Memes Of The Week: September 27th, 2019

The memes of the week are a perfect summation of how chaotic the final week of September 2019 has been. It started with a young girl fighting climate change and ended with the potential unraveling of a presidency. Such is life in the year of our lord 2019.

This week's memes were reflective of that chaos, both directly and indirectly. Greta Thunberg's icy stare at President Trump made the list, but so did Tekashi 6ix9ine's confessions and Tropical Storm Karen. The connective tissue between this week's memes is how different they are.

Tropical Storm Karen

Based on name alone, Tropical Storm Karen threatened to be the most dangerous and, perhaps, obnoxious weather event of the decade. Following the announcement of the storm last Sunday, many online connected the storm to the infamous online character known as Karen, joking that it was traveling up the coast to speak to a manager. A wave of weather maps sporting the Speak to a Manager Haircut soon followed. However, by the week's end, the storm at more or less fizzled out, sparing residents managers of the United States' east coast a serious migraine.

6ix9ine Snitch

Nobody likes a rat, and in the case of 6ix9ine Snitch memes, people are busting out the traps. The trial of 6ix9ine, like so much of the rapper's colorful appearance, has been of major interest to memers around the world. But after court records leaked, reporting that 6ix9ine had named Cardi B and Jim Jones as members of the Bloods, the internet shifted into overdrive, parodying the rappers loose lips with image macros about what other beans the rapper could spill.

Osteen Floods

Perhaps the most curious of the memes this week was a 2017 controversy rekindled thanks to a recent tweet. When Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, Texas in August 2017, megachurch owner Joel Osteen closed the doors of his massive, arena-sized house of worship to those rendered homeless from floods, claiming that his church sustained damage as well. The move sent a wave of backlash crashing onto Osteen's doorstep. So when a new spell of storms threatened the area this summer, a viral tweet brought the controversy back into the spotlight and the meme cycle began anew. The Lord giveth, the lord taketh and the lord giveth again.

88/12

Few things get gamers meme-ing quite like the business side of video games. The economics of their favorite pastime, once again, became the subject of much mockery, after memers picked up on Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney's penchant for bragging about how lucrative the 88/12 split between developers and the Epic Games Store is for developers. Using the power of image edit memes, gamers told Sweeney, "Enough with the 88/12 already."

Greta Thunberg Stares at Donald Trump

Nothing seemed to capture the imagination of memers this week quite like this once-in-a-lifetime shot of climate activist Greta Thunberg shooting daggers at President Donald Trump. As Trump made his way through the U.N. climate summit, on his way to a different summit on religious freedom, also at the U.N., he crossed paths with Thunberg, fresh off her now-viral impassioned speech for climate justice. The moment became an instant meme icon, inspiring a series of object labels that are both simple and effective.