And Now for Something Completely Meaningless…

… because if I talk about social media for five days a week, I’ll have to start drinking.

Hark, a Meme

As much as I advocate creating content that matters, I also appreciate the genuinely absurd and escapist.

And the Internet is nothing if not absurd and escapist.

Especially Tumblr.

Perhaps the perfect example of the way the Internet works can be summed up with one Tumblr blog in particular:

Selleck Waterfall Sandwich.

It is what it says: a series of images in which actor Tom Selleck, a waterfall and a sandwich are Photoshopped together.

Why?  Who cares; it just is.

And, like anything worth talking about on the web, it became immediately polarizing: some people (like these commenters) think it’s a horrifying waste of time and effort.  Others find it vaguely amusing, whimsically postmodern or generally harmless.  And some people just can’t enjoy a good meme without overanalyzing what the whole thing means.

Me, I love it for two reasons: its stark lack of context is refreshingly liberating, and its formulaic simplicity seems like it was purposely designed to engender crowdsourced knock-offs.

Like Bea Arthur Mountains Pizza.

Honestly, I have no idea whether BAMP is an homage to SWS or if BAMP and SWS were created by the same person.  Its provenance is almost beside the point; either way, the existence of a derivative validates Selleck Waterfall Sandwich as a meme-worthy concept:

Celebrity.  Location.  Food.

Which prompted me, almost entirely by accident, to co-create Tony Danza Space Pretzel.

See, two of my “real-life” friends — Tom (AKA Locobone) and Maya — knew about Selleck Waterfall Sandwich before I did.  So when I stumbled across Bea Arthur Mountains Pizza, I emailed them a link because I knew they’d appreciate it.

I also included a rhetorical question: “Is TonyDanzaSpacePizza taken?”

A few hours later, I return to my email to discover that each of them had, independently and without provocation, created a Tony Danza Space Pretzel image as a joke and mailed them back to me.

Taking this as a sign, I launched our Tumblr blog and the rest is (extremely recent) history.  (Like, yesterday.)

Does it matter?  Of course not.

And boy, is that a welcome change of pace.

If you’d like to create your own Tony Danza Space Pretzel image, feel free.  Spread the word.  Email your images to us and, if we like them, maybe we’ll add them to the blog.

No guarantees, no pressure.  Just a creative outlet, borne from someone else’s unintentional (?) stroke of minimalist postmodern genius.

Thank you, Internet.

Tags: art, audience, bullshit, meme, perception, personal, pop culture, Social Media, Sociology, tonydanzaspacepretzel, tumblr