Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.

Most weeks, we quiz a “very online” person for their essential guide to what’s good on the internet.

Today we welcome Meecham Whitson Meriweather, the writer of Now That I Mention It, a pop-culture newsletter in which he has defended M3GAN as “the BFF everyone deserves” and eulogized Chris Pine’s “long, luscious, balayaged locks.” Meecham goes viral at least once a week on Twitter, watches adorable dogs and thick thighs on TikTok, and wants LinkedIn power users biopsied and studied in a damp basement. —Nick

P.S.: The Embeddathon is still on!

“My Twitter experience is 90 percent me tweeting and rarely seeing anyone else’s tweets.”

EMBEDDED: What’s a recent meme or other post that made you laugh?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I tweeted about this Frenchie who is obsessed with Henry Cavill, like every time she sees his face or hears his voice, she becomes transfixed. Not sure how good her taste is though because she didn’t recognize him in The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) which is one of my favourite books and filmés!

Meech @MediumSizeMeech

The fact that this dog is OBSESSED with Henry Cavill and can’t help but stare when he’s on screen, I get it — but sweetheart not liking him in The Count of Monte Cristo???? GROW UP

EMBEDDED: What shows up on your TikTok For You page?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I feel like Shawn Mendes when he was asked this question. It’s usually a few things:

Dogs—This is probably the strongest thing on my FYP. It comes in all shapes and sizes, but mostly small adorable dogs being adorable, or big dogs being hilariously dumb. In this house, we celebrate everyone in the D-O-G Community!
Butts/thighs—I love a rugby butt. I love a baseball butt. I love a football butt. What I’m saying is—I am an equal opportunity butt lover. Thick thighs have saved more lives than Dr. Meredith Grey, and every night (and sometimes in the middle of the day) they save mine.
Restock ASMR—I truly applaud the people who have taken other people being nosy, created a platform, and profited from it. Why do we need to see the inside of someone else’s refrigerator? Who cares how she stores her strawberries! Does she need 157 K-Cups? No! But that’s her business. It’s very therapeutic. I’m obsessed.
That guy watching other people make food and rating about it—I feel bad for not knowing this guy’s name, but my favourite posts he rates are from chocolatier Amaury Guichon. The man is not only handsome, but he is very skilled—a hottie who knows their way around a chocolate bar? Count me IN.

EMBEDDED: Has your Twitter experience changed since Elon Musk took over? What would it take for you to quit?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: My Twitter experience is 90 percent me tweeting and rarely seeing anyone else’s tweets. So to be fair, it hasn’t changed very much, save for the newly accessible random-ass tweets you didn’t ask for in your replies and the tweet view count. Let me be honest, I’m going down with the ship. The only thing that would get me to quit Twitter is if I got rich. There’s no reason for me to be on Twitter if I could be lounging in a Suite at the Ritz instead. Enjoy my presence while you can, brokies!

EMBEDDED: Have you found any good alternatives to Twitter?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: No. And I’m not looking!

EMBEDDED: What do you use Instagram for?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I really love architecture, so it’s mostly to keep up with internet dogs, fashion, and curate my grid of art and architecture. It’s very pretentious, but in a hot way.

EMBEDDED: What types of videos do you watch on YouTube?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I mean I don’t really use YouTube—but when I do, it’s mostly episodes of Hot Ones? Otherwise my monthly listen to Tyra Banks’ chart-topping number 1 smash hit single “Shake Ya Body” from her ANTM era. It’s not streaming on Spotify, and I just think Cancel Culture has gone TOO FAR.

EMBEDDED: Have you had posts go viral? What is that experience like?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: Well. Lol. My tweets go viral almost every other day, but usually at least once a week. Sometimes it’s fun if it’s about a film, because I really do enjoy talking about movies with other people. Other times it’s about fashion because I really enjoy talking about fashion with other people. Sometimes it’s because I’m making a satirical post people don’t get, but other times it’s about a musical artist, an artist who has a devoted and very annoying fanbase (Harry stans, Arianators, Barbz, and whatever Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Russell stans are called). I’ve pissed off multiple fanbases in one day and they were in my comments and QTs for a week.

The thing is, I don’t get notifications for people I don’t follow, so more often than not, they’re just in the wind, talking to themselves. I do like to agitate them sometimes though, because stans are not smart or witty. They just say things other stans have said and regurgitate misandry after calling me misogynistic.

EMBEDDED: Who’s the coolest person who follows you?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: What does “cool” mean these days? Coolest mainstream—John Cena. A follow from John Cena is like a badge of honour. He’s a great guy but doesn’t like very many tweets, which is VERY suspicious!!! But to me, my most favourite follower is Devon Sawa. He’s very sweet, and kind, and funny, and calls me on my shit (why does it sound like I’m telling my best friends about the guy I just met two days ago who I think I’m gonna marry???) and also did you see him S2 E6 of Hacks where he fucked Deborah Vance and asked her “How’d you get this scar?” My loins your honour, they were on FIRE!!!! Anyway, yeah he’s cool or whatever.

EMBEDDED: Who’s someone more people should follow?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: Me. On every platform. And when I get a dog you can follow him on TikTok.

EMBEDDED: Which big celebrity has your favorite internet presence, and why?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: This is a tough question. I think celebrities are bad at the internet because they are too behind on memes, or take things too seriously. Lil Nas X was great for a while. Aubrey Plaza. This is gonna sound weird, but it’s probably Hugh Grant. As someone who is king of romcoms, you’d expect him to be out of touch and haughty, but he’s literally so hilarious cause he just tweets ANYTHING, and he hates his government. Love him for that.

EMBEDDED: Do you typically start searches on Google, Reddit, TikTok, or another source?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: It depends on what I’m looking for. For restaurants, I start on TikTok, then move to Google. For TV/movies, I start on IMDB, then move to Google, then Tumblr (no I’m not giving you my @) to see if any of the gay people in the TV/movies die. The answer is always yes. In my opinion there isn’t much valuable information on Reddit besides talking to other people in forums. I lived through AIM chatrooms, I don’t need to do that. Plus, everything that’s on there you can find on TikTok, but with video.

EMBEDDED: Where do you tend to get your news?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: Twitter. I think Twitter is such a hub for so much information in real time, but it’s important to start there and do your due diligence because people will read something and run with it instead of fact checking. It’s like a dangerous game of Telephone, and NOT the Beyoncé and Lady Gaga kind.

EMBEDDED: What are your favorite Substack or other independent newsletters?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: Hung Up is a very fun newsletter by pint sized cutie pie (no relation to Ed)

EMBEDDED: What are your favorite media company newsletters?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I don’t really read those. Sorry!

EMBEDDED: What’s one positive media trend? What’s one negative trend?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I’d say a positive is allowing people who enjoy a thing to come together and enjoy that thing together. Film Twitter is annoying, but we are a good time. A negative is the bastardization of therapy buzzwords. Gaslighting no longer has meaning.

EMBEDDED: Are you into any podcasts right now? How and when do you usually listen?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I have a hard time listening to podcasts these days because why are these people having a conversation I’m not a part of?! But in 2020 I listened to them on my daily allotted walks: The New Yorker Fiction podcast, BitchSesh, 10/10 (Would Recommend).

EMBEDDED: How has using LinkedIn benefitted you, if at all?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: It hasn’t, people on there are literally NUTS. The fake stories, the bootstrap theory, I need them to be biopsied and studied in a damp basement somewhere.

EMBEDDED: Have you ever been heavily into Snapchat? Do you miss it?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: OMG, I was SOOO heavy into Snapchat until like 2018. I used to do “Sunday Skincare” where I’d basically go through my skincare routine (before it was popular) and kind of just like talk shit. It was annoying, but people liked it! I don’t miss it though, I don’t need to know what you’re doing every hour of every day. I don’t care that you’re eating chips! BeReal wants what Snapchat HAD!

EMBEDDED: When was the last time you browsed Pinterest? What for?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: Okay so funny story, I’m on Pinterest ALL the time. I love curating things, so there’s lots of fashion, architecture, interiors—all the fun stuff, and every board has a cheeky name. It’s brilliant actually, I don’t care, I’ll say it!

EMBEDDED: Do you have an opinion about Tumblr?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: Tumblr is like A Tale of Two Cities. It was the best of times, but baby it was also the worst of times. It got even worse when they removed the porn and sold the company, but now the porn is back so honestly, we love full circle moments.

EMBEDDED: Are you in any groups on Reddit, Discord, Slack, or Facebook? What’s the most useful or entertaining one?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: No. I’m hot.

EMBEDDED: Are you currently playing any games on your computer or phone?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I don’t have the battery life to play games on my phone. I’m constantly texting, sexting, tweeting, or taking photos.

EMBEDDED: Do you have any predictions for cryptocurrency, the metaverse, and/or Web3?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I hope it fully flops. We have seen enough movies to know better! It’s not the future, or the vibes!

EMBEDDED: What most excites you about AI text and art generators? What most concerns you?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I think what people don’t understand is that computers are great, but they will never take the place of humans. They will never feel (I just watched M3GAN, too, and you see what happened with that!) so to think they’ll ever take the place of a writer or artist is—frankly foolish. Humans end up having to edit AI text anyway. And the AI art is so devoid of emotion. Sorry, but it’s a no from me. Also, not to be alarmist, but that AI generator stuff just captures your facial imprint and we all remember what happened to Tom Cruise in Minority Report (2002)!!!

EMBEDDED: What’s your most-used messaging app?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: So, I’ll literally be having a conversation with the same person on Instagram DM, iMessage, and Twitter. Different apps for different things.

EMBEDDED: Do any of your group chats have a name that you’re willing to share? What’s something that recently inspired debate in the chat?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I only have three group chats, if you have more than that, it’s weird (outside of family GC) and one is a bunch of my Swedish friends named Swedie Pies. There was this huge debate on Twitter about Swedish people not feeding their guests/other people’s children and I really had to go to bat for them because I know that’s not true! It’s not!

EMBEDDED: What’s your go-to emoji, and what does it mean to you?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: OMG lol, This emoji 🤭 means SO MUCH. But mostly it’s like tongue in cheek, in on the joke, or I can’t believe I just said that.

EMBEDDED: Do you text people voice notes? If not, how do you feel about getting them?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: No. I am a very fast texter. There’s no reason for that. There are like, a few exceptions if I’m really upset and need to vent, or if it’s a story that is too long to type and I can just tell it in a 45-second voice note. People ALWAYS send them to me though. Very weird.

EMBEDDED: What’s a playlist, song, album, or style of music you’ve listened to a lot lately?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I’m all over the place with music, but for the last six months, I’ve mostly only been listening to three albums:

Beyoncé’s Act I: Renaissance—Obviously, I have taste. She made a perfect album, and somehow did it without giving us any videos after pioneering a secret album drop with accompanying visuals for every song. Everyone is trying to do it now and they’ll never be her!
Carly Rae Jepsen’s The Loneliest Time—I love CRJ. She makes great pop music and doesn’t get the praise she deserves because her label always releases albums the same day other pop girls release, and she always gets overshadowed.
Tove Lo’s Dirt Femme—When it comes to music, the Swedes really know what they’re doing. This is a really beautiful album, but I was literally vibing along to “Grapefruit” when I first started listening to it, and paused for a second to actually HEAR the lyrics. It’s dark! But I love it.
Honourable mention is music by Omar Apollo, Teo, Alina Baraz, Father John Misty, Christian Kuria, Andreas Wijk, and Molly Sanden

EMBEDDED: Do you pay for a music streaming service, and if so, which one? When was the last time you bought a music download or vinyl record, CD, or tape?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: It’s so crazy to think about how much music I used to steal in college. Limewire was amazing, but I had to stop because I got hit with a DMCA copyright at my dorm and it scared the shit out of me. I am a Spotify user, I think the UI/UX is great and the algorithm is really intuitive. What I WILL SAY IS, they really need to get it together with the Spotify Wrapped graphics. It’s giving PixArt. Grow UP!

The last musical purchase I made was a double whammy, Beyoncé’s Queen’s Remix of “Break My Soul” sampling “Vogue,” which—was not my fav. And Father John Misty’s Chloë and the Next 20th Century which was a vinyl I received after I bought tickets to his intimate show at The Rainbow Room. Unbeknownst to me he cut his long hair, so I no longer wanted to be intimate!

EMBEDDED: If you could only keep one streaming service for TV and/or movies, which would it be, and why?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: This is difficult. Netflix loves cancelling shows, Apple TV is lots of boring serious stuff, I am not a Disney gay (no offense—actually, a little offense) HBO Max’s app is a MESS, you can’t even rewind a little bit if you were texting and didn’t hear what somebody said! Hulu feels—meh, so, I’m sorry to say it would probably be Prime Video. They have lots of different channels like PBS where I can see my period pieces, Dekkoo and Strand Releasing where I can watch really bad gay movies, foreign channels for the dark, sexy Spanish shows, and AMC where I can watch Anne Rice’s bisexual vampire series. Everyone wins!

EMBEDDED: What’s your favorite non-social media app?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: Co-Star. It’s an Astrology app you should already be using and if you’re not, what’s your problem? I feel like that doesn’t count as social media, you can’t post or share anything. It gives you great daily updates about your sign and is personalized to you and the time/place you were born.

EMBEDDED: What’s the most basic internet thing that you love?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: Wikipedia. I think that’s kind of why I started my newsletter Now That I Mention It because I’ll look something up and be like actually, now that I mention this thing, let me look at this other thing that’s vaguely related to it. Four hours later I’m finding out another big clothing designer helped the N*zis in WWII. You’d be surprised by how many of them there are!

EMBEDDED: Is there any content you want but can’t seem to find anywhere online?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: Tyra Banks’ “Shake Ya Body” streaming. Dog cafe live video feeds.

EMBEDDED: Do you regularly use eBay, Depop, or other shopping platforms? What’s a recent thing you’ve bought or sold?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I don’t, I like to thrift in person because people on the internet are very scary, and they lie! And these resellers? They are inSANE marking up the price of Levis and Dickies 300 percent. And now that I mention it, people use these apps to buy ANYTHING that’s a vintage designer and they think that’s fashion. It’s not! Even Louis Vuitton makes mistakes!!!

EMBEDDED: Have you recently read an article, book, or social media post about the internet that you’ve found particularly insightful?

MEECHAM WHITSON MERIWEATHER: I read an article (watched a TikTok) that talked about the way we interact with each other and how so many people are SO online that their in-person interactions greatly suffer for it. It’s true!

EMBEDDED: What’s the last thing that brought you joy online?

Every morning before I get out of bed, I check my horoscope, then my Co-Star, and then look at the Instagram post from my favourite internet dog arang2o_o.

arang2o_o

A post shared by 함아랑 (@arang2o_o)

Thanks Meecham! Subscribe to his newsletter and follow him on Instagram and Twitter. 🤭

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My Internet: Meecham Whitson Meriweather