Alex Henry, Essai Marin, Izaiah Mireles March 11, 2019
Memes are what define this new generation. The definition makes it possible to survive through many generations by basing itself on an element of culture that passes from person to person while they improve it. What about the memes this month? February was a pretty good month for memes. But not everybody will understand those memes. The older people especially. This month the Shaggy meme was dominant. So to people who don’t fully understand I’ll explain in this article.
For starters everyone should know who Shaggy is. Shaggy is a character from Scooby-Doo who was usually scared of everything and consumed a plethora of food with Scooby. However, this meme depicts Shaggy as a super powerful entity. It started back in October of 2017 when people would take pictures of shaggy from the cartoons and put a caption, like all memes do. However, the meme died in October 2017 but was revived in late January this year making it a February meme. Shaggy having been so late in January made its peak of popularity in February. It was revived by screen shots from the interviews for the live action Scooby-Doo movies. (Like this image) Every meme either dies or evolves. This meme evolved because Shaggy can’t die.
The next stage of the meme is in the form of anime. Typically anime doesn’t have average characters. Anime has some of the most dramatic and intense fights between characters that are Incredibly strong. For example, they destroy planets. With Shaggy’s immense power he blends right in. (Like this video) Anime makes a meme funnier. Since anime is usually taken very seriously when you add a ridiculous character like Shaggy it looks out of place and makes the anime ridiculous. It’s like seeing a little kid trying to do grown up stuff.
Shaggy couldn’t stand alone as the most powerful character, so why not give others godlike powers? Like Bigweld from the movie robots, Matt from Wii sports, and Shrek. There’s a video with Shrek fighting Shaggy but it’s too inappropriate. Since these characters aren’t originally written to be so special a lot of the humor comes from the obnoxiousness. I and many of my age group agree that the meme is funny. This meme is a solid 7/10. Shaggy wouldn’t let it be any lower. I should mention the very first form of this meme, Chuck Norris. But the interviews from the Scooby-Doo movies made Shaggy a god. Anime made Shaggy stronger. However, Shrek, Bigweld, and Matt needed to join the god club so the meme community can put them in.
Fun Fact Casey Kasem (The voice for the original Shaggy) was a disc jockey. He worked for many radio stations. He was also a music director. After a few years he championed the R&B music of east L.A. Later on in his career he went to do the Ameicsn Top 40 along with Tom rounds, Ron Jacob, and Don Bustany. The radio station was on decline while the DJ liked playing progresive rock. The radio station counted down all the music on the billboard hot 100 from #40 to #1. Later in October 1978 the station went nationwide. The show went all the way up to 2009. Here’s a video of Casey Kasem on American Top 40