Episodes
The Leo DiCaprio meme described in the episode.
Say My Meme, Celebrity Memes

Celebrity Memes

From Beyonce to Snoop Dogg, celebrities capture our imagination and serve as relatable avatars for our own emotional journey. To put it simply: they make funny faces and do funny things to make us laugh. That's why celebrity memes are some of the most shared, most recycled genre of meme out there. This week we start with some of the most notable celebrities you might see crop up in memes: Snoop Dogg, Beyonce, Leo DiCaprio and more.

Episode Transcript

Will:

You're listening to Say My Meme, the podcast that describes the internets best memes for those of us who can't see them. I'm Will from Be My Eyes, and I'm joined today, as I am every Monday, by my cohost Carolyn from Scribly. So Carolyn, did you have a chance to listen to some of our listener memes?

Carolyn:

Oh my God, they were so great. Yeah, I really like those. Those definitely brought a smile to my face this week, and also I learned something about urinal etiquette, so that was kind of cool.

Will:

I have to admit, I kind of did too. Yeah, insane how one of them, I think it was Jack, went so deep into the subtext of meme subtext. I feel like we're going to hear more of that in the coming weeks.

Carolyn:

I love that. Yeah, there's definitely more to them, and I appreciated that analysis.

Will:

Yeah, yeah. And I feel like the memes that the listeners pick tells you a lot about the listener too.

Carolyn:

Oh, for sure, yeah. Yeah, keep them coming guys, we love these.

Will:

Yeah, yeah, seriously. What have you been working on this week, though? What's the spicy meme theme of the week?

Carolyn:

Oh, yeah. This week was all about celebrities, because celebrities are featured quite often in memes. I don't know, maybe we're trying to knock them down a peg, or something, or make them more relatable, bring them back down to earth, but there are quite a few of them out there. So yeah, I had fun sorting through those.

Will:

Anyone who knows me knows that I love celebrities, so that's fantastic. And as always, I have not seen any of these memes, so I'm coming to them fresh. Should we just jump in?

Carolyn:

Let's do it. All right, meme number one. Snoop Dog wearing a cheap blonde wig and powdered white face smiles a little too close to the camera like it's your mom's first selfie. Tagline, moms be on Instagram like.

Will:

Oh my gosh.

Carolyn:

Okay.

Will:

That was pretty good.

Carolyn:

So Snoop Dog is a huge fan of selfies, I learned this this week, and there are so many memes of Snoop Dog selfies. He just likes to snap some quick shots in his home, just in his bed, or just doing something, whatever, usually with his hair all wrapped up, just giving you his look of the day. And they're so funny, and people have turned them into memes. But this one in particular, quite interesting. And let me get-

Will:

Yeah, it is Photoshopped? What's the alt text to here?

Carolyn:

Yeah, yeah, so I think alt texts would help for a more visualization of this one. So this is an extreme closeup of Snoop Dogg in a blonde wig with baby doll bangs, and aggressive layers framing the face. He has white powder all over his face, even his eyelashes and his goatee, and he's wearing large gold wire frame glasses smiling down sweetly at the camera and squinting his eyes, somewhat vacant expression on his face.

Will:

Wow. So is it hard to tell whether or not it's photo-shopped, or whether it's real? What would your judgment be?

Carolyn:

So it's definitely not photo-shopped. This is a character that he was trying on for a while called White Todd, he would put on this wig, and powder his face and wear these glasses, and then he'd go on Instagram live as this character.

Will:

Oh my God.

Carolyn:

Yeah. I guess he's paying homage to a skit that Martin Lawrence did decades ago on his show Martin, because there was a similar character like this. So he must've been watching it one day, laughing hysterically and was like, "I'm going to be White Todd." This is just a selfie, or a screenshot from one of these Instagram lives of an extreme closeup of this character that he puts on.

Will:

That's beautiful. I'm going to have to look up some of these White Todd videos, I had no idea that Snoop did character.

Carolyn:

Yeah, yeah, no, it was pretty interesting. And there are quite a few videos out there that are pretty funny. Just the audio is funny, so yeah, look them up.

Will:

Love it. All right, meme number two.

Carolyn:

Meme number two. Leo DiCaprio dressed like he's on a steam boat playing poker, laughs at his own joke while holding a tennis ball cut out. Tagline, me: throws a ball, my dog: starts chasing nothing, dog: turns around, me:

Will:

Oh, so you are this cocky Leo DiCaprio feeling very proud of yourself because you tricked your poor little dog.

Carolyn:

Yeah. Like, oh yeah, tennis balls over here.

Will:

Got it.

Carolyn:

Tricked you again.

Will:

Got it. Okay, so the key here is that he's very self-satisfied tossing around the tennis ball.

Carolyn:

Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's the look on his face. And it's all about the look on his face, so let me throw the alt text at you. Okay, all right. Screenshot of Leo as southern plantation owner from the movie Django Unchained. His hair is slicked back, and he's wearing a three-piece suit with a white carnation flower on his lapel. His smug smile is strained, and he seems to be laughing only for himself. His eyes are squinted with brows pulled in and up in the middle. He pushes his jaw down and forward, tongue against the bottom of his teeth, and as he laughed he lounges back and delicately holds an oversized poorly photo-shopped tennis ball.

Will:

Okay, so someone stuck a tennis ball into the Django Unchain scene.

Carolyn:

Yes, yes.

Will:

Because he just looks like the kind of jerk who gets great pleasure out of tricking his dog.

Carolyn:

Exactly. So what he's actually holding in this scene is a small cocktail glass, or a wine glass, but it's very small, and he's leaning back and laughing at his own joke. What people have done in the meme world is replaced that wineglass with something else, and then pair it with a tagline. So another example of this would be, Leo is holding a Blizzard from Dairy Queen upside down the caption is, Dairy Queen employees be like.

Will:

The creativity of these is insane. Yeah. And actually, believe it or not, we just got a listener meme in which will go out next week, or later on this week, that's also a Leo meme. So I think we're going to see more of these.

Carolyn:

Oh, he is all over the place, really, with the meme, that's why I had to feature a Leo meme, because it just... and particularly images of him drinking. The internet loves that, and this is not the only one. So yeah, he's a meme celebrity for sure.

Will:

Yeah. Expressive face, I guess.

Carolyn:

Yeah.

Will:

Cool. All right, meme number three.

Carolyn:

Yeah. Two photos, raging Beyonce about to swing a baseball bat, then carefree Beyonce, arms in the air like she just doesn't care. Tagline, me before eating versus me after I eat.

Will:

That first Beyonce must be from the Lemonade music video, where she's smashing in car windows.

Carolyn:

Yeah, exactly. So for the listeners that don't know about Lemonade, this is from the music video Hold Up, and she's basically walking down a city street wielding this baseball bat, and just smashing all the glass in sight. And then alternating that with moments of pure joy and swinging that bat in the air. So I don't know, the way I interpret it is like she's experiencing some sort of through this music video.

Will:

Yeah.

Carolyn:

Yeah.

Will:

Yeah. And the other one's a concert performance or something?

Carolyn:

No, it's actually from the same music video.

Will:

Oh, okay.

Carolyn:

Yeah, so she has that bat, the same bat, and she's tossed her arms up in the air. She's mid skip, like she's skipping through the street. Her eyes are closed, and she's just beaming with delight on her face. It's just two completely different emotions, same dress.

Will:

And I think the whole story behind the Lemonade thing was Jay Z cheating on her, right?

Carolyn:

Yeah, yeah. It's her exploration through dealing with that infidelity. So this particular song, and this music video is like, you'll never have anyone that loves you like I love you.

Will:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Carolyn:

And expressing how very off she is at this, but just that she's still owning it. She's still got herself, and she feels better.

Will:

Well, I sometimes feel that degree of emotion when I'm extremely hungry.

Carolyn:

Yeah.

Will:

If you just ask my girlfriend, she'll tell you that she has to keep snacks around.

Carolyn:

Yeah, definitely. I can get hangry too, yeah, don't mess with me.

Will:

Yeah, yeah. That's great. Wow.

Carolyn:

Yeah.

Will:

I love a good Beyonce meme.

Carolyn:

Yeah. All right, next one?

Will:

Let's do it.

Carolyn:

Okay. Tech bro Elon smokes weed like the whole flat world is watching.

Will:

I love that. I love that, very brief but succinct description? This must be from the Joe Rogan episode.

Carolyn:

You got it, yeah.

Will:

Yeah.

Carolyn:

And the tagline for this image is, why don't we just build the rockets in Australia and let them fall into space. I had fun with this one, and my description honestly is partly inspired by the reaction that people had to this podcast, and the memes that they created for it. A lot of them are making fun of Elon, so I chose to interpret it in that way, and the alt text is, Elon Musk smoking weed on a podcast, trying a little too hard to look like he's a guy smoking weed on a podcast. He's got his thinking face on, slumped to one side eyebrow raised, looking down in a way with a slight frown, and he's holding a huge blunt that's letting off a giant plume of smoke.

Will:

Beautiful.

Carolyn:

Yeah.

Will:

I remember when this happened, and the internet just went crazy.

Carolyn:

TIt did.

Will:

Something about that intersection of Elon Musk's eccentric kind of love but hate personality, and just this, I'm going to hit a blunt to try to be a cool guy.

Carolyn:

Yeah.

Will:

People just lost it.

Carolyn:

I know. And actually doing more research on this, Elon has made fun of what's called the Flat Earth Society. I don't know how much you know about them, that group.

Will:

Yeah.

Carolyn:

But I feel this tagline is kind of a nod to that feud they're having, because it's about rockets falling off into space. Yeah.

Will:

Yeah, yeah.

Carolyn:

So the Twitter exchange that I'm talking about was, Elon posted, "Why is there no Flat Mars Society?" the Society's answer to this question was, "Unlike the earth, Mars has been observed to be round."

Will:

You have to wonder if it was made by a flat earther, who was making fun of him for thinking the earth is round, or something.

Carolyn:

I mean, I think there are layers to this, definitely. Yeah, which I guess this is the appropriate tagline for this image because it gets us thinking just like Elon.

Will:

Yeah, yeah, because it's a nod to that thing about Australian toilets going the other direction, or something like that.

Carolyn:

Yeah, it's like, well, it would be the other side of the world where you are, in LA.

Will:

Falling downward.

Carolyn:

And you're just falling off of it, yeah.

Will:

Southern hemisphere.

Carolyn:

Yeah.

Will:

Wow, wow. What a complex and varied meme. Incredible.

Carolyn:

Good work was done there, for sure.

Will:

Was that number four?

Carolyn:

That's number four.

Will:

All right.

Carolyn:

All right, here we go. Keanu as a mopey haired surfer bro turns towards you to say, "Whoa, party on dudes." Tagline, what if soy milk is just regular milk introducing himself in Spanish.

Will:

I'm so happy you picked a Keanu meme.

Carolyn:

Oh, I had to, and this face is just precious.

Will:

Yeah, yeah. Don't tell me, it's got to be from point break, right? Or is it from Bill and Ted?

Carolyn:

It's from Bill and Ted's, yeah.

Will:

Okay.

Carolyn:

Yeah. It's a up shot, and he has long disheveled hair and a slack jawed expression. And it doesn't look like there's too much going on upstairs, and he's kind of amazed at whatever he's looking at. So people pair this image with taglines over and over again, just somewhat dumb observations about your surroundings or the world in general.

Will:

Yeah, yeah. Oh man, so beautiful.

Carolyn:

Yeah, Keanu. Yeah. He's great.

Will:

Is there a whole Pantheon of Keanu memes out there?

Carolyn:

Oh yeah, definitely, the internet loves to make fun of him. But he's actually quite talented at martial arts, and he does all his own stunts, so I think it's funny that he's a legit actor that, in these roles, he's doing a lot of his own work, and then on the internet people just love to make fun of him for being a little lame.

Will:

He seems very good nature too.

Carolyn:

Yeah, I think he is. But what do we know about these celebrities anyways? I mean, they could be anyone, they could be completely dull.

Will:

Or they could be a hyper intellectual. We can only dream.

Carolyn:

I know, I know.

Will:

Those were magical.

Carolyn:

Yes, yes, hope you enjoyed those. And yeah, there's many more to come, I think, for these celebrities. They're in for it now in the meme world.

Will:

Oh my gosh. And to our listeners, I think we already have some celebrity names in the can for this week, but send more folks. We want to hear your celebrity memes.

Carolyn:

Thanks everyone.

Will:

Do you want to describe your favorite memes for our community? Send a voice memo to [email protected]. That's [email protected].