MEMES, Pt. 4: Woman Yelling at a Cat

Endless Thread

WBUR

Reddit, Technology

4.2 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2021

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Humor is a key ingredient of any unit of culture that morphs and spreads over time. But humor isn’t always there at the beginning. For “Real Housewife” Taylor Armstrong, the meme that made her even more famous on the internet has bitter roots: physical domestic abuse exposed on television.

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 think twice about ever using the meme again. We also explore why a loss of context is crucial for the spread of memes, but often problematic.

Transcript

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0:00.0	WBWR's last scene is back with surprising news stories about people, places, and things
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0:11.5	mysteries go unsolved.
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0:16.2	Follow last scene wherever you listen to podcasts.
0:20.4	Produced by the iLab at WBWR Boston.
0:28.1	Another heads up guys, this episode deals with physical and emotional abuse and mentioned
0:32.4	suicide.
0:33.4	We have resources on our website if you're experiencing anything like this.
0:38.0	So listen with care, or you could skip this one and we'll catch you next time.
0:42.1	Okay, here's the show.
0:44.0	Hi.
0:45.0	Can you hear me okay?
0:48.6	Yeah, I can hear you.
0:49.9	I'm using my...
0:51.6	Do you recognize this boy's pen?
0:53.2	Isn't it real housewife?
0:58.2	Isn't it a real housewife?
1:00.2	Unless it's the real housewife, Severtz in addition, because that's my sister, Julia.
1:05.2	Oh man, sister.
1:06.2	You really pulled the fast one on me.
1:10.1	Well I called her up because a few years ago, Julia made a meme.
	...

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