Berries And Cream, 'Would You Date Him?' And This Week's Other Best Memes, Ranked
Here at Digg, we try our best to cover the most important and confounding memes that come across the timeline. But the web is littered with tons of great memes that never quite hit the mainstream and instead just bounce around the weird corners of Twitter or Reddit.
Enter our recurring feature, Memes, Ranked. This week, we've got Emmy Awards memes, "Yeah, I'm a fan of Dune," "Would you date him?" and Berries and Cream.
4. Emmy Awards Memes
The meme
On Sunday, the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards celebrated the best in television over the past year, as the stars showed up en masse (perhaps too en masse?) to The Event Deck at LA Live and mostly showered awards onto the cast of "Ted Lasso."
The awards ceremony provided the perfect fodder for TV-obsessed netizens who were quick to make memes out of the proceedings — even if they haven't yet watched all of the shows nominated.
Here were a few of our favorite memes to come out of Sunday's awards show.
Examples
Seth Rogen's Pumpkin Spice Outfit:
Rita Wilson Rapping:
Conan "Salutes" The Television Academy President:
WandaVision Gets Snubbed:
Ted Lasso Wins Everything:
James Crugnale
3. Yeah, I'm A Fan Of Dune
The meme
Dune, from director Denis Villeneuve, hits theatres next month, but has already gotten mixed reviews from critics after debuting in the festival circuit. But if you're like us, more concerned with the cultural cachet that Villeneuve — who recently started the most unimaginative beef with Marvel — leaves behind with the film rather than Timothée Chalamet's performance, we got you. Been there, dune that. Masking humor under the garb of phonetic power, people fired off asinine takes that probably took less than a second to think of and just a few more to type out and send.
Examples
Adwait Patil
2. Would You Date Him?
The meme
Last year, the Instagram account of apparel brand Boogzel Apparel posted an image full of characteristics commonly associated with a very specific type of boyfriend with the caption, "Would you date him?"
Have you ever dated a manic pixie dream boy, one who's kinda goofy, super outgoing and shares the exact same music tastes as you? We personally have not, because these people are mythical creatures and, much like unicorns, do not exist.
Using the original Instagram post as a springboard for inspiration, internet users have in the past few weeks created their own iterations of the image. While some of these are personality types that we might still be into, some of these are definitely not.
Examples
BJ Pang-Chieh Ho
1. Berries And Cream
The meme
You may or may not have become aware of a certain trend taking over TikTok: berries and cream. More specifically: a little lad who loves berries and cream.
Let's back up. In 2007, Starburst released a commercial for its Berries and Creme flavor.
People were VERY taken with the "Berries and Cream" guy, and so Starbucks proceeded to release another video, this one featuring the "little lad" — played in all these commercials by choreographer, performer and writer Jack Ferver — showing us how to do "the little lad dance" that his mother used to make him do if he wanted berries and cream:
This delightfully absurd character — or, depending on how you feel about it, maybe just absurd — was bound to resurface online at some point. But if you're looking to point a finger, there is actually one specific person responsible for his appearance on TikTok: Justin McElroy, a podcaster and comedian who posted this video in January 2021 and encouraged fellow TikTokers to use the audio:
It didn't take off right away. But once it did, it was — and still is — everywhere, especially in the form of mashups that sub the little lad's voice into popular songs. Please enjoy, and good luck getting it out of your head.
Examples
The "little lad" himself, Jack Ferver, finally responded to the surge of Berries and Cream videos by creating a TikTok account and jumping back into character:
Molly Bradley
And if you're hungry for more memes, here's last week's "The Week's Best Memes, Ranked" article, where we rank Met Gala memes, Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend's unfortunate vaccine side effects and Saweetie walking away at the VMAs.