“I see several themes coalescing to give the Tide pod memes their unique resonance and staying power in this moment. To begin with, there’s the telling age inflation, which speaks to the infantilizing aspect of new American adulthood. In particular, millennials—the oldest of whom are now well into their 30s—are routinely condemned as spoiled brats, unwilling to grow upand face their responsibilities. If we’re such babies, why wouldn’t we choke down anything that looks remotely like a sugary treat? A related form of generational malaise — the creeping depression, exaggerated or not, that undergirds so much internet comedy — reaffirms a desire to poison oneself. Long before Tide pods, edgelords advised each other to commit suicide with two words: “drink bleach.” A decade later, drinking bleach was a punchline for anyone overwhelmed by the pressures of existence.
There’s something to be said for the choice of domestic cleaning products in this mocking self-harm fantasy — as if it’s just another chore, and will leave us somehow “purified” of toxins accrued in a lifetime spent online. (Reddit’s r/eyebleach, contrary to what the name may suggest, offers extremely adorable imagery as a visual antidote to all that’s vile and depraved on the internet.) This is another expression of the inevitability built into the “someone’s gonna eat a Tide pod” premise; at some point, the world will be too much, the enticement will be too strong and fate will find a way. Our national anxiety, as with climate change, nuclear war or the collapse of a social safety net, crystallizes as an avoidable tragedy that we’re determined to steer straight into. Knowledge makes no difference because we aren’t willing to save ourselves.
FB: weirdly compelling analysis
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