Do you remember all that went down in the virtual realm over the last fortnight? Did you add anything to your Steam library this week? Have you gone down any rabbit holes in the last seven days? No? Would you like to? Do you have a minute?
This week, we have a lot of confusingly political online moments in a confusing, ever-increasing political online landscape, from the catharsis of Julius Caesar to really strange Pokémon design choices to the heralded “colonization” of Youtube Shorts. Sixty seconds on the clock — on your marks, get set, read!
— Holly Tsch, Senior Arts Editor and Campbell Johns, Digital Culture Beat Editor
Beware the ides of March
For those of us who are Roman history buffs and/or Tumblr users, the monotony of the months between spring break and the end of the semester is broken up by our yearly celebration of the assassination of Julius Caesar. A decorated general, ambitious politician and author to every introductory Latin student’s source of pain, Caesar is a notable figure in history, to put it lightly. Above all else though, he’s known for being so hated by Roman senators that he was stabbed 23 times on the floor of the senate on March 15, hence the ides.
Those outside of my sphere of Rome enthusiasts and those dedicated to the camp of it all may be wondering why Tumblr has turned it into one of our biggest site-wide holidays. First answer: It’s funny. Imagine you’ve freshly taken control of Rome; it was a bit unlawful, but everyone in the city loves you so it’s fine. However, it turns out that not everyone loves you. In fact, 60 of your coworkers hate you so much that they all conspire to literally stab you in the back. Then, only 23 of them succeed because the rest of them are cowards. Congrats everyone, that’s the worst anyone’s ever done it.
Beyond that, there’s something to be said about the appeal of, for a lack of better words, such direct action in a time of authoritarian takeover in our country and many others. Many are looking to their elected officials to stand in the way of these takeovers, but are dissatisfied currently with the lack of action taken. Tumblr specifically has always been a platform for minority groups away from more hostile platforms like X or TikTok, so it makes sense that we would celebrate this event. I’m not advocating for political assassination, to be clear — for one, Caesar’s death majorly backfired and led to the rise of the empire and his own rise to deity status. However, it really shouldn’t be surprising that so many are keen to celebrate action against tyranny in this day and age. For me, I take the story of Caesar as a cautionary tale, both in the actions of the senators and Caesar himself. Beware the ides of March, indeed.
Daily Arts Writer Lin Yang can be reached at yanglinj@umich.edu.
Lumiose City Anti-Homeless Bench
People love to pretend that video games are completely divorced from the “real world” — unfeeling and untouched by the undulating landscapes of our shitty, capitalistic lives. I mean, have you seen the Steam reviews for Disco Elysium?
Conjuring elaborate lore explanations, dismissing it as an oversight or insisting that it’s just a coincidence — anything to avoid confronting the reality staring them in the face. But sometimes, things are exactly what they look like, and what this looks like is a scathing, unintentional indictment of the real world.
Enter the infamous Lumiose City anti-homeless benches. A design choice so jarringly out of place in the bright, sanitized, family-friendly world of Pokémon that it sticks out like a sore thumb. Whether intentional or not, a designer — somewhere, somehow — put in benches that mirror the exact kind of hostile architecture used in real life to keep homeless people from resting. It’s the kind of juxtaposition that stops you in your tracks: a game where humans live in harmony with nature, but apparently not with each other.
Now, does this mean Game Freak is making some grand political statement about urban development and the ethics of public space? Probably not. But that’s what makes it worse. The fact that these benches exist without fanfare, without irony, suggests something far more unsettling: this kind of cruelty is so normal, so ingrained, that it made its way into a fantasy world by accident. Maybe the designer has seen so many of these benches in real life that they didn’t even think about it. Maybe they did think about it and wanted to make a point. Maybe Pokémon Legends: Z-A is secretly about gentrification. Maybe we’ll never know.
But what will remain burned into the internet’s collective memory is the phrase “Lumiose City anti-homeless benches,” and all of its dizzying implications. Banksy couldn’t eat her shit.
Daily Arts Contributor Estlin Salah can be reached at essalah@umich.edu.
TikTok “colonizes” YouTube Shorts
TikTok brain rot has reached a new low. According to a few TikTok users, we are in a meme drought — the days of “ts pmo” and “icl” are over, but there has been no new meme to replace it. Therefore, as a way to stimulate the “meme economy,” TikTok users decided to “colonize” YouTube Shorts — YouTube’s short-form video platform — March 25 by flooding the platform’s algorithm with TikTok memes. TikTokers chose YouTube Shorts because it’s notorious for being “behind” on new memes. While planning for this war, TikTokers in the comments are comparing themselves to the British (“We have to put a British Flag in the comments to recognize each other”) and reiterating World War II propaganda posters (“The TikTok Army needs YOU”).
The decision to “colonize” YouTube Shorts could be accredited to the way in which a meme’s shelf life has rapidly decreased. It only takes a week for memes to become “cringe,” and TikTok’s platform has contributed to this: because the algorithm is fantastic at boosting smaller creators, new content can blow up on For You Pages easier. Thus, TikTok users are consistently exposed to new content. The decision to participate in this “colonization” is entirely your prerogative, but maybe we should use this as a moment to reflect on our meme consumption and hesitate on calling memes “cringe” before taking over another app.
Daily Arts Contributor Liv Frey can be reached at livfrey@umich.edu.
