This week, young people are making disasters their own through memes, convincing their boyfriends to do interpretive dance, making a star out of a local judge, and complaining about a cartoon. So a normal week, other than the now twice-yearly appearance of once-in-a-lifetime storm.
The memeing of Hurricane Milton
The lead-up to Hurricane Milton was terrifying, with meteorologists warning of a catastrophic weather nightmare. Thankfully, It was a glancing blow instead of a direct hit—a bad storm, but far from the worst-case scenario. Still, memes about the hurricane might be in bad taste, but that never stopped the internet.
The meme-ificiation began with this totally earnest tweet from RNC National Committeewoman Amy Kremer:
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Very touching image, but as the community note points out, it's an AI-generated fake. And an obvious one at that. So people started tweeting out their own AI-generated rescue-images by way of illustration:
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Then there's the story of Caroline Calloway, the influencer and self-described scammer, who vowed to stay in her home and shit-post through the storm, despite living in a mandatory evacuation zone, and despite having had to be rescued by the military when she refused to get out of the way of a hurricane in 2022. I don't wish misfortune on anyone, but the amount of attention she's gotten and her survival is likely to lead to more people choosing to ride out storms in the future. And given Calloway's track record, she might have been posting from Canada.
Another hurricane-jerk: Lieutenant Dan, who decided to ride out the storm in a boat. This was a terrible idea, but "will he survive" was such a compelling question that a dodgy "crypto casino" was accepting bets on it. Dan's story was told by TikToker Tampa Terrance, and while it ends with Dan's survival, the coda is brutal: Online sleuths are digging into his past and accusing him of doing it all for views and money. In other words: Lieutenant Dan is the storm's milkshake duck.
More lighthearted hurricane memes include people referencing Office Space and imagining that Milton came to Florida to get its red Swingline stapler back, and the return of an OG meme: "We will rebuild." Seriously, though: Don't mess with hurricanes. Influencers and anyone who doesn't evacuate are the worst people ever.
Boyfriend interpretive dance
Hurricanes weren't the only thing on people's minds this week. There was also boyfriends. With all the looksmaxxing incels, creeps, and pickup artist online, it's easy to that heterosexual romantic relationships are fully cooked in the age of social media. Counter evidence is provided by the "Making My Boyfriend Do an Interpretive Dance" meme that's taking off on TikTok. Women are cranking up bongo music and asking their BFs to shake it in exchange for some reward, usually "spending the night." The result are hilarious clips of dudes awkwardly dancing, a nice reminder that there are still goofballs in normal relationships out there. Check out this guy:
Or him:
Or this lanky fella:
Better yet: spend like an hour on the page for the musical clip and watch a bunch of videos. This is better than doom-scrolling election news.
Unlikely YouTube star: Judge David Fleischer
Constant surveillance has an upside: it lets us make celebrities out of people who actually deserve it, like unlikely YouTube star Judge David Fleischer. His Honor is from Harris, Texas and presides over misdemeanors, the kinds of low-level crimes we rarely notice or make podcasts about. Fleischer is the breakout star of a weird corner of YouTube where people rip videos of court cases and post them. Videos featuring Judge Fleischer ruling on run-of-the-mill crime routinely rack up hundreds of thousands of views.
Fleischer's popularity is partly due to his personal presentation and bookish charisma: Dude rocks wise-old-owl spectacles paired with sharp outfits, usually including a bow tie, and he's quick and witty on the mic. But beyond his catchphrases like "you'll be stuck like Chuck," Judge Fleischer actually seems to care about the down-and-outs in front of him. He's known for quickly dismissing charges of "walking while black" and bonding people out on their own recognizance. But he's not a pushover, either, especially when he feels his community is threatened. Dude is what we want all judges to be like.
Why is everyone mad about horror anime Uzumaki?
In another post on Lifehacker, I praised Adult Swim's new anime series Uzumaki for its odd, haunting story and evocative black-and-white animation. I'd like to withdraw my praise. I'd only seen episode one. Episode two was released this week and it's cheap-looking and terrible. Episode two of Uzumaki looks like cut-scenes from an PlayStation 4 game, and the careful spell the series cast with its pilot is totally gone by episode two. Everyone who cares about anime has gone from hardcore fans saying "finally, someone did a horror manga right," to saying "oh my god, I hate this" in one week.
So what happened? No one knows for sure, but the show's executive producer posted, then deleted, some tweets shedding some light on the matter, saying: “We knew this would happen...I can’t talk about what went down but we were screwed over and the options were A) not finish and air nothing and call it a loss, B) Just finish and air ep 1 and leave it incomplete or C) run all four, warts and all. Out of respect for the hard work we chose C.” He went on to say, "Unfortunately I can’t tell them who to blame it on…but someone is definitely at fault here, and we all just had to do our best when things imploded.”
Viral video of the week: Gorilla Suit Guy Punch Video
This week's viral video is a throwback to the glory days of the genre. It's a bite-sized video that will crack you up and you'll watch 85 times. "Gorilla Suit Guy Punch" is a tourist video of guests riding the Dinosaur Island ride at a theme park in the Philippines. The animatronic dinosaurs are impressive but not unexpected, but then a dude in a gorilla suit, an actual human, appears and seems to punch out some of the passengers. Like the best viral videos, the pacing is perfect. You really have to watch it:
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