Explain Like I'm 35: Who is Mother? (March 18, 2023)

Mommy issues have been a cornerstone of internet culture for years. Damn, it's almost like the person who gives birth to us and is usually instrumental to our upbringing has a lasting, society-wide psychological impact. Countless memes have been dedicated to the maternal figure in our lives, but most of them have not wriggled their way into the online lexicon like mother and mothering has. 

In recent times, pretty much any female celebrity with a decent fanbase has been unknowingly adopting children thanks to this very particular type of praise that has been doled out on social media. This was illustrated en masse when the Oscars red carpet looks were dissected by the likes of Twitter and TikTok. 

Like a lot of jargon that gets diluted under the umbrella of internet speak (e.g. wig, ate and left no crumbs, yas queen), the concept of mother is stolen wholesale from black gay and drag culture. Paris is Burning strikes again as inadvertently influencing an entire generations of stans, with the slang term mother linking back to the idea of ball culture where more experienced house mothers provided guidance and support to those who were younger.

Do the women bestowed with this badge of honor physically raise us from tiny babies? No. Do they pick us up and put us back on our feet at our lowest points? Well, not directly. Do they serve a great look and give an attitude that it is uplifts the people that have parasocial relationships with them? Of course. Mothering is an act that is both selfish and very giving, all about personality and style. 

With all these implications, it's no surprise that when noted grocery store soundtracker Meghan Trainor released a song named after the concept, many people were taken aback. It's a ballsy move for somebody perceived as aesthetically challenged, throwing the whole idea into disarray. Some argued that it is the ultimate act of mothering to do something that  would leave the world speechless. It's up for debate whether she achieved that here, but what is certain is that a lot of people on the internet are going to be finding mother in the most glamorous and famous of places for some time to come.