Ah, I see the breadsticks meme, having saturated the market, has passed out of phase one (“classic”) and is now into phase two (“self-referential,” where usage of the meme can only be understood with the original form functioning as referent). I can’t wait to see it reach phase three (“hybrid,” where it merges with another meme fatigued by phase two), phase four (“dada,” where the meme passes out of conventional usages of language), and phase five (“exhausted,” or the universal sensation of why the fuck is it still on my dash). Thus the meme reaches its hibernation stage to remain in stasis until extinction or ironic revival.
At what stage do we usually see the Denny’s tumblr using it?
Denny’s is an early adopter of the corporatization of memes and is an atypical representative of that phenomenon. Typical corporate meme exploitation occurs any point after meme critical popularity–that is, the moment when a meme passes from niche to inescapable. The key feature of the corporate variant is that it tends to rapidly accelerate the meme lifecycle towards phase five because commodification of memes directly conflicts with their organic communal development. Denny’s, however, is generally an exception to this rule. This is because of three reasons. Firstly the initial novelty of their social media presence. This has become the second reason, their legacy. This is their identity on tumblr and they have become a meme unto themselves. And they’ve been able to do this because thirdly, their brand is highly compatible with memes. They’re a chain restaurant but not a behemoth like McDonald’s, they have a distinct character without being controversial, and their memes feel authentic because eating in a Denny’s at two in the morning is the physical manifestation of surreal meaninglessness of phase four.
Girls pose by a jail that recalls the witch trials of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. Photo taken in 1945.
I recently learned that the water in Salem was contaminated with the fungus from which LSD is derived and a legitimate theory for the whole thing is that everyone in the town was tripping balls
This might be the greatest thing ive ever seen on the internet
We did a whole massive thing on this in history. I believe the fungus in question is called Ergot and it’s terrifying. It makes your muscles spasm so when they had seizures that was the reason, not because they were possessed. One woman had to be strapped to her bed, she was seizing so bad. And, like ‘theybuildbuildings’ said, it had the same effects as LSD; as soon as you touch it, let alone consume it, it messes with your entire system. The worst thing is, you practically always had a bad trip. Many complained about bugs crawling under their skin or monsters emerging from the shadows to scratch and bite at them until they were screaming. It was a horrendous thing and the worst part is, Ergot is still around. It grows on crops and, if your wheat isn’t properly treated, it can be eaten and you’ll most likely experience the same as the women of Salem.
god i love history
This is hella cool and almost correct…
The effects on the people of Salem were probably from consuming bread with the fungus in it, not from contaminated water. And apparently rye is way more commonly affected than wheat. In fact, often the members of the clergy were able to afford nicer bread made from wheat and thus were not as commonly affected.
You don’t go on a spasm-y trip just by touching it. You have to consume it for weeks, which results in chronic poisoning. ( If you stop eating it early enough, you may recover. So when people suffering from these “demonic possessions” took refuge in churches and stopped eating low-grade rye bread they were sometimes miraculously healed.
More interesting facts:
Ergot poisoning can result in convulsions & hallucinations, or it can cause gangrene, depending on which group of active alkaloids are present. (Horrifying, either way.) It killed a lot of people in Europe in the Middle Ages.
In Europe, often there was a strong correlation between wet summers (which provide ideal conditions for ergot) and reports of witchcraft/ possession. And in Norway and Scotland, records of witch persecution are only found in areas where rye was grown and used to make bread.
And I just learned right now that one author dude translated the word “Beowulf” as “barley-wolf” which could indicate a connection to ergot. The LSD-like effects could be a valid explanation for stories of Old Norse warriors going into the a sort of trancelike battle rage.
(this is exactly the kind of stuff my herbology medicinal plants class is about, it’s so cool omfg. we had a lecture on ergot last week.)
if you don’t think this shit is tight then i don’t know what your on about
“Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab: you fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticize them, they cry.“
If you polled people on marine life they thought was cute, sea slugs would probably rate somewhere near the bottom if they made the list at all. That’s a shame, though, as the amusingly named nudibranch group is full of vivid color, out-there shapes, and even downright adorableness.
But maybe the sea slug’s image is about to change because the Japanese Net, purveyors of all things cute, have just discovered Jorunna parva, the fluffy little bunnies of the sea. The Japanese name for Jorunna parva is gomafu biroodo umiushi, which loosely translates to black speckled velvet sea slug.
And if you think those pictures of the Pacific sea slug are cute, check out the little fluff-ball in very slow action, captured on film by a diver off Shizuoka Prefecture.
Here’s the part that made me thoughtfully stroke my imaginary beard:
Ms. Delmaro told him the trouble had come from a spirit that was stalking him. She needed $28,000, then $28,000 more. Michelle had grown cold so suddenly, he thought, that the spirit explanation sounded right, and so he paid.
Recall that this was a woman who’d made it explicitly clear that she had no romantic feelings for this fellow. A reasonable person might note Michelle’s complete lack of interest and come up with a few more plausible explanations for her coldness than “evil spirits.” But for this guy to follow that thread, he’d have to give up on an article of deeply-held faith: that any woman he wants is rightfully his and just needs to be collected. Much easier to believe in poltergeists, and pay to have them removed.
Believe it or not, I’m not unsympathetic to the man, who must be very lonely. But when I see how desperate he was to have his delusion of entitlement confirmed, when I read that he found “Michelle is influenced by evil spirits” easier to swallow than “Michelle is a human being with preferences and agency,” I find it harder to feel too sorry that someone took him for what he was willing to pay. “Men gonna men,” as the New Yorker’s Caitlin Kelly tweeted; they often ignore women’s explicit stated opinions, and it’s always annoying, so why not get a Rolex out of the deal? The real travesty is that Michelle didn’t get a cut. The other travesty is that I didn’t think of it first.
It doesn’t take a backbone to be a genius — or a master of the comedic arts, apparently.
An octopus has been captured on film exhibiting one of the most
remarkable (and amusing) examples of tool usage in the animal kingdom.
Footage shows the eight-limbed animal literally walking along the ocean
floor
carrying two halves of a broken coconut shell beneath his arms, seemingly without rhyme or reason.
But this tentacled one knows exactly what he’s doing.
As it turns out, some octopuses, like this, one possess the foresight to actually pack along coconut shells to
use as protective shelters when exploring areas without adequate places to hide.
Scientists say this behavior is the first evidence of tool use by an
octopus, putting the aquatic animals in a league with a small number of
other animals known to do the same.
I’ve seen people describe Sardonyx as “Pearl, if she actually had self-esteem“ and I thought of her little listing off of traits to Steven this episode:
…the proper words to describe yours truly are: specific, intelligent, accurate, faultless, elegant, controlled, surgical, graceful, and powerful!
I don’t know about you but to me that sure sounds like Pearl’s big wishlist, and an excellent summary of the perfect facade we’ve seen her try to put up constantly (and usually fail at keeping up, sometimes comically, often heartbreakingly). So really, is it any wonder she’s desperate to be Sardonyx as much as she can? And again, I wonder when we’ll see just how the “lost, defective pearl“ part comes into play here.
what if all the girls in host club actually know haruhi is a girl but they assume shes trans so they dont bring it up and dont even care and continue to date her
Literally that is the end of the manga like that is revealed at the end of the manga like this is a real thing
Is it actually? Tell me more, I never finished it!!
Okay so the end of the manga yeah Haruhi and Tamaki get together like we expected but it was a super slow build and the relationship is mostly Tamaki trying to cuddle while Haruhi eats food so yay.
But yeah basically theres a reveal to all the girls of Haruhi’s legal gender and they all basically go “Ah, yeah we knew? But we figured Haruhi just liked dressing and acting like a boy so we went along with it” and the host club just presumably continues on timelessly forever or smthg anyway it was cool
Does anyone else have like. Anxiety-related memory problems. Like, after you do something, you start wondering if you messed something up or did something wrong, and you get really anxious over possible mistakes you made and you genuinely can’t remember if you made those mistakes or not?
Like for example maybe you write someone a letter and then after sending it you start imagining you made some terrible mistake and despite the fact that you yourself wrote and proofread and sent it, you can’t remember if you did or not?
It happens to me a l o t and it’s terrible and scary because I can’t trust my own memories when I’m anxious
