The thing about social media humour is that it is unhinged, unprovoked, and spreads like wildfire. The latest social media meme that everyone is picking up, be it law enforcement agencies or fast-food chains, is one called ‘Imagine being named after’.
In a world of hyper-commodification where brands appear to hold more value than any other cultural, historical, or geographical entity, many of these memes poke fun at famous or common things that share their name with an equally popular brand.
For instance, food delivery platform Swiggy shared a map of Bikaner, a city in Rajasthan, and wrote “imagine being named after bhujiya”. A Twitter user shared a picture of the Statue of Liberty and wrote “imagine being named after a shoe company”, referring to popular Indian footwear brand Liberty Shoes Limited.
imagine being named after a meme account pic.twitter.com/YqwJDg5VrB
— Xavier Uncle (@xavierunclelite) July 17, 2023
imagine being named after a deadly disease pic.twitter.com/iY7nkQkjns
— stuuti (@ihsmaim) July 15, 2023
Imagine being named after a Tea powder https://t.co/q9GaslLFmo pic.twitter.com/kSmWbbolcX
— 𝕾𝖊𝖊𝖒𝖆😎 (@Seemajay9) July 20, 2023
Imagine being named after a university pic.twitter.com/PHPYBWoVmn
— vani (@paneerchillli) July 15, 2023
imagine being named after bhujiya pic.twitter.com/ISOcwf6XPh
— Swiggy (@Swiggy) July 15, 2023
Imagine being named after an Airport pic.twitter.com/bXo8OTxTNg
— Shubham2.0 (@bhav_paaji) July 15, 2023
Mumbai police, in their typical social media-savvy style, shared a picture of a zebra on Instagram and wrote, “Imagine being named after a pedestrian crossing’. It is unclear what provoked this meme template, but it is all over the internet now.
In recent weeks, many memes have been inspired by Hollywood’s big releases Barbie and Oppenheimer. In April, soon after the first trailer of Barbie was released, a tagline from the film’s poster, “She’s everything. He’s just Ken,” became a meme template.
Netizens initially used the tagline to show a couple in which the woman is far better than her male partner, for instance, Elle Woods and Warner Huntington III from the 2001 romantic comedy Legally Blonde as well as Princess Diana and Prince Charles. However, soon people began using the meme to compare two competing entities. For instance, the University of York also used the meme template to compare itself with its rival, Lancaster University.