Elon Musk And Grimes Couple Photo Parodies

2018image macroclassic

Elon Musk And Grimes Couple Photo Parodies is a Twitter joke format from May 2018 where users paired the Tesla CEO and the electronic musician with lookalike fictional couples, usually a nerdy guy and a goth or alt woman, after the pair debuted their relationship at the Met Gala.

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Overview

Elon Musk And Grimes Couple Photo Parodies is a Twitter joke format built around a single red carpet photo of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Canadian musician Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, at the 2018 Met Gala on May 7th1. In the photo, Musk wears a plain white tuxedo while Grimes shows up in a black gothic robotic outfit, and the age and aesthetic gap between them became the whole joke2.

The format is simple. Users post a picture of a fictional or real couple that mirrors the pairing of a soft, geeky, buttoned up guy with an edgy, dark, alternative woman, and caption it as if it were Musk and Grimes2. The most quoted example is Gideon Graves and Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, played by Jason Schwartzman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead3. Comparisons ranged from live action films to Saturday morning cartoons, and the joke worked partly because the real photo already looked like fan art of a fictional couple4.

How It Spread

Shortly after, Twitter user @pajamashaw posted a shot of Jason Schwartzman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Gideon Graves and Ramona Flowers with the caption "Elon Musk and Grimes make their debut at the Met Gala"4. That tweet racked up more than 23,000 retweets and 95,000 likes in two days and pushed the Scott Pilgrim comparison to the front of the format4. Once the template was set, other users piled on through the evening of May 7th and into May 8th with cartoon pairings, throwback celebrity shots and animated stills, each captioned as if it were Musk and Grimes3.

Mainstream coverage followed almost immediately. Mashable ran a roundup on May 8th calling the format a simple formula of geeky guy plus darkly dressed counterculture girl and singled out a Kim Possible entry alongside the Scott Pilgrim one2. Vice published its own writeup the same week, joking about couple nicknames like Grusk, Grelon and Mimes, and highlighting the same Gideon and Ramona pairing3. Inverse framed the meme as the internet's reaction to a bizarre cultural moment and collected fan tweets breaking down what a Musk and Grimes conversation might sound like5. Memebase also aggregated the images for its audience4.

The joke burned hot for about a week and then cooled off as the couple themselves became regular tabloid fodder, but the original @pajamashaw Scott Pilgrim tweet is still shared whenever Musk and Grimes make news together, giving the format a long tail well past the 2018 Met Gala3.

How to Use This Meme

The template is a straight one to one swap. Users typically grab a photo of a fictional or real couple where one partner reads as a soft, nerdy or buttoned up man and the other reads as a dark, gothic or alternative woman, then post it with a caption naming the pair as Elon Musk and Grimes2. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the common go to source, but cartoons, older films and celebrity couple shots are all fair game as long as the visual contrast lands3. The caption often mimics red carpet reporting, for example "Elon Musk and Grimes at the Met Gala", which leans on the original 2018 photo for the joke4.

Frequently Asked Questions

Elon Musk And Grimes Couple Photo Parodies

2018image macroclassic

Elon Musk And Grimes Couple Photo Parodies is a Twitter joke format from May 2018 where users paired the Tesla CEO and the electronic musician with lookalike fictional couples, usually a nerdy guy and a goth or alt woman, after the pair debuted their relationship at the Met Gala.

elon musk memes doppelganger memes celebrity nickname memes twitter memes relationship memes

Overview

Elon Musk And Grimes Couple Photo Parodies is a Twitter joke format built around a single red carpet photo of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Canadian musician Claire Boucher, better known as Grimes, at the 2018 Met Gala on May 7th1. In the photo, Musk wears a plain white tuxedo while Grimes shows up in a black gothic robotic outfit, and the age and aesthetic gap between them became the whole joke2.

The format is simple. Users post a picture of a fictional or real couple that mirrors the pairing of a soft, geeky, buttoned up guy with an edgy, dark, alternative woman, and caption it as if it were Musk and Grimes2. The most quoted example is Gideon Graves and Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, played by Jason Schwartzman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead3. Comparisons ranged from live action films to Saturday morning cartoons, and the joke worked partly because the real photo already looked like fan art of a fictional couple4.

How It Spread

Shortly after, Twitter user @pajamashaw posted a shot of Jason Schwartzman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Gideon Graves and Ramona Flowers with the caption "Elon Musk and Grimes make their debut at the Met Gala"4. That tweet racked up more than 23,000 retweets and 95,000 likes in two days and pushed the Scott Pilgrim comparison to the front of the format4. Once the template was set, other users piled on through the evening of May 7th and into May 8th with cartoon pairings, throwback celebrity shots and animated stills, each captioned as if it were Musk and Grimes3.

Mainstream coverage followed almost immediately. Mashable ran a roundup on May 8th calling the format a simple formula of geeky guy plus darkly dressed counterculture girl and singled out a Kim Possible entry alongside the Scott Pilgrim one2. Vice published its own writeup the same week, joking about couple nicknames like Grusk, Grelon and Mimes, and highlighting the same Gideon and Ramona pairing3. Inverse framed the meme as the internet's reaction to a bizarre cultural moment and collected fan tweets breaking down what a Musk and Grimes conversation might sound like5. Memebase also aggregated the images for its audience4.

The joke burned hot for about a week and then cooled off as the couple themselves became regular tabloid fodder, but the original @pajamashaw Scott Pilgrim tweet is still shared whenever Musk and Grimes make news together, giving the format a long tail well past the 2018 Met Gala3.

How to Use This Meme

The template is a straight one to one swap. Users typically grab a photo of a fictional or real couple where one partner reads as a soft, nerdy or buttoned up man and the other reads as a dark, gothic or alternative woman, then post it with a caption naming the pair as Elon Musk and Grimes2. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the common go to source, but cartoons, older films and celebrity couple shots are all fair game as long as the visual contrast lands3. The caption often mimics red carpet reporting, for example "Elon Musk and Grimes at the Met Gala", which leans on the original 2018 photo for the joke4.

Frequently Asked Questions