May 4th, 2012
Scumbag Steve and the Reverse Meme
In honor of ROFLCon this weekend (sads I am not there), I would like to pontificate on Scumbag Steve and a new era of meme-age. I can’t think of a scenario to date where someone unknowingly became the subject of a meme, found out about it, and then incorporated the meme persona back into his/her real life. So many layers of meta here that I just don’t know where to begin.
From what I understand, Scumbag Steve was just your average wannabe white rapper with a MySpace page and an unfortunate photo. A reddit user finds the photo, adds some funny captions, and all of a sudden Scumbag Steve was on a tear across the internets.
He was the wannabe rapper who comes to your parties draped in fake bling, drinks all your beer, and steals your friend’s wallet on the way out. Everyone knows a Scumbag Steve. Everyone.
Normally this would end up just like any other meme story – the actual real person from the photo might be somewhat traumatized and then would fade away. But not Scumbag Steve. He embraced the meme personality even though Scumbag Steve is a complete asshole. He took to educating other meme victims and has developed a little bit of wisdom in a space where there’s really none. He writes to Annoying Facebook Girl:
“Now don’t have your folks look for a meme support group for you, cuz there isn’t one. We’re out here by ourselves. You may feel hurt and embarrassed that somehow one of your friends or foes took that godawful picture of you (we know you really don’t look like that all the time, right?) and put it where the internet meme makers dwell. 4chan. Don’t go there, especially if your parents are looking….Now, if you do see a pic of me, try not to go all wifey on me but (scumbag joke, these memes can get inside your head) that too was a pic of me a little younger, looking like a scumbag. Let’s face it. The pics look pretty true to form.”
And in an ironic twist of internet wonderful, yesterday he releases an actual rap video and after a day it has crossed a million views. The meme becomes reality. Is there such a thing as a reverse meme, or has Scumbag Steve has just pwned the entire internet?