If you forward this email to ten of your contacts, you'll be surprised in the morning. You will get good news if you re-posted this post by midnight. You will be rich if you share the money. All of us were victims of the chainmail complex.
The next wave of chainmail posts has been ushered in by TikTok, an app that is both the bane of our existence and love of our lives. Is it a sign that TikTok users are reverting back to old internet culture?
Ten years ago, TikTok's preferred form of chainmail was threatening, but now it is more positive. Users claim that the audio behind their videos brings good luck and prosperity. The sound is not a joke. I'm making more money than I ever have before and my life is good. Buying a new laptop might be a cool example of how cool it is. Users are encouraged to save the sound or video to their favorites folder or keep the video in their drafts if you post the sound on your public profile.
Users can return to their posts weeks or months later with awe-inspiring updates because of TikTok's unique duet feature. It's a completely new form of chainmail, but it still smells like old emails and posts behind the screen.
There is a lot of different ways in which the app is being changed.
"You've Got a friend in Me" and "W.A.P" are two of the most cringe-worthy TikTok mash-ups.
The Evolution Control Committee is an experimental music group that calls itself a "mash-up band". The blended version of Public Enemy lyrics was released in 1994. Today, through the magic of TikTok, cursed song mashups appear, and go viral, almost every day.
Old names are being brought back in the online game of TikTok. The overnight rise of TikTok's "corn kid" gave birth to a now immensely popular corn kid song, which combines lines from TikTok with a fun, synthesizer-based beat. The jingle was created by a group called The Gregory Brothers. The same guy who created the " Double Rainbow", " Oh My Dayum", and " Bed Intruder" songs is also behind other classic meme remakes. You probably took over your FYP for months on end because of Schmoyoho's work.
Other internet icons are also getting fans on the app. Taking advantage of trends that encourage users to post themselves in past eras or when they were kids, many old vine icons are making themselves known to TikTok in a revival of their old 6 seconds of fame.
Older TikTok users who were chronically online at a young age are pointing out the app's repetition of internet lore, such as the juxtaposition of a TikTok user going viral for learning what the dictionary definition of "slay" is.
I don't know what that quote is anymore. Those who can't remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
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It's fair to say that a lot of this could be the result of Tumblr's hold on culture and the internet in the late-2000s. It makes sense that it's a part of Tumblr 2.0
As an app, which long ago shed it's Musically dancing and singing origins to take on the role of preferred internet gathering spot, TikTok has also shifted many Gen Z users towards the romanticization of Millenium. There is an overwhelming desire for childhood nostalgia in the app. If they bring back low-rise jeans and frosted eyeshadow, why not also bring back chain mail and meme?
It might be a tad annoying for older users who were around for the days of Charlie the Unicorn, LOLcats, and the shift towards (and death) of Vine to see just straight-up reposted meme. The internet is a natural process. How will this early internet language survive if it isn't used on every new social media app?
The app's most important contribution is preserving and redistributing the internet lore of generations past, a digital conversation between users of all generations about how humor has changed and how it has stayed the same. Universal success of a good beat or threat.
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