How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?

How did we get here? And by “here,” I don’t mean “Barb from Stranger Things nominated for an Emmy” or “another bad haircut for me,” because I know the answers to the questions in both of those cases. I mean to the point where the “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme has maintained an inexplicable popularity for so long as to achieve the rare double-meta (memes are already meta) status, a height from which it is capable of breaking my brain.

This meme, taken from a 30 Rock scene in which Steve Buscemi wears a T-shirt reading “Music Band” and a backwards baseball cap, imagining that he is passing as a teenager, is most often used by people trying to make the self-deprecating joke that they are old and do not understand something current or hip. (Or to accuse someone else of the same.) The meme, however, and the poster’s knowledge of it, is supposed to subtly remind the viewer “But actually, I am hip enough to at least know of a meme to use in this situation.” You don’t really need me to explain it, as you’ve seen it likely every day of the last five years, but just in case this ends up in a time capsule or something… read more >