It’s just a classic. A reaction meme from 2006, when memes were still in their infancy.
Shout-out to know your meme for documenting its entire journey. It’s where I learned that it was during a Yahoo conference in 2006 that all of the original images are taken from. And I can vaguely remember the headlines saying, “Tom Cruise has strange/erratic/unhinged appearance” but it was mostly regarded as typical tabloid fodder.
Know Your Meme is also where I learned I’m not the only person to create a “parody” of the original meme either.
I put parody in quotes because I don’t think of it as a parody as much as an extension of the format. And truly the images listed on know your meme don’t really fit the definition of parody as they don’t “deliberately exaggerate” the original for comic effect. They just imitate it. Another way I think of it is they just add to the “genre”, like writers who write crime fiction or poetry.
Anyway, I decided to add to the genre by making one of Dick Cheney about two years ago. At the time people were (rightfully) roasting Ol’ Prez Dubya for the war crimes perpetuated against the Middle East, but among a sea of dunks there wasn’t one mention of Dick Cheney. And I mean how does a guy like that get off so easy?
We’re talking about the guy who shot a guy and permanently lodged a piece of birdshot in the man’s heart and that guy ended up apologizing publicly to Cheney for it. For being shot by him. That’s an aside from all the carnage he personally set into motion.
It’s so absurd it’s got no choice in being mythologized. My hope is that the meme outlives him by a 100 years.
A difficult goal? Sure. But attainable? I don’t see why not.
Save it on your phone now. Send it a few times in response to any truly heinous fuckery at the federal level. Boom. I can cross that off the list, and take the rest of the afternoon off.
Word Slurpee 