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Fandom in Context: The Sopranos Memes Are Pandemic Therapy

Fandom in Context: The Sopranos Memes Are Pandemic Therapy

There's no shortage of praise for David Chase's groundbreaking HBO crime drama, The Sopranos. Any list of the best TV shows of all time worth its weight includes Tony, Carmella and their lovable gang of tracksuit-wearing weirdos. Chase's mix of existentialism and gangster antics remains fresh, even in the 14 years since its final episode.

hile the show never really went out of style, the last few years have been a boon for the fandom. HBO's long-awaited prequel film, The Many Saints of Newark, should hit screens, in some form, this year. Last year, just ahead of the pandemic, Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa, better known as Christopher and Bobby Bacala, launched the _ Talkin' Sopranos_ podcast, a weekly check-in with former cast and crew members.


The Trump era sparked a renewed interest in the world of the Sopranos. Something about a hot-headed and psychologically confused Baby Boomer ordering around charismatic yet incompetent lunkheads appealed to new viewers. And the pandemic only increased its popularity.

Nothing's easy for Tony Soprano. He tries to live a quasi-moral life, his commitment to his ludicrously amoral job as a mob boss. But his relationships suffer, and he feels increasingly isolated from those around him. He is unsure how to process his emotional state, his obsession with the ducks that swim in his pool, or how to maintain a good mob-life balance. For viewers living through quarantine, staring at the birds out their window, hoping their loved ones are making smart decisions and trying to maintain their sanity as they work from home or brave the coronavirus-infected public, Tony's struggle may reflect their own.


Memes help spotlight the emotional themes of the show and bring them to the fore, and it's a practice that's more than a decade old. The show was only off the air for two years when Dan Trader launched the Facebook account @TimeImmemorial_ in 2008. One of the largest Sopranos meme accounts online, the page has more than 243,000 followers on Facebook. For more than 12 years, the page captured a growing hunger online, not for ziti, but for Sopranos jokes.

The Sopranos - Time Immemorial June 3, 2008 · jesus f------ christ christopher,what the f---!!!! Ib 6 1 Share O Like Comment A Share

"Time Immemorial was founded in 2008 as a fan page on Facebook," writes Dan Trader, the founder of the @TimeImmemorial_ accounts, which has since spread to Instagram and Twitter_. "As time progressed, my plan eventually pivoted to focus on methods of illustrating how the show is still relevant in current culture. Once I discovered memes, it just felt kind of obvious what needed to be done since the show is so deep and has such a wealth of comic material."

The sense of humor of The Sopranos lends itself very well to memes. From Tony's heightened and erratic emotions to Paulie's iconic hair, the show is an endless parade of reaction images, non-sequiturs and in-jokes for fans. Plus, there's Furio. Furio was born to be a meme. That hair.


Though, Trader says that newer fans latch on to this easier than older ones. "Not everyone is a fan of what I do. It takes a special kind of fan to appreciate Sopranos meme treatment, but I try to post a broad range of material. Some of the stuff is created with the intent of connecting with a larger audience, but much of my content won't be understood unless if you're a hardcore fan."

The last 12 years have been a real ride on the rollercoaster of fandom for Trader. In 2019, after running the account for a decade, Trader launched the SopranosCon, a fan convention held in--where else?--New Jersey. The first convention brought 55 original cast members and 10,000 fans to the Exposition Center in Secaucus, NJ.

Trader plans to bring the convention back even bigger this year, organizing more events, virtual and IRL, assuming quarantine ever ends. "At present, we're currently planning more events for 2021 in Atlantic City and Las Vegas (SopranosCon, MobMovieCon, plus a few exclusive SopranosCon events at Tony's house in Caldwell, NJ) and developing an app that brings the convention experience to your mobile device, called VirtualCons."

The fanbase is growing, attracting a new generation of younger fans who are latching on to the show's still-underrated sense of humor. Maya, a 21-year-old college senior, founded Out of Context Sopranos (@oocsopranos) Twitter account three years ago as a freshman. "I was in a rough place emotionally and stuck home from school and work with a knee injury," she writes via email. "I decided to rewatch Sopranos to pass the time, and not too long into my rewatch, I was like, 'Man, this show is really funny. I wonder if someone has an Out of Context account for it yet.'"


Out of Context memes are a popular format these days. Taking screenshots with subtitles and posting them on social media, memers like Maya create a bit of timeline magic, throwing out a seemingly random assortment of moments and seeing what connects. Followers may like the posts either because they remember the scene or they relate to the sentiment. Like those monkeys locked away writing the complete works of Shakespeare, if you meme enough Sopranos screenshots, one is going to hit the emotional sweet spot.

"I think Out of Context accounts are so popular amongst social media users because there really is a television quote for every situation,” Maya writes. "I batch schedule my content a week in advance, and the weekend the election results got called, I just so happened to schedule the scene where Tony says to Carmela, 'You know, sometimes life is good.' I was walking through Central Park with my stepbrother and my notifications started blowing up. Total coincidence, but it fit so perfectly."


Maya says that many people are feeling the same way right now. After nearly a year in quarantine, people have more time than ever to rewatch their favorite shows or find a new one. HBO Max's launch didn't hurt either, saving fans like Maya the trouble of having to hunt down episodes on "third party sites" or borrowing DVDs.

"The combination of unexpected, almost limitless downtime because of the pandemic and the release of HBO Max are definitely the reason Sopranos is having such a moment this past year," she says. "People have more time to watch shows, and because of HBO Max, Sopranos is more accessible than ever."

America's love affair with gangster stories usually creeps back into the mainstream during times of great political or social strife. It makes sense that these stories would keep cropping up. The genre shows characters chasing and achieving the "American dream" while harboring a deep resentment and distrust for law enforcement. In the 1930s, at the height of the Depression, actors James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson blasted onto the screen with Scarface and The Public Enemy. Forty years later, The Godfather scooped up millions at the box office and a slew of Oscars in the middle of the Watergate scandal. The Sopranos continues this tradition. Similarly, The Sopranos premiered during the tail-end of the Clinton impeachment and ended while the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were in full swing.


The pandemic is at least partly responsible for the show's resurgence. Maya says that her follower count jumped from 3,000 in March 2020 to 100,000 in December. Her memes and those from @TimeImmemorial_ distill the show's themes and emotions into bite-sized, sharable pieces.

That emotional connection is the most important part, says Trader. "This show has been part of my life for many years and has helped me through some dark times, so it's awesome to meet people who get me and share the same level of interest. As a creator, I'm able to incorporate my own humor, observations on life or daily experiences, and oftentimes even make fun of myself, and it's a beautiful thing to see how many people relate."

Tony's reflections on the past, his concerns that the good times are over and his desire to cling to an antiquated version of masculinity speak to a generation that's destined to be the first one worse off than their parents. Fans turn to Tony and his therapist Dr. Melfi for comfort. And, in turn, they meme the show to comfort each other.

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The Sopranos

     



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