In 2010, a lady in Sakura, Japan, posted pictures of her well-manicured Shiba Inu to her digital journal. The canine, Kabosu, shot her proprietor a wide-eyed look, a comic book picture that rapidly jumped from Tumblr to Twitter to Fb and to the remainder of the web.
A meme legend was born. Somebody on Reddit called the canine “DOGE,” a nonsensical nickname that caught. One other minted a cryptocurrency in DOGE’s identify.
Now, 15 years later, within the quick churn of web tradition, DOGE is taken into account very previous. However strive telling that to Elon Musk, who has co-opted “DOGE” for the identify of his effort to intestine the equipment of the federal authorities — extra formally, the Division of Authorities Effectivity.
It’s one among dozens of old-internet ephemera which might be baked into his on a regular basis vocabulary. A short scroll by way of Mr. Musk’s X feed reveals a menagerie of ageing memes and lingo — dad jokes for the very on-line. They embrace:
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Frequent references to “420,” a half-century-old slang time period for smoking marijuana mentioned to have began in a highschool in Northern California. (After smoking what seemed like a blunt stay on the Joe Rogan podcast, Mr. Musk briefly modified his Twitter bio to “420.”)
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Usually together with the quantity “69,” a slang time period for a intercourse act that has been round since at the least the Kama Sutra. (Mr. Musk, who’s 53 years previous, is fast to level out that his birthday falls 69 days after 4/20.)
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Calling issues that he helps “epic” or “primarily based.” These are adjectives favored by frequent customers of Reddit and popularized by followers of Joss Whedon, a director who created the “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” tv sequence within the late Nineties and went on to direct two of the Avengers motion pictures. (Mr. Musk has mentioned he desires to create “primarily based” synthetic intelligence together with his chatbot, Grok, and not too long ago told Tesla investors he anticipated an “epic” 2026 forward for the corporate.)
Mr. Musk’s slang could appear inscrutable to individuals who aren’t steeped in on-line tradition. However to his followers, Mr. Musk’s dated sensibilities are a sort of web consolation meals — and a nod to a shared, aggrieved worldview.
Mr. Musk’s posts are filled with the language of warfare and conquest portrayed in video video games. That loaded language is a rallying cry for avid gamers and others from Mr. Musk’s very on-line world who — if they’ve a typical political ideology — see in him somebody who shares their skepticism of authority and their perception that America has gone too “woke.” To them, Mr. Musk’s on-line updates about what DOGE is as much as come throughout as way more sincere than a press launch or information convention or — worst of all — one thing they learn within the mainstream media. (It’s a method that remembers Donald Trump’s use of Twitter to sign authenticity throughout his first administration.)
“We’re residing within the revenge of the nerds period,” Hasan Piker, a preferred, politically progressive on-line character who is just not a fan of Mr. Musk, mentioned in an interview. “That is the true, precise revenge of the nerds.”
Mr. Musk didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Each picture of Mr. Musk wielding a sequence noticed whereas sporting “cope with it” sun shades indoors (another meme) represents a triumph of the nerd tradition he has lengthy recognized with. On Wednesday, he attended the primary assembly of President Trump’s new cupboard sporting a T-shirt that mentioned “Tech Assist.”
His followers communicate again to him in his language. They ship options on how DOGE can repair the federal government by dismantling complete sections of it, typically coded within the language of photographs sometimes discovered on Reddit. (Wojak, a crudely drawn character popularized on the message board 4chan, is a perennial favourite.)
Mr. Musk prods his greater than 200 million X followers for assist with choices in on-line polls. And he listens. The dialog turns into a suggestions loop of insider jokes for the billionaire, who as soon as hosted “Saturday Evening Reside” and prides himself on his humorousness. (Mr. Musk generally overestimates his recognition within the comedy world. As soon as he joined the comic Dave Chappelle on a stage in San Francisco. He was booed.)
“Anybody can discover their very own group, even when it’s a group frozen in 2010,” Brian Feldman, an internet culture writer who has lengthy adopted Mr. Musk’s exploits, mentioned in an interview.
However to these steeped in fashionable web tradition, Mr. Musk’s communication fashion is much from on pattern. That’s particularly so when even present phrases like “no cap” (translation: no lie) or “lowkey fell off” (waned in recognition or relevance) are already displaying their age. As with current questions on Mr. Musk’s claims of superior video game skills, they see cracks in his supernerd facade.
“Greater than folks wish to admit, they typically change into trapped within the web they first encounter,” Mr. Feldman mentioned.
Final week, Mr. Musk appeared at a conservative political convention sporting darkish sun shades, an enormous gold chain and a T-shirt that mentioned he was “not procrastinating” however as an alternative engaged on “aspect quests” (a typical apply in sprawling role-playing video games). He performed off the quote from the Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita that Robert Oppenheimer said was going through his mind as he examined the primary atomic bomb: Now, I’m change into Dying. The destroyer of worlds.
“I’m change into meme,” Mr. Musk mentioned to a largely mute crowd. “There’s residing the dream and there’s residing the meme, and that’s just about what’s occurring.”
Even a few of his most fervent followers on X recoiled. “Elon Musk fell off lowkey,” one person wrote.
Mr. Musk’s on-line vocabulary is a reminder of 2010, when nerd tradition was ascendant. Reddit was a meme manufacturing unit for favorites like Lolcats and icanhazcheeseburger. Players gathered in net boards or on on-line position taking part in video games to hang around and combat by way of digital dungeons.
This was additionally the start of Mr. Musk’s metamorphosis from mere billionaire to web celeb. That yr, he appeared as himself within the second “Iron Man” movie. His on-line followers ate it up.
All of this additionally coincided with the rise of Net 2.0, a extra social model of the web. Twitter — lengthy earlier than Mr. Musk purchased it and renamed it — was a city sq.. Fb moved past likes and standing updates with “Teams,” a characteristic that allowed folks to kind their very own smaller communities. The chat discussion board 4chan was filled with nameless, typically offended on-line trolls who bonded over vulgar habits.
Whereas on-line teams had existed for years, the newer social networks have been extra tightly knit and rewarded the habits that Mr. Musk typically shows right now. The proper of posts might decide up steam and shoot throughout the web.
Provocateurs moved past small-scale trolling to aggressive mass actions, reminiscent of Gamergate, a focused harassment marketing campaign towards a feminine recreation designer by online game gamers who claimed she represented a scarcity of ethics in video games journalism. It morphed right into a social motion that fought range, feminism and what avid gamers noticed as overly progressive values in movie, tv, literature and the online game trade — a viewpoint that Mr. Musk shares.
Gamergate additionally signaled that digital demonstrations might, for higher or worse, result in real-world change.
Mr. Musk’s tweeting fashion modified from anodyne firm updates to extra overt trolling. In 2018, he tweeted that he had secured a buyout supply for Tesla for a inventory value of $420. As soon as, when a competing automotive firm tried undercutting him on value, Mr. Musk mentioned that he would drop the price of his Tesla Mannequin X to $69,420.
“The gauntlet has been thrown down!” he proclaimed on Twitter. “The prophecy has been fulfilled.”
Not like different tech billionaires, who appeared to stay lives far faraway from common web folks and have become much less on-line the richer they acquired, Mr. Musk was making himself relatable with memes, absurdity and relentless posting. And elements of the web world embraced him.
“Many individuals discover him off-putting, I believe,” mentioned coldhealing, a pseudonymous cultural commentator who often follows Mr. Musk and different social actions on-line, in an interview. “However there are a lot of individuals who he resonates with, and though I believe it’s 10 p.c of the inhabitants max, it’s an influential 10 p.c.”
Mr. Musk’s on-line life turned much more bombastic after the Covid pandemic started in 2020. He attacked Tesla short-sellers and California state officers who wouldn’t let him reopen a Tesla factory. In 2023, he even live-tweeted pictures of himself driving to Mark Zuckerberg’s home, threatening to wrestle the chief government of Fb. (They have been, on the time, within the throes of organizing a real fighting match between them. It by no means occurred.)
He posted himself taking part in Elden Ring, Path of Exile and different video video games like Diablo IV. One of many world’s wealthiest males was telling avid gamers that he was one among them.
Mark Kern, a former online game government at Blizzard, wrote in a publish to X final week that folks shouldn’t mess with avid gamers. “We’re solid by countless boss battles towards unimaginable odds. We don’t surrender. We don’t cease. We’re the terminators of the tradition conflict.”
“Sure,” Mr. Musk wrote, quoting the publish.
Conservatives who don’t spend loads of time on-line have additionally embraced the picture of Mr. Musk taking a sequence noticed to what they see as a bloated federal authorities, even when lots of them aren’t precisely certain what he’s making an attempt to say or after they’re speculated to chuckle.
“It’s validation from individuals who do not know what he’s saying, however nonetheless suppose he’s talking this professional language,” mentioned Mr. Feldman, the web tradition author.
However Mr. Musk could also be discovering his on-line limits. It was tough for a few of his followers to shake off final week’s stage look on the Conservative Political Motion Convention, which reminded them that it’s laborious to remain cool if you find yourself, in reality, not very younger. (Kabosu did not live to see the meme she impressed enter American political life. The 18-year-old Shiba Inu died final yr.)
“Anybody else really feel the vibe-shift in tpot/tech?” one X person wrote, referring to a web based group known as “This A part of Twitter,” which is essentially composed of tech employees who’ve traditionally warmed to Mr. Musk. In different phrases, Mr. Musk was beginning to look slightly out of contact and more and more unpopular.
Nonetheless, Mr. Musk appears to be doubling down. His posting to X has elevated in current weeks, some days numbering within the lots of. And he’s nonetheless being validated by his followers.
On Thursday, Mr. Musk posted one other meme to his X account — one among dozens of posts he had made that morning. In it was a photograph of Mel Gibson as Mad Max in “The Street Warrior,” the early-Eighties motion thriller a few shotgun-toting nomad navigating a postapocalyptic world. In daring lettering, the meme mentioned: “Girls, it’s time to start out considering whether or not the man you’re courting has postapocalyptic warlord potential.” (Movie buffs could observe that Max’s spouse and daughter have been killed by a biker gang within the first “Mad Max” movie.)
One follower replied with a photograph of a person sporting a Trojan helmet and physique armor with an assault rifle in a single hand and a spear within the different. It was one among greater than 7,000 replies.
“Yup,” the follower mentioned, including a hearth emoji.
