This Week In Memes: Post-Thanksgiving 2016

The days after Thanksgiving 2016 were full of change. As Americans digested the turkey and potatoes they'd gobbled down a few days before, they also digested the election that delivered the presidency to Donald Trump. Across the Atlantic, the British braced themselves for Brexit, which a November court ruling established could not be undone.

But that's all politics. During this strange week, many other things unfolded in the world of memes that left their mark on internet culture. So, let's take a step back into the misty reaches of history and reconstruct what a social media scroll may have looked like for our ancestors in 2016.

Damn Bitch, You Live Like This?

This very week in 2016 saw the first use of the Damn Bitch, You Live Like This? meme, which was originally posted on Facebook.

The meme, which features fan art versions of talking dogs Max and Rosane from The Goofy Movie, flips the script on traditional gender roles. In this case, it is the female dog (literally a "bitch") who has the messy room. Unlike memes such as Girls vs. Boys or Man In Underwear Lying On Messy Bed, this meme shows a female character in repugnant living conditions.

The meme centered more around the phrase than around the characters, however, as later variations showed different people taking the places of the dogs.

Most of all, the meme expresses the shock of starting to know someone or understand more about them. The bashfulness of the female dog expresses insecurity at the male dog discovering who she truly is and the hope that he will not judge her. The male dog, on the other hand, is simply baffled by how she "lives like this."

Thank God For My Reefer

Even in 2016, we saw increasing marijuana legalization efforts in the United States and around the world, and the effects of such weed led at least one man to weep and Thank God For His Reefer.

Melvin Lawson, who we interviewed last year, talked about the video he posted that originally led the meme to circulate. In it, he expressed his thanks to "the reefer man" who had sold him his weed, saying that was the source of his tears (along with some unrelated grief). Lawson insisted "tears make you a man."

His face was used in a way similar to an Advice Animal, in which his tears and face represent the way a poster might react to something. He shared that Snoop Dogg repost was instrumental to the popularity of his video.

Lawson is proud of his tears and the way he showed emotion, and those who used his face in the meme are doing the same, praising the power of crying and broadening the definition of masculinity.

Elf On The Shelf

Inevitably, the week after Thanksgiving marks a hard swerve into the holiday season — all of the sudden, everything autumnal and turkey-related is torn down and replaced with Santa, reindeer and snowmen. Christmas arrives like a plague, infecting every front yard and store display.

Elf On The Shelf, a meme format that began circulating on December 3rd, 2016, aggressively rejects the traditional game and holiday cheer.

The famously creepy Elf On The Shelf, who according to tradition surveils children to see if they misbehave, is compared to other possible characters. The meme format takes the form of a word game, as users just have to find an entity and a location that rhyme the way "elf" and "shelf" do, then add a picture.

Often, the fun of the game comes from the fact that the picture is wordless and requires the reader to speak what they see out loud (or internally) for the meme to make sense.

The You've Heard Of The Elf On The Shelf meme is highly interactive and demands a different sort of attention than some memes: It forces somebody to stop mid-scroll and really consider what's in front of them, it's a bit of a puzzle.

As the meme spread it became a form of celebrity self-promotion, actors like Mark Ruffalo and Elizabeth Banks posted it on Twitter, and the meme lost the wordless puzzle part when people started just posting the caption along with the picture, sometimes not even mentioning the elf on the shelf.

What Comes Next?

The world has changed a lot since 2016. We're older and wiser now, but the valuable, trail-blazing work that memers of the past did remains a shining example for us. It's just one more thing to be thankful for in this season of gratitude — the memes that came before.