The Meme Textbook Part 2: The Language of the Internet | Page 39

Ironic Fandom
The internet has always been entwined with
fandom cultures, especially since it is easy
to find and create niche interests on social
media platforms. Resulting from this already
existing culture, is the ironic fandom, or
some content, usually negatively viewed, that
gains a huge following and often has a num-
ber of ironic memes associated with it.
One of the most iconic examples is the Shrek
fandom. The first Shrek movie was released in
2001 by Dreamworks. The intent of the ani-
mated movie was to make fun of the traditional
fairy tale and the commercialization of them.
However, as sequels continued to be released, it
has become a parody of itself and has become
what it was originally making fun of. The most
well known memes surrounding Shrek began in
2013. They are refered to as “Shrek is love, Shrek
is life.” The first instance of this is Fig. 113
which was as 4chan post telling a story where
that title was the final line, similar to “man door
hand hook car door” (see page 35) This meme
took off immediately, with other 4chan posts,
dramatic readings, and photoshopped pictures
of Shrek. However, its success was short lived
and internet users had moved on by 2014.
Another well known fandom is for The
Bee Movie, which was released in 2007 by
Dreamworks. There were a number of ironic
memes to come out of this movie. It initially
became popular because the internet found it
incredibly funny that known comedian Jerry
Seinfeld was voice acting for a bee. Many also
found the plot to be ridiculous especially since it
included a romantic subplot between Seinfeld’s
character and a human woman. The first wide-
spread meme to emerge was a copypasta of
the entire bee movie script (or at least the
first couple hundred words) first appearing
in 2013. This followed along with the already
established copypasta culture, as well as appeal-
ing to fans of ironic memes. The first mono-
logue of the script is especially iconic, reading:

According to all known laws of aviation,
there is no way a bee should be able to fly.
Its wings are too small to get its fat lit-
tle body off the ground. The bee, of course,
flies anyway because bees don’t care
what humans think is impossible.
Internet users found this especially funny
given the context that this grandiose state-
ment was introducing a movie about talking
bees. The meme died out shortly after,
but had a short resurgence in 2016, as the
next Bee Movie meme became popular.
Recently, another meme involving The Bee Movie
developed from the popular “Youtube Poop”
culture within meme culture. “Youtube Poops”
have existed since the beginning of Youtube
in 2006. These videos take some popular con-
tent, from television shows, to movies, to other
memes, and remix their audio and visuals to cre-
ate new content. This varied from mixing audio
fig. 112
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