Your Meme is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

Origin

X is bad and you should feel bad is an exploitable originating from a quote in the 2003 Futurama episode “The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings.”

The episode is all about Fry trading hands with the Robot Devil, in hopes to play the holophoner better so he can woo Leela. With his new hands, Fry gains fame as a holophoner expert, and Hedonism Bot proposes that he write an opera. Fry decides to write the opera on Leela’s life, and as he’s writing it the Robot Devil begins to pull strings on the rest of the crew to get his hands back from Fry. He trades a stadium air horn for Bender’s “crotch-plate” (so that he can be more annoying). He uses the air horn on Leela, which causes her to go deaf. During the opera’s intermission, the Robot Devil offers Leela mechanical ears in exchange for her left hand, which she agrees to. The Robot Devil interrupts the opera in the middle and demands his hands back from Fry, or else he will take Leela’s hand… in marriage. Fry agrees to the Robot Devil’s terms, and returns his hands. Hedonism Bot requests Fry to resume the opera, and Zoidberg utters the memorable line in the following dialog:

Hedonism Bot: Less reality, more fantasy. Resume the opera.
Fry: But I can’t play anymore!
Dr. Zoidberg: Yes you can! The music was in your heart, not your hands.
[Fry plays off key, everyone boos.]
Dr. Zoidberg: Your music’s bad and you should feel bad!*

Use and Spread

This quote can be considered a bastardization of the Magic Feather cliché. In this cliché, a character is given a special gift, granting them special/exceptionable abilities. With this gift, they flourish until the gift is used up, taken away, or fully consumed, at which point they return to their mentors, only to be told that this gift was a useless placebo and that the character was always in charge of the success and/or already contained the abilities that the gift was assumed to have given them. The quote could be considered, then, a Reverse Magic Feather, considering the Robot Devil’s hands really did grant Fry these exceptional holophoner abilities. Another example of this type of cliché in Futurama is in the episode “The 30% Iron Chef,” where Bender wins a cooking competition using drops from a crystal flask filled with “the essence of pure flavor.” Professor Farnsworth runs a chemical analysis and announces the mystery liquid was only water. Fry concludes that all Bender needed to cook well was confidence, and the professor adds, “Yes, ordinary water, laced with nothing more than a few spoonfuls of LSD.”**

This quote is very exploitable, using the simple formula: X is bad, and you should feel bad, X being a variable that can be replaced by whatever is “bad.” Although its possible uses as an insult are seemingly endless, it is most commonly seen as an insult to a thread, a fan of questionable music, or even directly to a band or musician.

Spread over the internet has been minimal, yet apparent. While one cannot track the first person to use it online, there are examples of its use on message boards such as the IGN boards, Videosift, Arlong Park forums, and MetaTalk. A Facebook page called “Your Music Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad,” has also been created, and has (as of 12/26/10) a staggering 67 fans. Links below.

IGN

Videosift

Arlong Park

MetaTalk

Facebook

*Source: IMDB: Futurama “The Devil’s Hands Are Idle Playthings” link

**Source: Tv Tropes: “Magic Feather” link