A Snowclone's Chance in Hell ...
While surfing fark over the course of the past few months, the Schmoo has noticed a trend. Very frequently, these Netellectual communities append their witticisms with a language which seems to follow its own logic, and which is difficult for the outsider to comprehend. The Schmoo does not refer to such neologisms as "pr0n", though let the Schmoo state for the record that he is outraged at l33tspeak and the morons that use it. If you're too simple to understand what a synonym is, or too lazy to read a little and expand your vocabulary, spelling common words with symbological representations of letters does not grant you intelligence.
Nay, the Schmoo refers to what the linguists and the literary critics refer to as a meme. In these particular memes, a linguistic framework is used to construct a new phrase which yet references all previous phrase constructed in the same way. Two common examples on these two sites are the modified Yakov Smirnoff joke -- seemingly his only joke, thus the power of the meme -- which flows along the lines of "In Communist Russia, NOUN VERBs you!!!", reversing a common-or-garden sentence from predicate to subject. (The Schmoo trusts his audience to recognize this, and he daintily refrains from the groan-inducing examples which surely abound even in this paragraph.) The other, virtually requisite on slashdot, is taken from Kent Brockman (nee Bronkelstein): "I, for one, welcome our new XXXX overlords."
Apparently this trend has caught the eyes and ears of the academic community, one member of which has actually created a term for this: a snowclone. We Marlites, of course, have our own snowclones: who could ever forget everyone's favorite erotic deathmetal band, XY (Witchporn, BigFist, Wordsmith, Asshat)? The source material here, of course, is Metallica's "Master of Puppets" ("Master! MASTER!"), which also dictates that the only way in which to recycle this meme is by shouting it in a modified stage-whisper/growl, a la James Hetfield, with the standard index-and-pinky Devil Horns pumping rhythmically.
The Schmoo is curious, though, if anyone else has run across other examples of snowclones than these listed here, or listed on the snowclone website (X is the new Y, for example). The general rules, 'sfar's the Schmoo can tell, are:
(a) they have to be used primarily on the web or in hipster speech;
(b) they have to have a fairly strict grammar of substitution (Noun and Verb, single syllable words, spoken or written in a certain way, etc.);
(c) they may have been pithy or entertaining at one point, but they've basically lost all meaning subsequently (except for Witchporn!, which is still the best name for a deathmetal band EVER);
(d) if the meme was unknown to the listener, it would make almost no sense.
The Schmoo is certain that there are dozens of examples, but he is tired and his boss is beginning to frown on the fact that he's been "working on that proposal idea" for several hours now with few visible results.
God Bless XXXXX.
Replies: 0 comments