The Meme Textbook Part 2: The Language of the Internet | Page 41

fig. 115
so a person might say an unintended word to
visual distortion to create a new joke. The “Bee
Movie but” meme began in 2016 with a Youtube
video entitled “Bee Movie But it Keeps Getting
Faster.” (Fig. 112) This meme’s format was to
take The Bee Movie and then change it every
time some specified thing happens. Examples
include [The Bee Movie but] “Without Bees,”
“Every Time They Say Bee it Gets More
Pixelated,” Every ‘Bee’ is Backwards.” The meme
immediately spiraled into abstraction where the
comedy was derived from how many additional
componenets could be added to the movie. (Fig.
115) At one point an internet user calculated
how long it would actually take to watch the
entirety of one of these videos. It was longer
than the existance of humanity. The meme for-
mat was also used with other movies and tele-
vision shows, as well as crossing over with other
memes like Smash Mouth. The meme was pretty
immediately exhaused because of the extreme
it immediately went to. It was only popular for
about a month before the internet moved on.
The Meme Textbook | 41