The Weekly Meme Roundup: Eric Adams Cooked, Elon Gets Weird Fan Art And A 'Bridgerton' Ball Scam

The summer of our discontent turned glorious autumn by political scandal continued into this week, as New York City mayor Eric Adams joined the controversy parade by getting indicted for allegedly doing what look like comically obvious crimes.

The weekly meme roundup rounds out this week with cringe Elon Musk fan art, a new "scam" event and several new templates. Let's get into it.

Eric Adams' Indictment

Ever since Eric Adams became mayor of New York City in 2021, many New Yorkers seemed to feel it was a matter of time until their exceptionally weird mayor got in trouble for some shady business. When Adams got indicted on Wednesday evening, the general public didn't yet know the charges, but there was definitely a feeling on social media that whatever they turned out to be, Adams was probably guilty of them.

The charges didn't disappoint. Prosecutors have charged Adams with taking bribes from the Turkish government in exchange for promoting Turkish interests in New York City. Adams got free travel on Turkish Airlines and was able to stay in luxury hotel rooms for free. Unsealed text messages between Adams staffers and Turkish operatives imply that everyone involved knew their dealings were illegal, as they repeatedly reminded each other to delete text messages.

Adams is not exactly popular in New York City, and his indictment was a cause for celebration and memes on social media. There will likely be a lot more mirth at Adams' expense as his situation unfolds.

Examples

SKS Cartoon's 'Elon Musk X-chan' Comic

Elon Musk fans have done little to help the billionaire's reputation online, and his latest fan to draw a widespread dunking party is cartoonist SKS Cartoon, who on Saturday posted a political cartoon showing Elon Musk turning "Twitter," represented as an obese woman, into "X," represented as an attractive, skinny woman. Then Elon and skinny X-chan take a look at an obese man labeled "Federal Government," implying they're ready to "fix up" the federal government like Elon "fixed" Twitter.

Many of Elon's critics would argue this comic has no basis in reality, as ever since Musk took over Twitter, the site has regularly suffered from functionality struggles and it has lost 84% of its revenue. Thus, the comic was widely mocked for being out of touch and bizarrely sexual.

Examples

Detroit Bridgerton Ball Scam

This week, the "Days since an unlicensed event tied to a popular media property turned out to be a huge waste of money" calendar was reset to 0, as the Detroit Bridgerton Ball went viral for following in the footsteps of Glasgow Wonka by being surreally terrible.

What was advertised as a $300 ball inspired by Netflix's period soap opera Bridgerton turned out to be a paltry event with none of the magical dressings of the show. The "highlight" of "Detroit's Bridgerton Ball Experience" was undoubtedly an inexplicable pole dancer plying their trade through the proceedings, but there was also one lone violinist fighting to be heard over canned pop music and poor food. The pile-on came fast, as once again, social media was thrilled to see another event turn out hilariously poorly.

Examples

Hold Up!! His Writing Is This Fire???

The goofball YouTube thumbnail has rapidly become a delightful meme template over the past few years, and the latest entrant into the canon comes from YouTuber RobTV, who put on his best YouTuber face with the thumbnail caption "Hold up!! His writing is this fire???"

Now, you might be wondering whose writing RobTV is talking about in that thumbnail. What masterful work led to his exaggerated reaction? If you guessed "Piano Man" by Billy Joel, a) you're lying and b) you'd be right. The exaggerated reaction to Joel's 50-year-old classic ballad made the thumbnail perfect for memes, and social media users have been widely employing it recently.

Examples

'Hawk Tuah Girl' Goes Viral For Her Rant

Finally, it wouldn't be a week in 2024 if there wasn't a new Hawk Tuah meme. This time, it's jokes that start with "Hawk Tuah recently went viral for her rant…," setting up a fake story about Haliey Welch ranting on her podcast, Talk Tuah, about a topic that she will likely never address in her life.

The continued presence of Welch in pop culture appears to have given everyone across the political spectrum some form of brain rot, and this meme is the latest to bring Welch into the realm of surreal memes.

Examples

We'll be back next Friday with another edition of our Weekly Meme Roundup series, so stay tuned!