My Wife Has Already Seen All the Memes

As a rule, I don’t spend much time on my phone flipping the idle thumb up and down Facebook, Instagram, or any of the other various and sundry social media platforms that are available today. I try to have a certain intentionality to my internet usage, like finding out what famous persons were born the same year as me or stitching together famous movie scenes across multiple videos because for some reason no one thought to make a clip of the whole thing.

However, I’m not immune to the allure of user generated content in moments of boredom. Sometimes a meme focused around the absurdity of parenting or married life paired with a relevant but irreverent video clip is just what the doctor ordered. The problem is that when I stumble upon a real gem of a meme, I’ll naturally want to show it to my wife and invariably she’s already seen it.

It’s uncanny! No matter what video, GIF or image macro I might find that is a trenchant summation of some aspect of our lives, when I show it to her she will laugh politely and say some variation of “Oh, yeah I just saw that.” No really this happens every time!

And I’m not just talking about the odd toddler tantrum explained by a clip from the Office or family member surprises other family members who haven’t seen the first family member in a while for some reason that’s not explained and they thought sneaking up behind them and filming it was more fun than just showing up and saying hello. We’ve all seen those. No, I’m talking about some real deep cut memes.

For instance, I showed my wife this video of a Grizzly Bear breaking into someone’s mountain house, accidentally turning on the stereo and then becoming entranced by Jaco Pastorius’s Portrait of Tracy. After a cursory glance, she said “Oh, this is the one with the bear listening to that weird song? I saw that this morning.” I was furious. Why would this video even be served to her? Now, it makes sense algorithmically that I would see this video as my web activity shows that I have a great affinity for bass playing, jazz generally, and bears getting into mischief. My wife on the other hand, I think marginally appreciates bear tomfoolery, but I can tell you she is no fan of jazz fusion and knows nothing of the work of Jaco Pastorius! It makes no sense that this video should ever tumble up into her field of view. In fact, when I explained to her how groundbreaking Jaco’s use of harmonics, particularly on Portrait of Tracy, was to not just bass playing but jazz as a whole, she said “Well, you’re the only bass player I care about,” which to be honest, made me blush a bit and I forgot what I was talking about. All the more reason it shouldn’t be in her feed in the first place.

Now, as we share our lives together and our hearts beat as one, it does stand to reason that our algorithms are similarly in twain showing us identical content. My wife is also quite possibly addicted to social media as I frequently catch her “doom scrolling” (her words) Instagram in lieu of going to bed, so it also stands to reason that she would see memes before I do, but ALL OF THEM?

Here’s another example, I was served an image macro that was something to the effect of “When my wife asks me to get out the Christmas decorations” juxtaposed with a still photo from Fitzcarraldo where they drag the steamboat over the mountain. When I showed it to her she said “Oh yeah, I saw that last night. I don’t think getting out the Christmas decorations is that bad!”

How could any algorithm, even one that has been hastily constructed by grad students for a class assignment, think this was a meme she would need to see? She’s definitely never seen Fitzcarraldo and I doubt she even knows what it is! In fact, I bet she’s never even seen a Werner Herzog film before. In the spirit of transparency, I’ve never seen the movie either and to be honest it could have been from that documentary about the making of Fitzcarraldo, but I did recognize it and also frequently pretend I have seen it to seem cultured. Plus, I saw Grizzly Man, so I have seen a Werner Herzog film before, which I think justifies it showing up in my feed.

I should also add that she’s right about the Christmas decorations. They really aren’t that big of a deal to bring up from the basement, which just furthers my argument about why she shouldn’t have seen that meme at all!

After too many of these incidents, I decided it was time for drastic measures. Since getting my wife treated for social media addiction seemed like too much work, I began tuning my algorithm to things my wife is not interested in at all, including but not limited to Trick Shot Pool, Cubo-Futurist sculpture, and the Rockabilly Revival of the late 70’s/early 80’s. Sure enough, I eventually discovered some sort of AI video monstrosity of an undulating mess of blocks executing a perfect massé shot set to the Stray Cats’ (She’s) Sexy + 17. I really can’t understand why someone felt the need to create this, but it was oddly hypnotic.

I was also sure that I had finally found the one meme my wife has surely never seen. I raced off to show her and would you believe it, but the meme was not only there on her phone when I got to her, she actually showed it to me! Crestfallen, I began looking for social media addiction treatment centers, but then I saw this hilarious little meme about having a spouse who spends too much time on Instagram and thought I should show my wife. Then I figured she’d probably already seen it, so she’s likely aware that she has a problem and is taking the appropriate actions.