Overview

Mitski's Working For The Knife is a song written by Mitski, who is a Japanese-American performing artist. The song ended the drought of Mitski releases that has lasted for over a year and a half, and was more than surprising to much of her audience when they first listened to it. Memes have been made of the song and music video for either the lyrics, the depression/Joker themes present in the video, and the announced tour dates that came with the release of the video.

Background

In February of 2020, Mitski released the last new song that her fans would hear for a year and a half. On October 4th, 2021, it was revealed on Mitski's Twitter^[1] account that the following day would see the release of a new song, and music video. The song was released, called Working For The Knife, and the accompanying music video and new United States tour release dates were announced. The music video was uploaded on the official Mitski Mitski YouTube^[2] channel, where it received over 700,000 views in 14 hours (shown below).

Online Reaction

Online the reactions were very unified, with pained expressions for those who felt the weight of the song or didn't get tour dates near them, and joyful reveling for those who saw a moment to make memes about the song, or have already bought their tickets for a show. Twitter user @jan3yr0x^[3] best summarized the feeling of the fandom with their image posted that received 12,000 likes in eight hours (shown below)

Another fan of Mitski noticed the similarities between her persona within the music video and that of Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion, in a Twitter^[4] post that gained 400 likes in five hours (shown below).

A common reaction and meme that sprang up from the song is to take the lyrics from it and place them over an existing meme or image conveying intense depression and sadness, as seen in the Twitter^[5] post by @folkloresouldout that gained 16,300 likes in 10 hours (shown below).

A secondary meme to spawn from the song is to misinterpret what Working For The Knife means into a literal sense, as in posting images of people working with or on knives, or working other various jobs, and reference the knife. This is best shown in the Twitter^[6] post by Corduroygos, who gained 150 likes in three hours with a meme about steelwork (shown below).

Various Reactions

Search Interest

External References