CAST AWAY MEME LICENSE
The “content” version of the meme (which presupposes a photo of John Cena that will be viewed through the prism of the “You Can’t See Me” concept) focuses on pretending that pictures that have the Good Doctor (while his license has most certainly expired, you never lose the know-how!) don’t feature him and that anything happening in the photo is defying the laws of physics or logic.
Initially starting as a reference to his signature taunt of the same name (itself a reference to the Tony Yayo dance of mid-aughts vintage), it soon became a two-pronged meme: one container and one content.Īs a “container” (meaning a meme that people can use with relevant existing content to further its spread), the implication was that by virtue of John Cena being able to turn invisible (one would assume because of the titular incantation) any picture ever taken which did not explicitly include Cena must be assumed to feature him somewhere in the background. The “You Can’t See Me” phenomenon, however, speaks much more directly to the galactic cultural powers of someone like Cena. It’s also very explicitly tied to John Cena’s characterization/perceived overexposure on television and the bombasity of his entrance. “Unexpected John Cena”-wherein Big Match John and an inappropriately loud mix of his song “My Time is Now” are introduced unexpectedly, most often on a prank call-is a kind of natural (d?)evolution of the Rick Roll and has its charm as one of the relatively rare instances of a viral audio meme. And with John Cena, that’s precisely what happened. “Memes require context, some type of knowledge of, if not the original source of the meme, something that contextualizes it within the community,” says Holderness.īecause essentially every image in wrestling is the semiotic means to a narrative end-someone lifting someone else to drop them, for example-nearly anything you can do in the space could be memed. Like other forms of internet virality, they get passed around in communities, iterated upon, and grown, but unlike, say, the concept of “copypasta,” memes require a narrative. Holderness theorizes that the intense performative nature of wrestling lends itself to the kind of storytelling upon which memes must be based. “And I think that some celebrities, when they become pervasive on the television and the internet, they naturally kind of lend themselves to being memeified.”Ĭena’s chosen means of media conveyance have also helped lead to his rise as a meme subject. “He’s been around for so long and has been, in a lot of ways, the very public face of the WWE,” she says. Which is pretty remarkable when you consider the ways in which memes can be localized.Īccording to Cates Holderness, speaking in her capacity as an internet nerd but someone who is an expert on memes no matter how you look at it, the pervasiveness of John Cena is what allows the memes made in his honor(?) so ubiquitous. “You Can’t See Me” and “HIS NAME IS JOHN CENA” are atomic particles of culture, and while he may not be hydrogen, helium, or oxygen, there’s evidence to suggest Cena’s somewhere between iron and neon in the elemental composition of the internet.
And it’s in that room you learn how he got there is what makes John Cena John Cena, John Cena John Cena and even (unexpectedly) what makes _ _ John Cena (!). the set of The Tonight Show? At the end of the tunnel, it’s just you and him (still wearing a Peacemaker costume) alone in a black room talking about his feelings. Then you (OK, me) get down the John Meme-a rabbit hole, somehow end up watching him wearing suit after suit in white room after white room for YouTube interviews on everything from his daily routine to “wrestling support” to meeting an old British woman for tea to literally “I Accidentally Became a Meme.” My brother in Christ, you accidentally became a meme the same way I “accidentally” gained 30 pounds eating empanadas twice a week for a year.Įventually, for some reason, a Peacemaker costume takes the place of the suit and the white room becomes.
However, the intersection of John Cena and memes is not something anyone thinks about until someone they know (e.g., their editor) says “Hey, mathboi, do you want to write about memes and John Cena?” and they say “Sure, how hard could it be!” Most people don’t spend much time thinking about memes, or John Cena, but given their ubiquity in public life over the past 20 years, it’s a safe assumption that both are always somewhere in the back of our collective consciousness.
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