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Dear Sugars presents: The painful, untold story backside the 'Woman Yelling at a Cat' meme 42:40 Copy the code below to embed the WBUR audio player on your site
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This week, nosotros're sharing an episode of some other WBUR podcast,Endless Thread.The showis in the centre of a series all about net memes, and they recently featured the woman at the heart of the pop "Woman Yelling at a Cat" meme, Taylor Armstrong from the original cast ofThe Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. The story behind the epitome featured in this meme is surprising and painful, so delight accept care when listening.
Sense of humour is a key ingredient of whatever unit of culture that morphs and spreads over time. But humor isn't always in that location at the offset. For "Real Housewife" Taylor Armstrong, the meme that fabricated her even more famous on the internet has bitter roots: physical domestic abuse exposed on goggle box.
In this episode, we hear the little-known origin story of the "Woman Yelling at a Cat" meme — straight from the Woman herself — that might make you remember twice about always using the meme once again. We also explore why a loss of context is crucial for the spread of memes, but often problematic.
Show notes:
- Resources for concrete and emotional abuse
- Resources for suicide prevention
- The first photo of Taylor Armstrong next to Smudge, the cat
- TIME article on Smudge
- Taylor Armstrong'southward memoir, "Hiding from Reality"
- Taylor Armstrong on "The Wendy Williams Prove"
- The "Malibu Beach Party from Hell" episode ofThe Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
- Russell Armstrong'southward decease
Total Transcript:
This content was originally created for audio. The transcript has been edited from our original script for clarity. Heads up that some elements (i.east. music, sound effects, tone) are harder to interpret to text.
CONTENT Alarm: This episode mentions suicide, and emotional and physical corruption. We've linked some resources in the show notes if y'all or someone you lot know is looking for support.
Amory Sivertson: Hi, can you hear me OK?
Julia: Yep, I tin hear ya.
Amory: Do you recognize this voice, Ben?
Ben: isn't it "Real Housewives?" Isn't information technology a real housewife?
Amory: unless information technology's the Existent Housewife Sivertson edition? Because that's my sister.
Ben: Oh man. You lot actually pulled a fast one on me.
Amory: Well, I chosen her up because a few years agone, Julia fabricated a meme. This was one of the multi paneled ones featuring a father and son, and I'll let her draw it.
Julia: The dad is like a gray haired guy in a black T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He'south got a bunch of tattoos and a huge handlebar mustache. He's sitting at a desk chair yelling. And then the adjacent console is the son in a brawl cap yelling back, and like pointing, and and so the dad yells more than. And then the son throws a chair and then the dad continues to yell, pointing. And then it'due south a back and forth statement.
Ben: Beloved this meme, peachy meme. Good job, Julia.
Amory: That's the template, I'm glad you can picture information technology. So Julia, inspired past a low stakes kitchen-implement related argument she'south had with her husband, she captained the meme like then.
Julia: Then the dad yells, "You tin't utilize the microplane for cheese," the son says, "yeah, I can." The dad yells, "Information technology is for citrus zest and spices only." The son throws the chair. "Cheese is literally ane of the examples on the blade comprehend." The dad says, "then delight wash it right after you utilise it."
Ben: OK, so first of all, I definitely use my microplane for cheese, like, come on.
Amory: You lot're non alone. You're not alone. So Julia in this example, was the dad in the meme, the handlebar mustache guy, and her husband was the son who in this scenario used the microplane to grate cheese.
Ben: You hateful the one who's correct?
Amory: Well, correct or non, there were some results from this meme that Julia made.
Julia: I've got to say, me posting this did pb to him not using the microplane for cheese.
Ben: Congratulations, Julia, you've used a meme to browbeat your husband into doing the wrong thing.
Amory: A small marital victory with a meme to thank. But anyway, this is from a show called "American Chopper." It was a reality show on Discovery and so TLC — doesn't be anymore. Information technology followed a family-run custom motorcycle manufacturing company, and this scene is from an episode in 2008 featuring the begetter and son who run the company – Paul Teutul, senior and junior --
Ben: Yes, Mr. Handlebar Mustache and the boy.
Amory: Exactly. And in this scene, Paul Senior is confronting Paul Jr. about how he'due south similar late and lazy. And things get heated. Paul Jr. throws a chair...
Amory: And then that's what's really going on in the scene that got memed, simply Julia had never seen "American Chopper." She merely saw this meme template and thought, oh yeah, I got something for this.
Julia: Information technology was a good representation of how we communicate about things that we disagree well-nigh, I recall. And one of his friends, his comment on it was, "this is so romantic." And I thought, yeah, that was the intention.
Ben: I hateful, hey, if you lot think the meme version of "Whatsoever, Dad!" is romantic, then I agree. This does get at the eye of something, though… which is that nosotros come across ourselves and our own relationships in these caricature-ish meme templates. Memes are so powerful considering they go at reality in this way. And they really - they hit u.s. in the feels. And when we exercise, it's kind of impossible to resist joining in on the fun, ofttimes without really thinking likewise securely about who the existent people--who are becoming our avatars--in these memes and what the original real scenario was.
Amory: Fortunately for Julia, this quote-unquote real, reality TV scenario on American Chopper had relatively low stakes, and it'due south even idea to have been staged or planned to some extent. Just, imposing our own story on a scenario without knowing the actual backstory can get tricky.
Sarah Laiola: You lot know the one that's popular now that'due south like the adult female screaming at the cat?
Ben: That'due south meme chorus fellow member Sarah Laiola, assistant professor of digital culture and design at Littoral Carolina Academy.
Sarah: I think she's like blonde and she's at dinner and she'due south, information technology's always it's a 2 panel i where she's yelling and then at that place's ever a cat on the other side that's like, "Errr."
Amory: For the showtime time in the history of this meme series, this was a meme that I was actually more familiar with than Ben, who sorta fancies himself the meme lord of the ET team.
Amory: I think I tin motion picture the woman you're talking about. I don't remember the cat. Is the woman, does she, similar, have her mouth open up and she's pointing.
Sarah: Yeah. And in that location'southward a girl like a friend behind her, like either holding her.
Amory: Yes. Holding her back.
Sarah: Yep. Yeah I take. Yeah.
Sarah: I'm certain that you encounter that. Aye.
Ben: This meme — that I definitely Accept seen — is very ridiculous. Absurd, even. A woman on one side, screaming and pointing. And she'southward of form pointing a picture of a white cat, totally unrelated to the woman, sitting at a table. With a plate of salad in forepart of him? Making a kind of derpy true cat face. Like, "Errrrrmmmmm, I did Non order salad..."
Amory: Then, when the two pictures were put side-by-side in a Tweet in May of 2019, the net went to town. I person put a trivial Santa chapeau on the cat and captioned it, "Merry Christmas," while the woman yells, "It'S November!" Some other version has the woman screaming "Target!" and the cat responds, "Tar-JAY." And then on and and then on.
Ben: And the cat is named Smudge, and the picture of the cat giving salad some attitude was first posted on Tumblr past his human, who says he really does like sitting at the dinner table and he really doesn't similar vegetables… or vegetals, in the parlance of the internet.
Amory: But who is the woman in the meme? And what is she yelling about? Expect more closely at the picture, and you'll see that she has tears in her eyes. Her face up is cherry-red with rage or pain… or both. The friend behind her is gripping her only nether her outstretched arm. She'south holding the crying woman. Or maybe, holding her back. Simply from whom? And why is she crying?
Ben: Thousands upon thousands of versions of this meme have been made by people who likely didn't know the answers to whatever of these questions. And even more people have seen — and had a expert laugh at — those thousands of memes without knowing either.
Amory: But we practice know, now. And the answers will make you never look at the meme the same style once more.
Sarah: So she was trying to, like, stand up upwards for herself. And information technology's become this like — no, I know — another nighttime, perhaps origin story of that meme.
Ben and Amory: Whoaaaaa.
Ben: I'yard Ben Brock Johnson.
Amory: I'm Amory Sivertson, and this is Endless Thread.
Ben: Nosotros're coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station. And nosotros're taking a closer look at memes that have been seen, shared, and remixed countless times… before they've been fully understood.
Taylor Armstrong: When the meme first came out, information technology just was called women yelling at True cat.
Amory: Nosotros typically don't go looking for the backstory of a meme before putting our ain spin on it, right? Merely for the one we now know as "Adult female Yelling at a Cat," maybe we all should have. Because in the very moment that'southward been freeze-framed and meme-ified... this adult female was going through ane of the darkest experiences of her life.
Taylor: I was trying to explicate in a very dramatic way that this could go me killed.
Taylor: You know what, um, this is interesting. Let me only shut my telephone completely off, considering Robyn from Bravo, coincidentally right in that verbal moment, only sent me a text message and it just pinged onto my computer…
Amory: Information technology's non every mean solar day Ben and I get to talk to a reality TV star.
Ben: so my my wife watches and I watch with her sometimes.
Taylor: That's always everyone'southward excuse.
Ben: Aaaaaaand it'south not every day nosotros become CALLED OUT by a reality TV star. A reality star who says, at beginning, she wasn't trying to be one.
Taylor: Well, in the beginning, I I didn't even exit for the bear witness and a lot of my friends around Beverly Hills had gone out for it and my proper noun came up, I gauge, in a few unlike circles, and--
Amory: And that name?
Taylor: This is Taylor Armstrong from the original " Housewives of Beverly Hills ."
Taylor: It may await like I have information technology all, but I want more than.
Amory: Just Taylor's also the original — and merely — woman yelling at a cat.
Ben: Except, of grade, she wasn't yelling at a cat. She was yelling at a cast member of the show, "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."
Amory: That's Taylor, yelling "You have no idea what she'southward washed to me. No y'all don't." And this is the scene the screen cap was taken from — the screen cap that became... Woman Yelling at a Cat. But in order to understand what the hell is going on here, nosotros have to become back several episodes. Really, we have to sympathize a petty more about the testify itself. And Ben, since you watch it--
Ben: My wife watches information technology!
Amory: Oh yeah I'm sorry, since your wife watches the evidence and you've kept her company for an episode or two — why don't you do the honors…
Ben: Ok. So "The Existent Housewives of Beverly Hills" debuted on Bravo in 2010, and it followed half dozen wealthy socialites as they just lived their lives. Running errands, traveling, planning parties, attending parties. You know, kiiiinda like what we practice all 24-hour interval, Amory, right? Except, maybe like with fewer parties. And much nicer clothes. And bigger houses and nicer cars. And free-flowing wine and that Southern California sunshine.
Amory: At the get-go, this is exactly what Taylor thought the evidence was going to be.
Ben: But of course if a reality Telly show is any adept, at least by standard definitions, it's not merely fun stuff. Permit alone reality. Product crews manufacture drama in how the video is edited. But they're also behind the scenes manufacturing meetups betwixt characters. Developing whole storylines before filming fifty-fifty starts. They're adding alcohol to tense situations. They're dialing everything upwards. Even if y'all know this...you forget it, which is office of the magic, and part of the trouble for the reality TV viewer andthe reality Telly subject.
Taylor: And in the terminate, we had a divorce in flavour one divorce in flavor ii divorce and flavor three. And merely v of us were married to brainstorm with. And then that kind of tells you where the odds lie on keeping things under wraps.
Ben: And Taylor, in particular, had a big something she was trying to keep under wraps, from the other women on the testify and its millions of viewers.
Taylor: it was a definitely a unlike experience for me than information technology was for some of the girls who had a big support system at home, similar Kyle and Lisa.
Amory: Kyle Richards, Lisa Vanderpump — ii of her cast-mates.
Taylor: They had an awesome support organisation in their family home to go dwelling house to afterward the stress of filming some really trying moments on the show. But for me, it was similar anarchy on the testify and chaos at dwelling.
Taylor: The physical abuse started when I was pregnant with my girl. That was the get-go time he choked me.
Taylor: And so that particular day, I was getting gear up to go to a charity issue and my stepsons were visiting and I had made them I ordered them a pizza and we were going to he was just going to come up home. We were going to leave right away. And so I was kind of rushing around and he came into our sleeping accommodation and he just grabbed me and had me by the throat and pushed me up against the wall. And he said, "If you ever feed my children a pizza without a vegetable again, I'll kill you."
Amory: Taylor is talking nearly her former husband, Russell Armstrong. She says he was emotionally abusive from their very kickoff date, when he accused her of having a human relationship with the waiter at the restaurant — just based on the friendly style she'd greeted him when they got in that location.
Taylor: He was and then insanely jealous, and those things came out very early on in our relationship.
Amory: Crying on a start date.
Taylor: Correct? I know, I should take walked away. It'south ridiculous.
Ben: Hard to fathom in retrospect, mayhap. But Taylor says Russell'southward jealousy felt flattering sometimes. Other times, information technology was an exhausting barrage of exact attacks every bit Russell spiraled out of control.
Taylor: Sometimes information technology was hours of me having to heed to him yell and scream and call me every proper noun in the book before he would get physical with me. And I think one time I finally said to him, "Will yous just hit me so we can go this over with?" I acquit the emotional scars far more than than the physical ones.
Amory: While it was happening, though, the physical scars were really the easier ones for Taylor to muffle from her Real Housewives cast-mates.
Taylor: Abusers are actually good at hiding the types of abuse that they inflict. For case, one of my onetime husband'southward favorite things to practise was banging my caput against the car, and he would take hold of me by one side of my pilus and then blindside my head against the window. If I were sitting in the passenger seat or if we were outside of the auto, he might grab my one side of my hair and then hit my head confronting the outside of the car.
Ben: Taylor was able to hide the bumps and bruises from these incidents under her hair. Others, she couldn't hide. Similar on Super Bowl Sunday, 2011, Russell and Taylor were in Texas for the game, and when they went back to their hotel room that night, Russell accused Taylor of cheating on him. He hit her across the confront, hard.
Taylor: Information technology merely popped my jaw out and I was laying over the toilet with merely saliva running out of my mouth. And I couldn't I couldn't get any help or anything. Then finally, I simply had to maneuver my jaw enough to become information technology dorsum in place. And it still pops out now.
Ben: Russell wouldn't allow Taylor phone call for assist that nighttime. Other times, Taylor wouldn't let herself call for help. Mostly out of fear that it would somehow backlash and have a negative affect on her five-year-erstwhile daughter, Kennedy.
Taylor: He would say to me, "go ahead, call the constabulary, I'll go to prison and you will. I won't exist working. Yous'll be destitute. They'll find you an unfit mother. They'll have Kennedy abroad from you." And then on other days that were good days subsequently something bad would accept happened, he would say, "I'g afraid I'g going to impale you one of these days."
Amory: Good days and bad days didn't matter on the prepare of "Existent Housewives," where none were supposed to be the wiser. But Taylor's attempts to hide the abuse weren't working, because the show was supposed to capture her real life. And Russell was her real husband. And despite thinking that the cameras would encourage him to be on his all-time behavior, he stayed on his real beliefs.
Russell: And so what'due south the latest with your little company?
Taylor: I would love it if you wouldn't call my company petty.
Taylor: We just need to take some fourth dimension out to have fun together.
Russell I demand to get to the office.
Taylor: Alrighty.
Kyle: Does he not like to see you have fun?
Taylor: I simply don't… I don't know.
Ben: And audiences took observe. Outspoken TV talk show host Wendy Williams had Taylor and ane of her cast-mates, Adrienne, on her show during season 1 of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills." And Wendy kept information technology as real as it gets.
Wendy: The office I didn't similar, Taylor, well-nigh your story is we're getting to see your husband who is, with all due respect, a disgusting man to y'all.
Taylor: Ohhh!
Wendy: He's disgusting, he's icky to y'all. It's like abuse without I don't similar the style he treats her.
Adrienne: No, I don't either.
Taylor: Well I think a lot of it… that'due south a hard one for me considering we're actually doing a lot of work right at present and we're both taking fourth dimension to reexamine what we need in our marriage.
Wendy: How did you feel watching that back? Because while y'all're in the moment taping the show, you're not watching what we were watching. You know what I'm saying, Adrienne.
Wendy: How did you feel watching that? You lot don't feel remotely abused by--
Taylor: I don't feel abused. I feel, you know, I deal with people who are driveling and I know what that looks like. I feel like nosotros have been disconnected for some time
Amory: Taylor clearly wasn't set up to confirm publicly what Wendy Williams — and probably many others — suspected. But while filming season 2 of "Real Housewives," she opened up to a bandage-mate, Camille Grammer.
Taylor: She had been going through her divorce with Kelsey…
Amory: Kelsey Grammer, the player from Frasier.
Taylor: ...and I asked her to meet me for dejeuner and I wanted to get some insight from her as to what it was similar to get in a custody boxing and to get divorced with someone who had so much more economical advantages
Ben: And during this off-photographic camera lunch meeting, Taylor told Camille about Russell's abuse, including the time at the Superbowl when he dislocated her jaw. And she thought she was doing so in confidence.
Amory: Fast-forward to the filming of an episode that ended upwardly being chosen "Storm in a Tea Party." Taylor had been emotionally unravelling over the course of the flavour, but at a tearful, truth-slinging tea party at Lisa Vanderpump's firm, Camille confronted Taylor in front of the other women about the abuse that seemed to be bubbles up to the surface more and more, and she even questioned the corruption.
Camille: Exist careful what you say, because we're all protecting you.
Taylor: About my marriage?
Camille: Virtually what you told us most your marriage. What you told us about your marriage. We've been protecting you. Because we don't say that he hits you lot. Considering we don't say that he broke your jaw or that he beat out y'all upwards. And he hits you. We don't say information technology just now we've said it, OK? We're supposed to walk around maxim, "Yay, we tin can't expect to meet Russell!" Simply we don't know if information technology'southward true because you come over and you don't have any signs of concrete abuse on your body.
Taylor: That'south really uncool.
Taylor: I don't even think I spoke. I simply was in stupor considering I knew in that moment something was going to modify drastically and it could take gone in a lot of different directions. He we could get divorced, he could kill me. Things could get better. I didn't. I didn't I had no idea what the outcome of that moment was going to be like.
Amory: Taylor at least knew that the episode wouldn't exist coming out for months. That gave her some time to brand a plan for dealing with the fallout from Russell. But she was terrified for her safety and her daughter's. And she felt deeply betrayed and exposed.
Taylor: I idea I probably could, in some respect, hide what was actually going on in my existent life from the cameras. And I think nosotros all know how that turned out.
Ben: Taylor wasn't able to hibernate any of this from the audience or her cast-mates. Merely things were about to take another big turn.
Amory: More than in a minute.
[BREAK]
Ben: It'southward a picture-perfect evening in Malibu in 2011, and a friend of the housewives is hosting a political party at a house overlooking the sea.
Amory: As is oftentimes the case at a "Real Housewives" party, the guests' cups runneth over. Literally.
Taylor Armstrong arrives with bandage-mate Kyle Richards, hoping that Camille — the woman who outed Taylor'due south abuse on the show a couple episodes ago — isn't in that location.
Ben: But… she is. And between the unlimited wine and the limited amount of infinite at this party, things get testy between Taylor and a friend of Camille's named D.D.
Amory: Taylor isn't having it. And the more than D.D. talks, the more on border Taylor becomes.
D.D.: Taylor! That'south not that style to conduct a discussion
Ben: And from there, the political party devolves into true chaos.
Amory: Taylor's all of a sudden surrounded by women basically yelling "calm down," which of course has the contrary effect. D.D. persists. Several of the women start physically jumping in betwixt the two of them as Taylor shoves a pointed finger closer and closer to D.D., crying out about how Camille's indiscretion has hurt her.
Taylor: All the words that were coming from me were based in pure fearfulness. I was terrified for my life at that signal and not knowing what my future was going to agree. And just this isn't merely reality Tv set fodder. This is my existent life. Yous accept no idea the repercussions that I'm going to suffer from this.
Ben: Were you conscious when this was happening that the cameras were at that place, I mean, like by and so you lot're so far into this experience of being on the show that I imagine office of the process is them trying to make you guys forget about the cameras. Right.
Taylor: That's a good question. I feel similar when you lot are I experience like when I would get so amped up, it wasn't like the cameras were even a I thought it was just I was so upset and so scared and agape of what this outcome was going to look similar, that in those moments, I was simply going to express myself regardless. And at that point, the cat was out of the purse. So there was really zip more. I couldn't make it any worse.
Amory: Kyle Richards wraps an arm around Taylor — comforting at showtime, but so forceful. And information technology'due south at some indicate in this moment, that someone watching this episode, somewhere in the world, went…
[SCREENSHOT SOUND EFFECT]
Ben: This episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, known as "Malibu Beach Party from Hell," would get Enough of tabloid attention in the days afterward information technology aired. It would go down in Real Housewives history. Simply information technology wouldn't become downwardly in net history until years later. Which we'll become to.
Amory: But first, to the weeks and months immediately later on the episode was filmed. It was a tumultuous time. Taylor told her husband that he'd soon be outed on the testify as an abuser. But she did so with her psychiatrist present.
Ben: Russell wrote a letter to the show's producers and to Camille… threatening to sue if the footage was released. Only that was still a little ways away. And in the meantime, Russell gave Taylor glimmers of promise that things would turn around. Including a birthday card proverb that he knew he hadn't been a skillful husband, only he wanted to exist.
Amory: But afterward that night, on her altogether, in nevertheless another jealous rage, Taylor says Russell punched her in the middle. Her orbital floor, the bone structure under her right center, was fractured. She had to have reconstructive surgery.
Taylor: Believe information technology or not, it took me that happening to be able to say I'm in an abusive relationship, like, I tin't sugarcoat this anymore. I can't sweep it under the rug. I tin't rely on the good times. This is unsafe. And I have to get out of this. And when I went in to get my orbital floor reconstructed, I was in my in my room in recovery and he walked in the door with roses and. I just it makes me cringe to say this, but in that moment, I wanted him to crawl in bed with me and lay at that place.
Ben: Why?
Taylor: Considering that'south the roller coaster of abuse, I hateful, I wanted him to come up and protect me and brand me recall everything's going to be OK, and that my family isn't just crumbling around me and in that moment, I thought, wow, this is really what it'south similar to be in a horribly abusive relationship. The fact that as yous're laying here, just coming out of surgery because of what this person did to you, that y'all would actually desire him to stay with you.
Amory: Taylor stepped back from filming "Real Housewives." She filed for divorce. Russell moved out of the house. Only the style forward from there wasn't articulate. Especially because, season 2 of the testify — including the footage that outed the abuse — would starting time rolling out in a couple of months. There was as well talk that the DA might press charges against Russell for the incident on Taylor'south birthday.
Taylor: My promise was that he would take the opportunity and come out and make a statement and say, "I have anger direction problems. I'm getting treatment," you know, become an abet for other people. And I thought with our platform, that was his best out.
Ben: August 15th, 2011. It was a Monday, and Taylor was supposed to accept a meeting with Russell at this role to talk about the divorce — which hadn't been finalized at this point — and about custody of their daughter. But Russell didn't show. And no one at his office had seen him that 24-hour interval.
Taylor: I but started getting this really weird gut feeling that something had gone wrong. And I went to the residence where he was staying and the gate was closed, only his motorcar was there.
Ben: A neighbor said he hadn't seen Russell all weekend. The neighbour helped Taylor and a friend pry open Russell's bathroom window so they could go in and look around.
Taylor: And we started in and so nosotros found him hanging. There were so many emotions going on in that moment, of course, shock and disbelief, fear, y'all know, just complete and utter sadness to think that anyone, regardless of what they put me through, would make that decision.
Amory: Iii weeks after Russell'due south death, and just eleven days after his funeral… season two of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" premiered.
Taylor: Then 1 of the near traumatic experiences is that we become the episodes in accelerate because we weblog on Bravo Dotcom and and then nosotros take to lookout man them in accelerate and then that we can tell our side of a story or web log well-nigh the events that occur.
Ben: That's a lot of reliving of trauma.
Taylor: Isn't it, though?
Ben: Taylor tried to movement forrad in this new, REAL reality… the one where everything was on the table. She published a memoir the following yr titled "Hiding from Reality." She gave talks near domestic corruption effectually the country. And… she starred in a tertiary season of "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills."
Taylor: I wanted people to see in retrospect, you know, that that didn't define who I was going to be going frontwards and, I do a lot of public speaking and I visit a lot of shelters. And I retrieve information technology's of import for people to see me out and see that there'southward life later on.
Amory: And there really was for Taylor. She got remarried in 2022 to a man that she says celebrates everything about her. She was moving on, and putting the darkest days of her relationship with Russell — and of "Real Housewives" — behind her.
Ben: Simply then. Five years later on… and a full Eight years after the infamous "Malibu Embankment Party from Hell" episode of "Real Housewives"… through the weird, mysterious forces of the internet… Taylor found herself in some other yelling lucifer. With a true cat… named Smudge. Cheers to Twitter user MissingEGirl, who seems to have created this meme.
Taylor: So when did you lot beginning see this meme and what was your immediate reaction?
Taylor: I would say confusion and humor, I mean, at that betoken, it was but laughable, I couldn't effigy out why I was yelling at this true cat, y'all know, who the true cat was.
Amory: Considering the circumstances that led upwardly to the moment in the meme'd screenshot, y'all'd think she'd want to detach herself from the prototype however possible. Simply instead, she shouted it from the social media mountaintops...
Taylor: And so I tweeted something along the lines of "Woman Yelling at True cat is me," and I merely plant it humorous because I didn't become it and Kyle and I were messaging each other dorsum and along and she was similar, I don't get it. I don't go it either. Where does this cat come from? I thought the cat was possibly on a reality television show or something, simply then they but kept coming. I've just seen I feel like thousands of them. It's unbelievable.
Ben: But pretty rapidly, it became VERY easy to get, and very piece of cake to caption. And a lot of the captions Taylor saw were surprisingly clever. And timely.
Taylor: At that place would be a big sporting event and the next day there would exist a meme of the cat and myself in the role of the baseball manager and the umpire. And it was but like their creativity was so quick. It was fascinating to me.
Amory: Fascinating... Not devastating, even though the internet is collectively laughing at her hurting — admitting, mostly unknowingly. And non re-traumatizing. At least not in the way that watching the accelerate episodes of "Real Housewives" was for Taylor. And every bit glad as we were to hear this, we were surprised.
Amory: Wow, well and so permit me to but project some of my own shit. Yes, a niggling fleck, considering if you know, that picture show captures a very real raw moment of human emotion. So to have it juxtaposed with something humorous and have information technology get turned into this big Internet joke, especially 8 years afterwards the event itself happened, so that it'southward got this extra layer of like, onetime wound being uncovered, that is just not the reaction I was expecting to hear. I accept to say.
Taylor: Well, maybe at starting time when I saw information technology, I idea it perchance it brought upward some past memory of that time, but. It isn't similar whenever I come across it, I don't cringe or feel upset or wish information technology wasn't out there, I guess a lot of it is just accepting when you put your life on reality TV, not every bit much life as I put on reality Television set, merely that information technology'south going to still exist. You know, I am reminded of what that time in my life was like, simply non it doesn't injure me anymore.
Ben: A large part of that, she says, is fourth dimension. A lot of therapy and healing happened in the eight years between the height of her ex-husband'south abuse and his suicide and the nativity of Adult female Yelling at Cat. Taylor says she hardly recognizes the woman in the meme.
Amory: And information technology's quite possible — likely, even — that most of the people spreading the meme don't recognize her either. Or if they exercise recognize Taylor or the show the image is from, the context has been lost to fourth dimension. This episode of "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" came out 10 years ago. A decade later, this probably looks similar a moment from whatsoever of the many other alcohol-fueled spats on the show. Why not turn this one into a spat with a cat?
Ben: And Taylor can capeesh that on some level. Because this was just i moment out of many for her, too.
Taylor: When I look at the whole experience as a whole and what my life was similar during that time, it nigh merely feels like that exact moment was a blip on the radar of something and then much bigger.
Amory: A year after the meme outset appeared online, information technology was named meme of the year by the internet-focused Shorty Awards. And Taylor accustomed the award in a video with grace… and a little humor.
Amory: On the other side of the phone is the famed feline, looking similar a pretty normal cat — a black rotary telephone in front of him this time instead of a salad.
Ben: Taylor proceeds to apologize to a disinterested Smudge, who's just doing cat things. And the whole thing is a scrap, obviously. Just it'southward also, yet again, a adult female having to apologize for something she should admittedly not apologize for. Merely Taylor says there'southward a reason she plays ball with this kind of stuff.
Taylor: My not letting the meme become to me and even at times tweeting out or just saying people are so creative, I do recollect that it helps other people to see that you tin put all of this behind yous and take a completely new healthy relationship congenital on equality and all of the things that we deserve and dream almost. They do exist regardless of what our past looks like.
Ben: Taylor clearly wasn't the start reality star to get meme-ified…
Ben: And she won't be the last. Reality TV'due south brand of applesauce and alcohol infused, engineered drama and disengagement from actual reality is exactly what makes its stars like shooting fish in a barrel — and, some would say, willing — targets of mockery.
Amory: Merely as you've heard, Taylor is both a existent housewife and a real person. Who was experiencing existent terror in the moment that became a meme. And once yous know that… what do y'all practise with it? Do you tell anybody y'all know? Exercise y'all take down iterations of the meme that you personally have shared? Or do you lot proceed forward with the new life and context the internet has given this image?
Ben: This is an idea we'll be revisiting afterwards in the series, and information technology's i Taylor herself is however grappling with.
Amory: Is it OK for me to take a express mirth at this or should I be? Should I exist asking more questions before laughing potentially at someone else'south expense or at someone else's pain?
Taylor: I think my meme is a niggling unusual based on some of the other memes that are out there, because that was such a terrifying moment I had ane friend stopped me in a eating house one day and he said, I experience then bad. I sent yous all those names and I had no thought what you lot were going through in that moment. And I just feel horrible. And, you lot know, it was actually heartfelt. And I of course, just like, don't worry, it doesn't accept an effect on me. And of class, you didn't know. And just I call up some people who've come to the realization that that was such a traumatic fourth dimension in my life, they feel a little guilty about laughing about information technology. But I don't want people to experience guilty about it. But that that was a whole unlike lifetime for me.
Ben: And equally Taylor said, sometimes owning a joke is the all-time way to ensure it can't own you.
Ben: if y'all were to explanation your ain meme...
Taylor: Oh, my gosh.
Ben: ... And connect it to your like your life, the life that you've lived and then far and play any office in the meme that y'all want, whether it's yourself or the cat.
Taylor: That's how good question. I don't know what I would exercise if I were having a meme. Maybe would I let the true cat yell at me for a change.
Amory: Countless THREAD is a production of WBUR in Boston.
Ben: Want early tickets to events, swag, bonus content, pictures of Amory'southward dwelling house studio or my dwelling fashion? Bring together our electronic mail listing! Yous'll find it at wbur.org/endlessthread.
Amory: ALSO. We want to know what YOU think is the near underrated meme. So CALL u.s.! 857-244-0338. Or better yet, record a voice memo and email it to endlessthread@wbur.org. We only might feature your vocalism memo — and your meme suggestion — on the show!
Ben: Big thanks to our "meme chorus":
Sarah Laiola teaches about digital culture and design at Coastal Carolina University.
Joan Donovan is Research Director at the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center.
Gianluca Stringhini studies online security disinformation and detest speech at Boston University.
Amanda Brennan has the extremely absurd title of Internet/Meme Librarian.
Kenyatta Cheese co-founded the site Know Your Meme, and Don Caldwell is Editor in Chief.
Please get find their work and benefit from their meme genius.
Amory: Our series and our show is fabricated past producers Nora Saks and Dean Russell. Nosotros are co-hosted past u.s., Amory Sivertson
Ben: And Ben Brock Johnson. This episode was edited by Maureen McMurray.
Amory: Mixing and Sound Design by Paul Vaitkus. Original music in this episode also past Paul Vaitkus.
Ben: Special cheers to, and boosted production work from Josh Crane, Frank Hernandez, Kristin Torres, Sofie Kodner, and Rachel Carlson.
Source: https://www.wbur.org/dearsugar/2021/11/20/woman-yelling-at-a-cat-meme
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