When you've spent many years engaging with internet memes, you can automatically tell if a meme is dated. I remember being a freshman in high school, scoffing at my less-online peers for still posting passé image macros like Bad Luck Brian. I saw screenshots of quirky 2012 Tumblr text posts on Instagram and bragged about seeing them three years before they were regurgitated for an audience of "basics" (a now-defunct term for normies). 10 years later, the regurgitative nature of the internet remains.
It has become increasingly clear that we are not only using today's internet but the internet of last year and 10 years ago. As a wise woman once said, "We did not just fall out of the coconut tree." Memes exist in the context of all in which they live and what came before them. That's why the recent Hawk Tuah phenomenon feels dated, like a relic from the past while simultaneously emerging as a breakthrough in the on-the-street interview-as-meme format.
What The Heck is Hawk Tuah
Hawk Tuah (otherwise known as the Spit On That Thing Girl) went viral a month ago. On some corners of the internet, it has generated more mainstream fanfare than any other meme in recent memory. I could explain the meme's origin, but I think the video that started it all speaks for itself.
At first glance, there's a lot to be amused by here: the charming southern accent, the Looney Toons-esque sound effect, and the visual of hawking a loogie in this specific context. It's no wonder why this went viral, but the rumors of a possible crossover into a more traditional, less online medium are unusual. Several hoxes have arisen, claiming Hailey Welch, the titular Hawk Tuah girl, was fired from her job and signed at United Talent Agency. TMZ recently reported on rumors that she's gotten offers for a reality TV show. This may not be confirmed, but it's worth mentioning that a reality TV show spurred by momentary viral success about amusing Southerners has happened before in the form of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. Notably, the Honey Boo Boo meme and the subsequent TV show both came on the scene in 2012.
Why is Hawk Tuah Dated
Hawk Tuah evokes the cyclical nature of 2014-2018 meme culture. That was the age when meme relevancy lasted just about one month. In years before 2014, a meme could be relevant for years without going out of style; think of how long Nyan Cat was the most popular meme on the scene. A month of discourse is not afforded to most modern memes by the public. In a post-2020 meme era, you're lucky if your meme is remembered at all after the first three days of fanfare. In the mid-2010s, meme fans found the sweet spot of letting the top meme of every month live and die with dignity. The top memes of each month were memorialized in yearly calendars to honor their respective 15 minutes of fame.
Source: Sabrina Zirkle
Hawk Tuah falls squarely into this format, being born in June and unquestionably taking the crown for the top meme of that month. There was even a wave of Hawk Tuah fans claiming that Hailey Welch succeeded in taking down Gay Pride Month. To those commenters, it was a meaningful cultural victory.
Only time will tell if Hawk Tuah will be relevant beyond June and early July 2024, but it's certainly not going to be one of those conventional memes of the 2020s. Whether you like it or not, online communities (probably the ones populated by 30-40-year-old men who find her attractive) will keep Hawk Tuah alive in some form.
One mid-2010s meme that resembles Hawk Tuah is ‘Alex From Target.’ This meme blew up on Twitter after a user posted a photo of a teenage boy working the cash register at Target, his name tag visible for all the world to see. His viral moment culminated, as many did then, with a trip to Ellen's talk show and a fully cemented place in viral history…
This picture blew up for one reason and one reason only: teenage girls thought that he was cute. Back in 2014, that was more than enough. Alex From Target and Hawk Tuah also share the distinction of inspiring the uninitiated to ask, “Why is this popular?” fueling the fame of their respective meme even more.
If you've looked at the comments on the Hawk Tuah videos, you'd be foolish to deny that there's an erotic component to the meme's popularity. The meme is explicitly sexual, but it goes further than that. Fans have coined, “If she don't Hawk Tuah, I don't wanna Tawk Tuah.” Men aren't calling her loose like they do on so many other on-the-street interview videos with drunk women; they're calling her a national treasure. If such a video had emerged featuring a woman who wasn't sufficiently charming and beautiful in the eyes of the Instagram Reels-scrolling public, I'm sure the response would've been quite different.
I'm not saying you're a h-word oaf if you're attracted to Hailey Welch. I'm saying that this meme doesn't have to be that complicated. A beautiful anonymous woman said something funny, and that combination alone became one of the year's biggest memes. You don't see that as often as you used to.
Why Hawk Tuah is Modern
It would be remiss to cast this meme aside as a relic of the past. After all, it did happen in 2024 for a reason. The on-the-street interview format crafted specifically for TikTok audiences wouldn't have yielded a viral meme in 2015, mainly because TikTok didn't exist yet. Of course, we've been seeing on-the-street interviews for decades, but they have exploded in recent years, partly because TikTok was invented.
While more wholesome TikTok series like What's Poppin? With Davis! don't fall into these traps, other on-the-street interviews are subtextually obsessed with determining whether the interviewee is a worthy woman. The following video perfectly demonstrates this principle.
The comments section is littered with witty remarks about how the blonde woman is fat, ugly, and wants more than she deserves in a partner. Comments about how her friend is “realistic” and “cute” are less frequent, though present. Interviewers appear on the surface to genuinely want to know, “How much does a guy have to make to date you?” or “How tall does a guy have to be to be with you,” but that's only 20% of what they want to know. If you're a young woman who agrees to such an interview, please do so knowing that thousands of anonymous men will use your answers to judge whether you're worthy of respect. For every one woman internet commentators praise for being realistic and cute, they tear into 10 more for wanting too much and being too little.
Hawk Tuah is the exception to the rule of the humiliating nature of on-the-street interviews. If anything, I'm glad that Hailey Welch was able to escape a TikTok interview about sex with her dignity somewhat intact. So many times, male interviewers will ask women their body counts to humiliate them and succeed in doing so, but that's not what happened here. She was open about her sexuality, she's been embraced for it, and now she's on track for at least one season of mainstream television success. She embodies meme trends from today and the Internet of 10 years ago, and I hope she can at least make some money from it. If she can't, who can?