A Guide to Children’s Culture for Adults Out of Touch With Reality: Creating Memes About the Trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard
This week everyone is talking about imaginary dragons and the real lawsuit. Hopefully the House of the Dragon trailer will divert attention from the trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. Also: it’s prom time again, and it’s not being held on Zoom this year.
Viral Video of the Week: House of the Dragon trailer
It’s been too long since the Game of Thrones finale , but the drought in Westeros should end this August when HBO releases House of the Dragon. The trailer is burning YouTube to the ground, racking up over two and a half million views in its first eight hours online. The series, based on the novel by George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire is set 300 years before the events of Game of Thrones but still includes at least two returning Targaryens (fantasy, am I right?). Unfortunately, the book on which House of the Dragon is based is the first of two parts, and Martin has yet to write the second part, so a Game of Thrones -style final season disaster is a possibility. On the other hand, dragons ! House of the Dragon premieres on HBO on August 21.
Graduation 2022: The Return of the Proposal
It’s spring, and for high school students, that means graduation. In terms of fashion, outfits modeled after troubled teens from HBO’s Euphoria are popular among hipsters this year, as are women’s/girls’ prom suits . I can only assume/hope that a Chuck Taylor evening gown will still be a edgy and quirky prom move. (The boys, as always, will be in rented tuxedos.)
Graduation in the 2020s seems much the same as I remember my graduation in 1874, but there is one major difference: the proposal. Asking nervously, “Well, do you want to go to prom with me?” not enough. Now you need to make an offer – to plan an entire production designed to go viral, like the ambitious guy who talked his friends into having an impromptu “romantic dinner”. Or this guy who put together a gift box to match his girlfriend’s dress. That’s nice (probably), but some of the sentences are just weird, like this sentence with a fake arrest in the presence of the police. Or those stupid multinational cowboys.
If there’s a time when a grand romantic gesture is appropriate, it’s in high school, but damn, the pressure is on everyone with this bullshit. If you’ve ever missed high school, check out some failing proposal videos . It’s such a perfect embodiment of the awkwardness and horror of adolescence that you’ll never feel nostalgic again.
Memes about the law: The Internet delves into the case of Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard
Celebrity trials that turn into media circuses are as old as the circuses themselves, but this story between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard is getting out of hand. I try to avoid such nonsense because I’m busy with important things like playing Elden Ring, but I can’t avoid it. On the surface, this is a run-of-the-mill defamation case in which Depp is suing Heard for writing an editorial that suggests he abused her, but the public has taken an obsessive interest in the sordid details of the tangled relationship at the center of this sordid court case. Court TV’s ratings have doubled since they began covering the lawsuit, and TikTok videos filed under the hashtag #JusticeForjohnnyDepp have been viewed nearly 8 billion times. In the court of public opinion (at least part of the public on Twitter and TikTok), Depp is clearly sympathetic here. I don’t have a side and I find it all distasteful, but I predict an increase in disrespect for the prosecution’s charges in the future as the “fans” of this lawsuit smirk , joke and give birth in imitation of Depp and company. As @MCULokii from TikTok said in Vice : “I believe that all changes or videos are made with good intentions. There is no one here to cover such a serious topic as domestic violence,” they said. “After all, Johnny Depp jokes and laughs [in court], so we should be allowed to laugh too!” Tell it to the judge, baby .
“Restless Teens” fight back
The popularity of residential treatment programs for teenagers (and even teenagers) skyrocketed in the 1990s, fueled by dramatic daytime talk shows in which rebellious children were taught old-fashioned discipline through forced stays in “boot camps”, boarding schools, programs in wildlife and other minors. At the time, it was easy to see these programs as a gift from God, a hard way to fix the fate of kids heading to jail or the ditch – that’s what the people who owned the place said, and Dr. Phil, Montel Williams, Oprah, and everyone else seemed to agree. However, now, through social media and the Internet, we can hear the other side of this story, and it turns out that forcibly placing teenagers in isolated prisons a thousand miles from their home may not make them happier and more adjusted. .
Message boards like r/troubleteens on Reddit are filled with reports from victims of these institutions – some of them were behind bars for being gay or having bad parents , and nearly all of them reporting abuse . The TikTok hashtag dedicated to the problems of the teen industry is absolutely heartbreaking, but there is more going on than tales of grief. Now that they are 18 years old, the survivors of these programs are naming , organizing and actively trying to shut down the industry. This works too. The state of Utah, once the epicenter of these types of facilities, has recently introduced reforms to residential treatment centers, companies are closing stores , and Congress is being urged to pass legislation to curb industry worst practices .
Kids are dropping out of college to make money in the NFT
No one over a certain age understands what NFTs are, but the promise these virtual assets offer is enough to encourage some young entrepreneurs to drop out of school. “You’re better off spending 50 hours doing homework on Twitter, YouTube, and NFT Discord than any college shit going on, ” Gary Vee (a.k.a. @nft_godfather ) said on TikTok. It should be noted that V has a definite “how are you guys?” vibe about him, but it’s not just middle-aged dudes with baseball caps backwards in the NFT. The Daily Dot covered Elo Mukoro and Matthew Owusu, a 22-year-old couple from Texas who are dropping out of college to chase NFT gold. “Me and my boy Matt, we saw what was happening, initially we jumped in and didn’t know much, but of course let’s look into it, ” Mukoro told the Daily Dot .
I don’t think that many more people are going to make money in the NFT – it looks like the train has left the station – but I still encourage young people to drop out of college. You can always go back to school; you won’t always be able to pursue the taste of the month get-rich-quick scheme.