at the most effective strategies behind five leading social media marketing objectives.

Table of Contents (Click to Jump)

Organically Generate Engagement

Build a Community of Prospective Customers

Build Positive Relationships

Drive Brand Awareness

Drive Sales

Effectively Use Social Media to Organically Generate Engagement

We've all heard the "woe-is-me" story of how, back in 2014, your organic reach was 20%, and now you're lucky to get 2%.

And we feel for you, we do.

But let's get over it.

Facebook isn't going back to the gold ol' days, and your business can't neglect the world's largest pool of prospective customers in one place. So let's move on and get what we can get.

Here are 3 Effective Strategies Proven to Boost Organic Reach on Facebook and Instagram...

#1. Use Live Video:

Video continues to hold sway on Facebook and Instagram with an average of 300% more engagement and 12x shares than text and image posts (combined!)

The reason behind this is simple: Facebook wants to rule world. That means competing with Whatsapp for messaging, Google for advertising and (most importantly for us) YouTube for video.

For more on marketing with Live Video, check out "How We Used Facebook Live Video to Grow Organic Reach 300% (+ 3 Bonus Case Studies)."

#2. Repost Proven Content:

Check out your Facebook or Instagram Insights to determine which of your previous posts did the best. Then, redesign and repost. Consider that even your top posts ever only get seen by (maybe) 10% of your Fanbase. That leaves you 90% who haven't seen your awesome content and are likely to be just as engaged as the audience was when you first posted.

Top Tip: If you have specialized content that’s more likely to be of interest to a specific type or demographic, use the Audience Optimization tool to choose a more friendly audience for that content.

#3. Post Engaging Content:

The Top 5 Post Types to Try…

Create "Tag a friend” posts

Create a quote Post

Create a "Remember When?" post

Be timely (always consider what your audience is already thinking about: holidays, sports, current events, TGIF, #Mondays, etc)

Other people's content (be selfless!)

Related Reading:

For more on this subject, check out "75 Can't Miss Tips: Build your Business with Social Media," "52 Facebook Marketing Ideas" or "200 Instagram Photos: Examples, Ideas & Resources for Your Business."

Effectively Use Social Media to Build a Community of Prospective Customers

The best way to grow your social media Following with people who have a chance of buying from you is to run a social promotion. There's just no getting around it. Here's why…

Provided you give away a prize related to your business (your product, a giftcard, etc) the only people who will enter your promotion are people interested in your product. This is way better than random Fans, some of whom are likely bots.

A promotion not only gives you new Fans and social engagements, but also gives you the contact information of those Fans. This enables you to email them and encourage a sale down the line.

A promotion is the only strategy in which you can still require people to Follow your company on social media (not Facebook, but Instagram and Twitter) in order to enter.

Here's an example of a simple Facebook promotion giving away a 6-month supply of health bars:

Place your promotion page on a Facebook Tab, and drive traffic to it from your website (with a welcome mat), your newsletter, Facebook Ads and organic postings. Ads, your welcome mat and posts will drive new traffic, while your newsletter will engage with existing customers and get the ball rolling with sharing with their friends.

For a walkthrough on creating a Facebook marketing campaign, check out my article "How to Build a Complete Facebook Marketing Campaign from Start to Finish."

Top Strategies to Get More from your Social Media Promotion:

1. Use Bonus Entry Incentives to Boost your Reach:

This is especially important if you have a large subscriber base. You'll get a lot of your entries from that, but want those existing customers to share with non-customers. This will get you more social media Fans (who you don't yet have) and the contact details of people who haven't yet bought from you.

2. Use a Leaderboard to Incentivize Sharing:

People are competitive at heart. Creating a leaderboard within your campaign is an effective incentive to get your entrants to Share.

3. Use Facebook Ads Effectively:

Facebook ads are a powerful way to drive traffic to your promotion. When optimized, you can generate new Fans and prospective customers for only around 50 cents.

Related Reading:

For more on this subject, check out "How to Use a Fan-Only Promotion to Turn Followers into Leads," "How to Create a Successful Sweepstakes (A Complete Guide for 2017)," or "How Bhu Foods Drove 35% Online Sales Growth: A Social Media Strategy Example."

Effectively Use Social Media to Build Positive Relationships

Many businesses correctly believe that social media is a place to build relationships with your prospective and existing customers. And it is.

Something lesser-known (or at least less frequently taken advantage of) is the fact that social media is also a great place to build relationships with other businesses as well.

Just as a social media promotion offers a lot of opportunity for your business to drive new Fans and social media engagement, so does a social media co-promotion offer an opportunity to generate new contacts and prospective customers.

Here's an example from a co-promotion Wishpond's running with Samcart:

Top Tips for a Social Media Co-Promotion:

Reach out to a business that has the same target market as you. The strength of a co-promotion is in the other business connecting you with their audience. If their audience is made up of pre-teen girls, and your business sells mufflers, your relationship won't be all that valuable.

Be equal partners in the promotion. If you're giving away a year's subscription to your software (valued at $1,088) be sure their half of the giveaway is of equal value.

Establish how you're going to share the work and the success. If you have a design team and landing page builder, be sure the other business writes the copy. Or, if they're slightly larger than you, offer to do all the work if they'll just contribute to the grand prize.

Save yourself time down the line. Once you've run a single campaign, use its success as a case study for your future outreach. You can also duplicate the campaign landing page and use it again (with some changes, of course).

Related Reading:

For more on this subject, check out "A Behind-the-Scenes Look at How We Generated 1,263 New Leads (With a Little Help from Our Friends)."

Effectively Use Social Media to Drive Brand Awareness

The best way to drive awareness on social media is probably "cost-per-impression" Facebook Ads. When they're well-designed, it's possible to show your brand name to more than a thousand Facebook users within your target demographic for only a few bucks.

But we're not diving into advertising in this article, so I'll fall back on the second-most-powerful way to drive brand awareness…

Influencer Marketing.

Influencer marketing is a tried-and-true strategy to get your brand in front of someone with a bit more heft than your business - someone with a few hundred thousand followers or (if not that) a lot of respect. Getting in front of them often means you get in front of their network, and that network can (as it did with us when we got a Facebook share from Mari Smith) make your servers crash...

Here's a snapshot from a Forbes article focused on Shane Miller, an artist bringing in 40% of his sales from Instagram marketing:

Miller’s ‘aha’ moment with Instagram came when he reached out to Instagram influencer Ruthie Lindsey, a friend with a large following in March 2017. “She had 90,000 followers and I asked if she’d trade a painting for a promoted post,” he says. “When we met up she brought a friend who had 1.2 million followers with her, and he liked my work and ended up showcasing it on his feed.”

Here's a step-by-step walkthrough for an optimized influencer marketing approach:

Identify a list of individual influencers, or brands, who have an audience larger than yours. Be sure their audience is the same as your target market (getting Justin Bieber to retweet you is only great if your target market is 13-year-old girls).

Determine the best way to start the approach. Engage with them on social media (follow, retweet, etc). Comment on their blog articles with intelligent questions.

Hit them with the outreach. Email or direct message with a specific request for feedback (not sharing, quite yet). Create a piece of content which they would be legitimately interested in (research to be sure they've written or talked about that subject before).

If no response, prompt them again with a "just wanted to make sure you saw this" email.

Continue your follow-up until your moral compass is awakened and you have to stop.

Related Reading:

For more on this subject, check out the "Reach Out" templates and section of "19 Proven Email Marketing Templates We Use to Sell, Nurture, Onboard, and Reach Out."

Effectively Use Social Media to Drive Sales

After all, what's the point of a million Fans and 10 milion impressions if nobody ever buys from you?

Social media is still a viable platform to drive sales, but not without a bit of thought.

There are several effective strategies for using social media to drive sales...

Turn Fans and social media users into contacts through contests, in which you require an email address for entry. Then use email to turn those contacts into sales.

Use the Facebook Shop (a tab that can be added to your Facebook Page) that lets you display and sell products. The coolest part of the Facebook Shop is that Facebook doesn't take any cut of your sales.

Use a "click to buy" tool on Instagram (like Curalate or Have2HaveIt) which enable Instagram users to quickly and easily buy the products displayed in your Posts.

Use Facebook Live Video (the easiest and most reliable way to boost organic reach on the Facebook platform, currently) to offer educational videos which also sell your products. See below for an example from Safeway.

Related Reading:

For more on this subject, check out "How to Use a Fan-Only Promotion to Turn Followers into Leads." Alternatively, check out "Instagram Posts that Drive Sales."

Final Thoughts

Hopefully this guide to effective social media marketing has given you a better idea of how to better-utilize the platforms you're already on.

The fact of the matter is that the glory days of easy social media marketing are likely over. As each platform has gotten bigger and their organization more corporate, opportunities for massive awareness or sales are harder and harder to come by.

But that doesn't mean that you can't still drive results from the hundreds of millions of users, it just requires a bit more thought, and a bit more commitment.

If you have any questions about how your business can get more out of social media, don't hesitate to reach out in the comment section below.

Related Reading:

Social Media Marketing Plan: An 11-Step Template

How to Build a Complete Facebook Marketing Campaign from Scratch

75 Can't Miss Tips: Build your Business with Social Media

How to Create a Marketing Campaign (That Actually Drives Sales)

55 Foolproof Ways to Get More Instagram Followers

15 Awesome Examples of Instagram Posts that Drive Sales

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