Borkowski Media Trends: Back to Flack, Conan's Meme Masterclass & Lauren Oyler's Ostracisation

Back to Flack: Two Stories on our failure to reckon with Toxic Fame

With news that the Metropolitan Police are going to re-look at their decision to charge presenter Caroline Flack, it seems an interesting moment to re-examine public appetite for trial by the media.

Following Flack’s tragic death by suicide in 2020, social media and traditional press alike were flooded with messages to #bekind in her memory. Lip service was paid at the time to the obvious dark irony that these calls for compassion were coming from the exact same platforms that had declared Flack’s domestic abuse charges with the breathless glee that has characterised reporting of celebrity scandal since the beginning of the time.

For some, the backlash against the backlash felt like a turning point. Since then, we’ve lived through a global pandemic, seen Britney Spears “freed” as we re-examined her treatment at the hands of the mid naughties tabloids and become more critical of the fetishisation of troubled women through the cinematic lens (see Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe in Blonde)

It’s poetic somehow that Flack’s case has re-emerged the week that the press collectively drags ‘Back to Black through the mud; Sam Taylor-Johnson’s reportedly tone deaf biopic of the 21st century’s most famous tortured woman, Amy Winehouse.

The scathing reviews have been accompanied by a swathe of quality editorial highlighting the film’s moral shortcomings. So have we all suddenly gained clarity on the double edged sword that is fame? Or, in the case of both Flack and Winehouse, is it just a demonstration of hindsight being 20:20.

Conan's Meme-culture Masterstroke

Memes are essential - they are a communication medium, part of our contemporary cultural language, and thus a recurring talking point in ‘Trends’. They often play a big part in pop culture stories because they turbo-charge viral moments and can significantly extend a ‘moment’’s lifespan. This can be immensely valuable for those using them as a publicity tool to disrupt a news cycle that move at breakneck speeds.

So when a moment that delivers several high-quality memes in one go crops up, it's a valuable case study and educational piece on how they fundamentally work, the dos and don'ts and a greater understanding of the ever-changing rules of what makes a good meme. On the rare occasions that a creative genius can actually engineer a Meme in their own image, the medium becomes an artform.

And we have American late night host Conan O'Brien to thank for a Meme Masterclass in an instantly classic appearance on the internet's favourite talk show Hot Ones, which pits guests against a lineup of chicken wings that get increasingly spicier while answering well-researched questions.

Such was the (entirely intentional) meme potential of the interview that a viral 'X' thread even details a user's favourite GIFs that will almost certainly be used for years to come. It's an excellent summary of the most shareable moments and a great starting point for what makes a good meme.

Firstly authenticity is critical - whether that's being funny, sharing emotions or a reaction caught on camera, a meme must be relatable. And Conan, while coming armed with bits, e.g. a fake doctor that gave bogus health checkups, delivered multiple authentically funny moments that gave viewers raw, unhinged comedy that was in equal parts absurd and calculated.

Secondly, memes, especially GIFs, are universally applicable when shared. You don't need the context of a clip to make a GIF enjoyable - it helps, but it's not essential. This means they must have a clear message. So Conan's comedic delivery and emotional distress were a perfect concoction, delivering meme gold. You can take many of these clips out of context and apply them to various walks of life.

What makes this impressive is that usually there is usually no formula. While Hot Ones has provided many high-quality memes, from Paul Rudd's "look at us" line to Sydney Sweeney's recent upward gaze, those looking to create a viral meme almost fall at the first hurdle because stage-managing the internet is incredibly difficult - most savvy users can sniff out those trying too hard.

You don’t usually ‘do’ a Meme, a Meme is something that happens to you, but Conan was so efficient that the template he created immediately becomes 'old'. It's about authentically playing to your strengths and attempting to generate new ideas, even if you occasionally make something that's been done before. Bravo Conan - now watch the full interview.

Oyler? I hardly know her!

In a corner of the Internet occasionally known as “literary twitter”, a storm was brewing this week.

A scathing Bookforum review of No Judgement, an essay collection by critic du jour Lauren Oyler, went viral, with both Oyler’s name and Bookforum itself trending on Twitter mid-week. A second review, this time in the Washington Post, followed shortly afterwards, before Oyler ‘clapped back’ (“as we said a few years ago but don’t really say now”, to borrow an Oyler-ism) in a piece with Interview. Best known for writing ‘takedowns’ of fellow writers, notably Jia Tolentino and Roxane Gay, Oyler is perhaps fully aware that she can’t defend herself against criticism without accusations of hypocrisy – instead, she opted for the “just kidding!” approach, explaining that the sections where she discusses her own cultural snobbery were, in effect, trolling.

It is unclear how she expects this to sell her work, or whether her level of self-awareness allows her to even be a successful provocateur, but to a certain extent that is besides the point. In the same way that we rubberneck at a car crash or roadkill, bad reviews, and especially well-written ones, are now almost designed to be feverishly shared on social media. It is what made Oyler successful in the first place – as such, being on the receiving end of one was arguably inevitable, almost regardless of the quality of the work itself.

But there’s also great pleasure in well-articulated literary spats, offering as they do a glimpse into a rarefied world to which access is largely denied for the ordinary person.  Regardless of the sales figures for No Judgement, Oyler has achieved, in merely a week and with little heavy lifting of her own, the kind of name recognition most cultural critics could only dream of, with many Twitter users discovering her work from the Bookforum review. In writing a book so apparently bad that it required not one, but two, takedowns, she has somewhat ironically assured herself a place in the dead or dying milieu of public intellectualism. How many living essayists can the average person name? Oyler’s past work is enough to tell you that she likes being talked about. Bookforum have just played into her hands.