I see ghosts. Not headless horsemen, or any other of the famous variety. I see the ghost of myself. And it’s related to me.
Let me explain.
My sister, Beatrice, is 11, five years younger than I am. We’re close enough in
age that we’re both keyed in to what’s going on in the world (my 8-year-old
brother is still cocooned in babyish ignorance). However, the difference is
significant enough that our experiences with pop culture fads are different.
They’re staggered. You see, with the advent of social media and the concept of
“viral fame,” the shelf life of a pop-culture tenet is shorter than ever. So my
sister, still without Twitter (thank god), sees viral videos and trending memes
a little later than us highschool-ers do. Only when a meme becomes so
mainstream that it’s trickled-down to every realm of youth culture, does she see it. The result? She starts making
jokes and references right when they’re starting to get annoying. For example,
she walked into the dining room a few nights back, said “I wake up in the
morning and I dab,” and then proceeded to “hit the dab” as the young
whippersnappers say. Then, a small piece of me died. The same goes with music.
As music becomes more intertwined with social media, popular songs have become
meme-punchlines that expire with their newness. “I got broads in Atlanta,”
sings my sister while doing the dishes. “Please stop,” is all I can muster in
response.
Aside from their
obsoleteness, my sister’s pop culture interactions embarrass me on another,
deeper level. Whenever she imitates something she’s seen online, she does it
with an earnestness that makes you feel a little sorry. She has complete faith
that regurgitation of pop culture dance moves, songs, and memes will make her
cool. If it’s popular online, it must. What mortifies me is that I was the same
way. As a sixth grader, I devoured iFunny memes. They were the coolest. And the latest pop hits were always on my iPod. Did I listen to Lady Gaga?
Yes, yes I did. I was the coolest.
All told, I’ve
resigned myself to the fact that my sister is a ghost of my shameful past. So
if she could stop dabbing and Desiigner-rapping, I could at least look at
myself in the rearview mirror without feeling second-hand embarrassment. Maybe
I should censor her iPod touch.
There are some people that just won't let memes die. No matter how much they have been already overused to death some people (not even just younger kids) refuse to quit abusing it. So it is awesome when something is cool for about four days, but for the four days of cool typically a month goes on where people groan whenever they hear it used by anyone. The most obvious and somewhat recent was "Damn Daniel" where everyone with white shoes or named Daniel was told damn. After three days people were ready to move on, but no "Damn Daniel" made its way to use on TV and people of all ages who aren't really involved in what is cool. Then that causes more people to catch on and I had it up to here with Daniel and his shoes. So I hate it when a trend starts cause it always ends in a trainwreck that lasts for 5 weeks.
ReplyDeleteI also have an 11-year-old sister, but interestingly she is always jabbering about how annoying all of the other kids who overuse memes are. I do notice that they are a little later than us, as evident by the fact that she told us at the dinner table last week that all of the kids at her school were dabbing too much and she was SO mad at Michael because she sits next to him in math yada yada yada. I can also relate to the idea that some of my sister's behaviors, meme-related or otherwise, remind me of how much of an embarrassment I was in sixth grade. It's also interesting to see how meme culture has evolved since then. I don't remember anything quite as iconic or widespread as the dab permeating our sixth-grade classroom.
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