The low-stakes discourse I crave
The new Mashed Potato cat controversy is delicious.
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hErE cOmEs the backlash. —Kate
Earlier this month, I described Mashed Potato the cat and “Here comes the boy” as a shining example of TikTok at its best, when people come together to create something wholesome and sweet. It would feel journalistically irresponsible, then, to not update you on what’s been happening for the past two weeks. The “Here comes the boy” song, which June sings as Mashed Potato comes to them down a driveway, was soon appropriated for videos of boyfriends—much to the chagrin of the cat-lovers who got in on the ground floor.
The dreamy music and the lyrics, “Here comes the boy, hello boy,” do capture that magical feeling of infatuation when you're first dating someone. But as anyone who has been a third wheel knows, the greater the urge to boast about that feeling, the less people who aren't in a similar relationship want to hear about it.
“If I wanted to see the little brunette guys you hang out with I would have said, ‘Here comes the man/hello, adult man/welcome, taxpayer,’” Charlie James said in a video—the sound from which has since also gone viral.
As someone who just muted the words “delta variant” on Twitter, this is the kind of low-stakes discourse I’m craving right now. The question of who “owns” various sounds will keep emerging on TikTok for as long as the app exists, and there are, of course, more sinister examples: When someone documenting the trauma he overcame got memed, and the nonsexual song that was co-opted for a somewhat perverse sexual trend. But right now, TikTok is arguing about how a sound that is meant to show off cats is instead being used to show off boyfriends in heterosexual relationships—or worse, people’s dogs. And that, honestly, is great.
What’s not great is how this is affecting the sound’s original creator, June. Their voice brought comfort to millions of users, who, in an earnest attempt to use the sound appropriately, began requesting June make different versions for different genders. It became a bit too much.
“I’d love to take care of everyone but I need to take care of myself first and I’d really like to go back to normal,” they said in a recent video about the many song requests being made of them. “I’ve been really overwhelmed and fearful of accidentally excluding people.”
When viral moments burst into the mainstream, we rarely cover what comes after. Sometimes it’s nice, like how Marissa Meizz began hosting meetups across the United States after going viral for being snubbed by her friends. But TikTok’s special ability to instantly turn regular people into social media stars (or villains) means those people are often expected to behave like actual creators, fielding questions and requests like, "Is ‘Here comes the boy’ on Spotify?" "Can you sing it this way instead?" "Can you cover this other song I love?" The more that normal people go viral, the more we’ll see them attempt to opt-out. The question is, do they even have the power to do that?
Thank you for the update. I admire June for putting their mental health first.
Good read🐱