The Short Wonderful Life of a Sincere Viral Meme
The “Girl Yelling” meme burned bright for a week and provided a nice counter view to the overused format
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It can really happen to any of us. You’re enjoying yourself at a public event and the music is blaring and you are singing and dancing. In one of those moments, you sing into your friend’s ear… And then you’re a meme.
Denise Sanchez, the woman in the “Girl Yelling” meme wasn’t even the subject of the photo — she was in the background. But that brief moment was repurposed on the internet a wildly viral meme. The “girl-explaining” or “girl yelling” meme burned bright for a full week in the US, resulting in a lot of participation and coverage. However, the image was originally taken in 2018 and according to The Washington Post’s María Luisa Paúl, this isn’t even the first time it went viral.
The meme revived an overused format, but this time with a new twist. Traditionally, this meme is a bro-y mansplaining image. In each, the woman recipient of the explanation is non-plussed or even sadly put in the listening position.
The Girl Yelling meme isn’t just a meme that flips its subjects, it also changes the entire grammar of the meme is a very endearing way. The bro explaining memes are usually filled with text that talks down to the woman, often filled with facts she already knows — or doesn’t want to know. The bro-explaining memes usually take on very specific “guy tropes” that have been connected to toxic masculinity like Joe Rogan or Rick and Morty fandom. The trope from the bro-side is that the woman just doesn’t probably get it.
