During the surreal and often devastating instances when it seems the nation is burning, the internet’s pyros come out to play. They giggle and serve up their macabre humor, as if certain dystopia is their fetish—in turn entertaining us as the smoke rises and the ashes fall.
It was mere seconds after Elon Musk and Donald Trump began their bitter ex-lovers’ quarrel that the phrase “the girls are fighting” spread across my timeline at a dizzying pace that was almost impossible to keep up with, like a vaccine-preventable contagious disease during RFK Jr.’s tenure.
“The girls are fighting” is a phrase used cheekily to both signal surprise and acknowledge the silliness whenever a spat arises seemingly out of nowhere between two formidable people, whether within your friend group or in the public sphere. (“Formidable” is a term that, as one can understand especially given this instance, can be used loosely.)
Social media is often a hellscape, especially the site formerly known as Twitter that has been bastardized by Musk himself. So it’s become a welcome, if highly unusual, tradition that when it’s reality itself that becomes the hellscape, we escape to those sites as our playground: a retreat for joking, mockery, and, in that, community.
Gallows humor reigns as the brightest minds with X accounts and free time on their hands at work turn consequential news into entertainment. Something as ludicrously monumental as this Trump vs. Musk quarrel—utter pettiness with immense implication—can only be treated with eye-rolling snark.
We joke and make memes as a coping mechanism; it’s a turning of the tables: the powerful become the court jesters, and we guffaw in pity at their foolishness. Yet part of this experience is the harrowing understanding that the foolishness derives from something incredibly serious. The instinct towards humor is both a deflection and an honoring of the gravity of the stakes, in the finest tradition of satire.
There’s a delight in two ridiculous people publicly humiliating themselves with backyard barbs traded over public forums, and a disgust that these people we’re laughing at happen to be making decisions that affect our livelihoods, rights, and general well-being.
In other words, it’s the grandest of entertainment, of the kind pop culture strives to produce—and likely wouldn’t be able to fictionalize on this scale.
The fallout between former lovers, scorned by betrayal, is classic fodder for soap opera. A childhood spent watching General Hospital has prepared me for this moment; we’re only at the very beginning, and the drama is only going to get more implausible.
The Shakespearean elements of two powerful entities warring from ivory towers, ignorant—or uncaring—of the ramifications that may rain down on the plebeians below is the fodder that fuels great series like Succession and Industry. The farce of it all—these guys, really?—is why someone in your office has said, “This is just like an episode of Veep!” at least once a day for the last six months.
Comparing modern White House politics to the Real Housewives has become a mainstay tool of processing the shocking uncouthness and petulantly pugnastic behavior of today’s officials. So, it’s no surprise that everyone from Bravo fans to the network’s Big Daddy, Andy Cohen himself, have been gleefully comparing the Musk/Trump rumble to a Real Housewives catfight. Expect a table flip at any moment. (Can Trump even lift the Resolute desk?)
And so we’re taking to the internet to gossip about and process this remarkable political moment the same way we do those TV shows: We meme through it.
Thank goodness for that. The last few days have been hilarious—a banner time to be Extreme Online, proving that endless doomscrolling is an investment that eventually will pay off.
The Real Housewives memes came fast and furious, and Cohen was loving it:
It’s unclear if Wicked was on Trump’s list of Kennedy Center-approved musicals, but this is spat is well-timed to this week’s trailer for the movie sequel:
Musical theater fans also saw the parallels to Rent:
Many remarked that this makes the Drake and Kendrick Lamar beef look chaste:
And as if someone wasn’t going to bring the Kardashian-Jenner family into this:
It’s rare these days that something, be it news or a TV program, dominates and captivates in such a universal, riveting way.
We celebrate the return of monoculture when we’re all arguing about incest while The White Lotus is airing. We find solace in it when a new pope is selected and we can all intelligently (and humorously) discuss the choice. And when the president of the United States and his billionaire lackey go at each other with such vicious acrimony that you have instant PTSD to the Great Ashley vs. Jessica Cafeteria Fight of Seventh Grade, well, you sigh… and still appreciate it.
Has anyone Photoshopped some sort of Gladiator and Trump/Musk meme yet: “Are you not entertained?”
