GayVapeShark

About

GayVapeShark is the name of a series of meme pages on social media centered around memes about left-leaning politics and pop culture. In April 2020, GayVapeShark's creator, Adeline Borneman, passed away from unknown causes at the age of 35.

History

On June 21st, 2017, the Facebook ^[2] page for GayVapeShark launched. That day, the page posted its first meme, which depicted an illustration of Dragon Ball characters Goku and Vegeta kissing while a shark is depicted vaping clouds at the side. The post received more than 930 shares, 500 reactions and 250 comments in less than three years (shown below, left).

Months later, on December 2nd, 2017, the GayVapeShark Instagram ^[1] page posted its first meme on Instagram, featuring a parody of Santa Claus called "politcally correct winter gift person (shown below, rightThe post received more than 1,400 likes in less than three years (shown below, right).

Bottom Text Television Series

On August 21st, 2019, the meme review television Bottom Text premiered on Adult Swim. The show featured Adeline Borneman, the creator of the GayVapeShark meme pages (clip below).^[5]

Creator's Death

On April 13th, 2020, Borneman's sister Molly reported that Addy Borneman had died.^[3] She wrote:

My sweet, hilarious and brilliant sibling.

You were the best friend I ever had. You protected me. You loved me better than anyone could love another human. You made me laugh to the point of peeing my pants. You made my childhood so special. You loved my baby with every piece of you. You were so proud of her. In high school, you told everyone that we were twins and I was only a grade behind you because I wasn’t as smart as you. You have always been the biggest pain in my butt and yet still my favorite human being.

I’m so sad to see you go. I’m going to miss you like crazy. I’m glad that the pain of the world isn’t on your shoulders anymore. I’m glad that you’re at peace. I promise to make sure your sweet, precious baby boy knows how much you loved him. Your pain is gone now. Rest peacefully. I love you forever.

Various Examples

Reputation

On November 27th, 2018, Vice ^[4] featured gayvapeshark in the article "The Socialist Memelords Radicalizing Instagram." They wrote:

@gayvapeshark's Instagram posts critique a range of sociocultural tropes and pro-establishment ideals, satirizing white feminism, militant vegans, cops, transphobes, the prison industrial complex, and many others through a socialist lens. In her Instagram bio, she describes herself as “the most powerful troll on Instagram,” and credits the quote to VICE as a joke (VICE has not covered her until this story.) “I was definitely that kid who turned the stock photos in their text book into little comics,” she said. “That's not much different than what I'm doing today.”

Search Interest

External References