📣 i hear a sound of victory
election week in memes
You are cordially invited to this week’s brew of High Tea, your dispatch of 🔥 internet culture served piping hot. This week: Zs get comfortable with making history, we collectively apologize to Karen and YOU ABOUT TO LOSE YOUR JOB becomes our new anthem.
Drink up 🐸 ☕️
In a week where the world stage was swapped for the parking lot of a suburban garden centre and chants of “four more years” were reduced to whispers from the Four Seasons…Total Landscaping, it’s been the season finale to 2020 that we’ve all been waiting for. As per usual, TikTok and its many Gen Z meme makers has provided the narrative to the election of a lifetime, where President Elect Joe Biden (damn, that feels good to write) broke the record for most votes in history for any presidential candidate. HUUUUGE! GREAT JOB! The start of our week began on plywood TikTok, as many cities across the U.S. braced for civil unrest by boarding up the altars to capitalism (riot but make it ✨fashion✨), a trend that teens on TikTok like to brand “civil war 2.0”. It was only fitting, then, that we ended it all behind a landscaping firm sandwiched firmly between Fantasy Island (an adult bookstore) and a cemetery. At this stage, these memes write themselves. This week we’ve swapped the tea for a cup of Joe and democracy has never tasted so sweet.
civil war but make it ✨aesthetic✨
With 250M views on the civil war hashtag on TikTok at the time of writing, you could say that Gen Z has had a lil something on their minds as of late. From riot fit checks (it’s crocs on ✨sports mode✨ vs. “I’m wearing flannel…that way it’ll be easier to sneak into Canada”) to pov: Mike Pence Conversion Camp Talent Show vids, it’s been quite the lead up to the final instalment of election TikTok. In its final week, this Monday brought us a new genre: ~rare aesthetic~ boarded-up-city Tok, with hundreds of videos showing America’s cities getting ready to batten down the hatches (with plywood, ofc) ahead of anticipated post-election violence. Often soundtracked to the official sound of civil unrest in the summer (This Is America by Childish Gambino) or an early quarantine fave (a remix of the Purge announcement), this meme is surely one for the screenplay of The End of the F***ing World: 2020 edition.
It’s a tough pick for an apocalypse chic fave, but there’s one clear winner here: SoHo’s Sweetgreen preparing for some bad and boujee trouble from the Birkenstock brigade of New York’s vegan glitterati. Lettuce pray 🙏
“we bouta become primary sources”
Listen, why do history homework when you’re busy living through the next textbook edition? Early this week Zs took to TikTok to protest the absolute audacity of being served homework deadlines during the pivotal, nail-biting days before the closing of the “poles” [soz, couldn’t resist]. How did they show their disdain? The only way they know how: the infamous rainbow strobe, a filter whipped out at every opportunity to to trademark their dark humor that comes from chaos, accompanied by Ke$ha’s infamous track ‘Blow’ [ICYMI: this place about to blow]. They just don’t vibe with the business as usual act, and tbh, neither do we. Everyone who lasted these past 4 years gets an automatic A+ from us.
Karen, you’re hired.
Karen showed up to work this week. On Monday the NYT combined with Siena College, released their database of “likely voters and their preferences” and the results were nothing short of stunning. When analyzing the top 10 U.S. first names for men and women and their voting allegiance, Nancys were 57% most likely to vote for Trump vs drum roll pls a staggering 60% of Karens who came out in support of Biden. What can we say Karen, it appears we have wronged you 🥺. We nominate all the Nancys and Richards as tribute.
what happens in Vegas…
…can’t stay in Vegas. This week the 🌎 watched the state of Nevada count its last remaining mail-in ballots, which could have helped declare victory for Biden. No bully, but Nevada did take its sweet ass time, keeping us all on tenterhooks days after the polls closed. So Zs did what only they know how: enter the Nevada POVs, a delightful collection of memes depicting Nevada thrust into the spotlight and its reaction to suddenly becoming the election’s main character ✨. Big ups to popular TikTok creator @gondrethewordsmith for not only providing us with an exceptional election content throughout the past week, but also for dropping his version of NevadaTok (accompanied by what’s poppin’ remix by Biddl3 — because, what else?) and @tallskinnyali for remixing his version with ANTM’s famous model walkout, *chefs kiss* :
rain on me, tsunami
If “i hear the sound of an abundance of rain” means nothing to you then wyb? If you didn’t hear Preacher and Donald Trump’s spiritual advisor Paula White lead her own unique prayer service to manifest a Trump win, then you missed a mighty, meaty internet morsel. But pals, never fear, because as soon as the performance hit our screens, cue the memes. Now you can enjoy the performance complete with a WAP and an Eminem x nodding cat remix, which unsurprisingly makes it an instant bop:
election day? it’s on a chewsday luv, innit
Okay, we felt this one in our souls. If you made it anywhere near British TikTok as of late (aka your fyp is overflowing with “chaaav check” and the willy wonka special), you’ll have paid witness to an alarming number of Brits and Europeans staying up til dawn to await the election result…every single night this week. Never before have so many of us seen the sunrise with CNN on in the background, exchanging voice notes in the group chat about every bloody percentage point change (“guys, what time is it in Georgia, do you think they’re still counting?”). Look, it’s not well that we’re now able to name every U.S. state and how many electoral college votes each one has, but that’s just the way the electoral cookie crumbles when the internationals are rooting against an irrelevant racist living rent free in the presidential suite. We said what we said. From fireworks in London to bells ringing in Paris as the results hit our part of the world, Europe rly said: tell my man shut up.
they think it’s all over…it is now
Did someone say…you about to lose your job? Oh yeah, that’s right; the world did. TL;DR Donald Trump has had the whole 2020 experience: got covid, got fired, got evicted. Next stop: delete your account. 💙
Okay, you made it. Now you can go back to making Stacey Abrams fancams and helping register every eligible voter in Georgia for the January run-off election.
p.s. stream FDT for clear skin
ttyl,