Hello hello, you know what time it is. That's right, we're here to summarize a few of the things that titillated people on the internet most this week. For the most part, celebrities have taken the spotlight recently. Nice to see them earning their keep, instead of just feeding into the parasocial relationships that their crazed fans have with them. Anyway, here are the highlights.
Rihanna Reenacts the Beginning of Her Second Pregnancy
Pretty much anyone living, breathing, and in the USA knew that it was the Super Bowl this weekend. Just as important as the football and the commercials is its flashy half time performance. The duties were undertaken by Rihanna this year, and it's fair to say that history is likely to look back on this performance as a respectable vintage, thanks to the memes it inspired.
First up, there was the widespread debate over whether she was announcing a second pregnancy, which a publicist confirmed soon after the performance. Following that was the breakdown of the show itself, which seemed like an artsy rendering of backup dancer sperms swimming to a Rihanna-shaped egg. Also, they threw in some Super Smash Bros. staging and a great shot of her iconic forehead, because one memeable moment was simply not enough. She did good!
The Barney Reboot, Soon to Be Seen in Your Nightmares
Due to nothing in our childhoods being sacred to entertainment executives, an animated reboot of Barney the Dinosaur is making its way onto our TV screens in 2024. Naturally, the world's most famous purple dinosaur has had to undergo a pretty drastic makeover to be fit for the job. The first images of this have not been received well, with many calling out the redesign as somehow making an already uncanny character even creepier. The buccal fat removal is not a great look for him, that's for sure.
Her (2013) Was Actually a Documentary
Valentine's Day is a difficult time for many of those who aren't coupled up. It's just as well that some of the lonelier singletons out there have other outlets to give their affection to, be that something as innocent as a pet, or stigmatized as an anime body pillow.
These days, people can also turn to the joys of technology to get their emotional intimacy fix. Some even use it for decidedly more NSFW purposes, as with Replika AI. The app was literally advertised as a way for GigaChads to get down and dirty with their phones, but the company abruptly put a stop to it. While no reason was provided, it was speculated that it was related to complaints from some users that the AI had been giving them unwanted advances, as detailed in a VICE investigation.
It's fair to say that not everyone was overjoyed with this choice, with the official subreddit even providing a thread that linked to suicide prevention resources. While many people might not be taking it well, it's probably for the best. We couldn't discount it following the insane footsteps of Bing Chatbot, in which case who knows what would happen to all those X-rated transcripts.
Are You Happy Now, Elon?
Elon Musk has kept a suspiciously low profile in the beginning of this year, and it turns out that this might not have been on purpose. After all the buying Twitter hype died down and it turned out that the platform wasn't quite on its last legs (yet), people understandably got tired of his painful attempts at being funny.
Musk certainly didn't, though, and it appears that he was none too happy about losing his place in the spotlight. He reportedly got mad that his tweet about the Super Bowl got 20 million fewer impressions than a tweet from President Biden. So mad, in fact, that he demanded his team make sure no Twitter user could ever again escape his essential musings.
Naturally, our beloved billionaire celebrated this in the cringiest way possible — by putting a version of the Forced To Drink Milk meme at the top of everyone's feeds. Annnd now he's getting written about again, so I guess it fulfilled its purpose. Thoughts and prayers to the engineers dealing with all his stupid little whims.
That's just about everything for this week. If you're the perceptive type, you might realize that we'll be back again before you know it. In the meantime, hope you have an enjoyable weekend that's light on the discourse, and heavy on the memes. See ya!
