Borkowski Weekly Media Trends 01-10-21
Salt Bae | Met Police Crisis | Macron on a Jet Ski | Eminem and his Mom's Spaghetti
Salt Bae is latest meme in search of recipe for fame
This week, meme culture observers will have seen an extortionately expensive restaurant bill where a £630 steak was almost overshadowed by an £11 Red Bull.
It transpires that beyond its self-sufficient comedy exorbitance, the bill was also significant in the meme community because its provenance was nothing less than internet royalty: Salt Bae.
Memes collided, word spread, including to national and global media. Pretty soon those unaware that Nusret Gökçe, the man near-anonymously world-renowned for his extravagant tai chi style of salt-sprinkling, was also a successful nouveau-lux butcher and restauranteur were swiftly shorn of their ignorance, as his relatively recently opened London restaurant became perhaps the most talked-about luxury British eatery of the year so far.
Another interesting revelation (to the uninitiated) was that not only was Salt Bae ready for this explosion of publicity, but he’d been desperately trying to achieve the meme-influencer-celebrity evolution for quite some time, sprawling a bawdy, Dan Bilzerian-esque lifestyle all over social media ever since he was plucked from normaldom in 2017.
This quest has probably helped create a legend around Nusret, emphasising his megalomania and eccentricity in a way that will help him cement his 15 mins. It won’t even be surprising if he starts popping up on the UK reality TV circuit.
But the whole story is tinged with a little bit of sadness; Salt Bae hasn’t earned this fame through his culinary or entrepreneurial brilliance, or even through his flamboyant internet presence.
The cold, hard fact is his current burst of publicity was the result of a rare meme-of-a-meme (meme2). Sure Salt Bae has enough trapping of celebrity to stretch it out a bit, and it might even give his restaurants a sustained boost, but, like our friend the Nirvana Baby, unless he can find a higher purpose or a substantial niche, a return to relative obscurity awaits.
The Met Police’s Crisis
The Met Police are facing a crisis: an endemic of violence against women and a police force that is not only failing to prevent such crimes but is fostering the very perpetrators. ‘More than 750 Met police staff have faced sexual misconduct allegations since 2010. Just 83 have been sacked.’ read a grave tweet from Labour MP Sultana.
This week, then, as it became public that Wayne Couzens used his police officer status to kidnap, rape, and murder Sarah Everard, provided a critical opportunity for the Met to apologise for its failures and open up a conversation about how to move forward. Cressida Dick’s statement (which, presumably, she had plenty of time to prepare for) was a chance to explain how the Met would tackle systemic misogyny: by addressing sexism within its organisation or working with the government to provide better mental health services for men; Something, anything, to reduce the number of men committing such crimes.
Instead, Dick took the opportunity to suggest ways women should safeguard themselves against attackers (hailing a bus should do the trick). The Metropolitan Police, she said, loud and clear, is unwilling to do all it can to protect women against gender-based violence. Unwilling to do its very job of preventing crime. Women themselves can pick up the slack.
It’s a bizarre move, one that chimes grimly with the police response to the BLM movement. The Met Police are doing a good job of alienating the women and ethnic minorities that make up 70% of the London population. Many organisations would at least feign an attempt to undo this disaster of public perception.
Instead, the Met has chosen to shift blame and deny the very culture that has enabled criminals like Couzens to act. Far from redeeming itself, the Met has exposed itself as ‘guilty as charged’. It’s difficult to undo such a verdict - but it seems that it will take more than a murder to make it try.
Emmanuel Macron sues paparazzi over holiday jet ski photo
The powers of the French state and the full authority of its juridical arm are being marshaled to crush an insolent depiction of the French president gallantly striding his Yamaha Waverunner in Brégançon last summer.
Allegedly infuriated by the photo being featured in a gallery near the Elysee Palace - once held by Joachim Murat as a home to him and his wife Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister before he was given the Two Sicilies - Macron claims that the photo represents an infringement of his right to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution of the Fourth Republic of Charles de Gaulle.
The taking of the paparazzi photograph last year ruffled official feathers when it depicted the President with an insouciant look on his face against the backdrop of France’s heavy lockdown restrictions. Police arrived at the gallery where for two hours they investigated Macron’s claim that its position represented a ‘provocation’ by his political adversaries since the Macrons could see it ‘every time they left the palace’. As Baudelaire said, une œuvre d'art doit être comme un crime bien planifié.
The gallerist, justifiably chastened, has indicated that he never intended to ‘kick up any row’, according to the Times. Under French privacy law - founded in the enlightenment tradition and carrying the heaviest of consequences to those who infringe on personal autonomy and/or the absolute divisibility of public and private selves - any found to have violated this injunction face a maximum of a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros.
Meanwhile, official photographs of Macron - one of the most image-conscious of modern French presidents, having curated his portrait officiel with the keen eye for the symbolism of a trained art historian - are being taken down across La Republique in challenge to his climate change policy. Their convictions have passed to the highest court of appeal in France. Évidement it is the curse of French presidents to have too many pictures, and never enough.
Eminem's spaghetti line cannoli go so far…
Breaking news that nobody asked for: this week, Eminem opened a 'Lose Yourself'-inspired restaurant called 'Mom's Spaghetti'. In another effort to retroactively cheapen his rap legacy, Eminem has opted for a bizarre mingling of ageing shock-jock tactics with the meretricious efforts of fast-food PR.
The title finds its name in the often-memed 8-Mile lyric, 'his palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy / There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti.' Fittingly, the announcement was accompanied by early noughties inspired infomercial that harkens back to the golden years of Slim's rap career. Though evidently whimsical, the video seems to further cement the rapper’s failure to straddle the line between latent nostalgia and overworn recycling of his back catalogue.
With recent lyrics staled with enfant humour (need I remind us of this touching line: 'I’m lookin’ at your tight rear like a sightseer. Your booty is heavy duty (doody) like diarrhea.'), it seems that Eminem is attempting a self-aware cash grab that acknowledges his inability to beat against the tides of time and culture. The stunt shed itself of the typical shock-jock promotions against waned youth. Instead, Marshal Mathers is posed with his usual stoic visage, yet this time serving spaghetti to lucky fans with an oddly cottagecore air. The dying light of a rap career may open the door to a novelty role in the culinary world.
With the mediocre reviews the food is getting, though, try not to vomit it on your sweater.