The Bear

About

The Bear is an American comedy-drama TV show on FX and Hulu that centers on a struggling sandwich restaurant in Chicago and the chefs that work there, including the show's protagonist Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto (played by actor Jeremy Allen White). The show premiered in June 2022, quickly rising to critical acclaim and attention online. The buzz surrounding the show soon led to viral discourse and memes on social media, including the Carmy In the Kitchen memes that trended on Twitter in late 2022. In June 2023, season two of The Bear premiered, leading to more memes and discourse online.

History

The Bear premiered on FX and Hulu on June 23rd, 2022.^[1] It was created by Christopher Storer and stars Jeremy Allen White as Carmen "Carmy" Berzatto, Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Richard "Richie" Jerimovich, Ayo Edebiri as Sydney Adamu and Matty Matheson as Neil Fak, among others.^[1] The show's plot summary is:^[2]

Carmen Berzatto, a brilliant young chef from the fine-dining world is forced to return home to run his family sandwich shop – the Original Beef of Chicagoland – after a heartbreaking death in his family. A world away from what he's used to, Carmy must balance the soul-crushing reality of trading in Michelin star restaurants for the small business' kitchen filled with strong-willed and recalcitrant staff and his strained familial relationships, all while grappling with the impact of his brother's suicide.

The show was renewed for a second season in July 2022.^[3] It was later announced it'd premiere on June 22nd, 2023.^[4]

Reception

Early on after the show's season one premiere in June 2022, users on Twitter started to praise it via tweets. For instance, on June June 29th, 2022, Twitter^[5] user @paulswhtn tweeted a video of a pleased woman with the caption, "Finished The Bear that was so goooodddd," gaining over 370 likes in one year (shown below). Similar, positive remarks surfaced on Reddit, such as a post to /r/television^[6] from Redditor AshTheDead1te uploaded on June 23rd, 2022, that gained roughly 1,100 upvotes in one year. In contrast, Redditor sports_metaphor posted to /r/television^[7] on August 30th, 2022, writing, "Unpopular opinion: The Bear is overrated," gaining over 80 upvotes in 10 months.

Finished The Bear that was so goooodddd pic.twitter.com/jDpdCS6juK

— paul berzatto (@paulswhtn) June 29, 2022

On Rotten Tomatoes, ^[8] the "Critics Consensus" for The Bear's first season was a 100 percent "Fresh" score with the tagline, "Like an expertly confected sandwich, The Bear assembles a perfect melange of ingredients and stacks them for optimal satisfaction -- and thankfully keeps the crust-iness for extra flavor." Overall, The Bear maintained a 100 percent "Fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes^[9] in June 2023, following the premiere of its second season.

Memes

The first predominant meme trend that emerged from The Bear was the series of Carmy In the Kitchen memes on Twitter that used a promo photo of the character Carmy (depicting Jeremy Allen White) present in articles from Forbes^[10] (shown below, left). Starting in September 2022, Twitter users started pairing the photo with captions about cooking, usually portraying subpar cooking and contrasting it with the serious nature and implication of the "Michelin Star" Chef Carmy. For instance, the first iteration was posted by Twitter^[11] user @PAPPADEMAS on September 11th, 2022, writing, "when I make dinner 2 nights in a row instead of ordering food," and earning roughly 295,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).

More memes about Carmy, and other characters in the show, persisted going into 2023. For instance, on June 21st, 2023, Twitter^[12] user @romtabs called Carmy "poor man's kendall roy" in reference to the Succession character, gaining roughly 38,100 likes in one week (shown below, left). On June 25th, Twitter^[13] user @peachywaj tweeted an altered People With Blue Eyes cartoon that resembled Carmy, gaining roughly 39,000 likes in three days (shown below, right).

The Bear also received fan edits and fancams on video platforms like TikTok, evident in an edit uploaded by TikToker^[14] @mathias.ae on February 25th, 2023, which received roughly 1.5 million plays and 161,900 likes in four months (shown below).

The Bear also gained its own subreddit called /r/TheBear^[15] that was started on April 28th, 2022. The subreddit's posts often include many memes.^[16]

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References