So, earlier today on February 14th, 2023, Elon Musk woke up and decided to post this object-labeling meme on his Twitter:

pic.twitter.com/iZUukCVrl5

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 14, 2023

The jape from the world's former richest man comes at a time when rumor has it he's purportedly fired a top Twitter engineer because the engineer told him people don't want to see his tweets as much as they used to.

According to some Twitter users, that engineer's replacement then came up with a solution to force-feed Musk's tweets to the top of everyone's "For You" tab on the app, much to the chagrin of people who were perfectly happy not knowing what he tweeted.

ENGINEER 1: your engagement is tanking bc you're less popular

ELON: you're fired

ENGINEER 2: your engagement is tanking… because.. uh… you're TOO popular

ELON: i like this guy pic.twitter.com/HNbBeE4ncv

— Rob DenBleyker (@RobDenBleyker) February 12, 2023

Twitter’s “For You” absolutely KILLING IT with state of the art personalization. @elonmusk has done it again. pic.twitter.com/kRJyHvPwJq

— David Holtz | @dholtz@zirk.us on mastodon (@daveholtz) February 14, 2023

With Twitter now looking akin to Elon Musk's personal blog in the eyes of annoyed Twitter users, the dubious memer grabbed a relatively ancient meme template to poke fun at his theoretical plan to ensure his engagement numbers stay up. Here, we'll explain the context behind Musk's latest meme.

What Is The 'Forced To Drink Milk' Meme and Where's It From?

Elon Musk's chosen meme this morning is dubbed "Forced To Drink Milk." It's specifically an object-labeling template first posted by photographer Eugeny Hramenkov in December 2017 and peaked as a meme template around August 2018 (based on search interest and usage).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Eugeny Hramenkov (@eugeny_hramenkov)

Surprisingly (at least to those of us at Know Your Meme who didn't personally research the origin of this specific template), it is not a recontextualized porn meme (a genre of meme that takes stills of pornography and adds humorous captions giving the screenshot new context), which was popular around the same time "Forced to Drink Milk" peaked in virality.

The meaning of Musk's meme is pretty simple: His tweets are being force-fed to unhappy Twitter users, much like the model on the left is force-feeding milk to the kneeling model on the right. One could take the interpretation further and argue that Musk is humiliating and debasing Twitter users through this scheme, but that likely wasn't the point he intended.

How Is Elon Musk's Meme Being Received?

At a glance, it appears many are reacting in a largely negative manner to the post. For myriad reasons, Elon Musk is not exactly the most beloved figure on Twitter dot com. So, the fact that he appeared to be enjoying or mocking those speculating how his latest supposed tweak to the website made the app a quasi-personal blog for anyone who doesn't directly have him blocked has not been taken well on Twitter by some.

he's finally done it. elon musk forcing a For You page with the top post always being him posting the shittiest meme from 2004 will surely repair the site's market value. iron man strikes again

— phil (@PhilJamesson) February 14, 2023

Elon really bought Twitter to have his terrible memes promoted at the top of the brand new and totally coincidental For You timeline

— s (@vondutchtrucker) February 14, 2023

Elon Musk: "What happened to my engagement?"

Engineers: "You aren't as popular"

Elon Musk: "You're fired! You're fired!"

Remaining engineers: "It's a delivery problem"

Elon Musk: YOU ALL CONSUME MY CYBER MEME MILK! MOMMY PROVIDES! pic.twitter.com/5t2Un37qVz

— The Serfs (@theserfstv) February 14, 2023

While it depends on where you look, it seems to many that the sentiment around Musk's latest swing at memeing is that this one is a miss. Rest assured, if Musk unearths another five-year-old meme to joke about how he's making Twitter unusable for a large chunk of its users, we'll be here to let you know what's going on.

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For information, check out the Know Your Meme entry on Forced To Drink Milk.