This is 2018
Share:
Childish Gambino aka Donald Glover’s This is America essentially broke the internet last week, after hitting over 99 million views in the first few days of it being on YouTube. The music video addresses America’s ongoing inner conflict with things like racism, gun violence and police brutality.
People quickly began to hail the video as a masterpiece and there was even some hope it wouldn’t be trivialised in meme form as everything is in 2018.
But, that being said it’s 2018 so this atrocity happened.
The video seen above is the video mixed with Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe. While Call Me Maybe is an unflinching look at how difficult it is to get a person to call you, it doesn’t really fit with the tone, does it?
The mashup, created by YouTube user LOTI has become an overnight ‘hit’ if you can call it that. The outrage on social media was palpable.
"Call Me Maybe" synced with "This is America" is literally the whole point of "This is America" pic.twitter.com/BPAgJRuvBH
— RosalieMyDarling (@Rosalie8710) May 12, 2018
the call me maybe/this is America mashup is the dumbest thing to ever do Twitter numbers.
— Sean Gentille (@seangentille) May 13, 2018
The creator of the meme spoke about it in a comment on the video, saying it wasn’t his intention to be offensive.
‘I just want to make this clear, my intentions weren’t to be disrespectful to the message of the song. There are some very messed up things going on in America right now, racism-wise. There’s no denying it. This is just a b**ppost that spiralled out of control. I made it in 30 minutes and posted it to have a laugh with my friends.
It’s not meant to offend, but for laughter. The original video for TIA caused a great conversation and still is. But most of the energy surrounding it is negative. I wasn’t purposefully trying to be ignorant to the climate we’re in but I think the fact that so many people of all races are enjoying this is something to look at.
It’s just a meme made to laugh at, nothing else.’
For those who don’t know what ‘word that rhymes with hit’-posting means, it’s just a post that doesn’t mean anything and is purely meant for a laugh. It could be worse.