Let’s have a look back at some huge (and hilarious) MEMernet anniversaries.
“Saucy Situation”
The MEMernet was obsessed this time two years ago with a truck accident that spilled enough Bertolli alfredo sauce to temporarily close I-55.
Coverage quotes from FOX13’s Kate Bieri went viral, including one used in a tweet from The New York Times that read: “Unfortunately this is Memphis, and we had some pretty intense sun beating down on that alfredo sauce, and also humidity. It was just not a great recipe for a highway full of alfredo sauce.”
#notmyjob
Richie Esquivel’s sad/hilarious Facebook post went around the world this time last year, picked up by WMC-TV, The Guardian, and The New York Post.
His photo showed a dead raccoon painted over by a road crew laying new traffic stripes along Getwell. It raises so many questions, but one thing was clear to Esquivel. It was “#notmyjob,” he wrote. “Memphis, Tennessee, baby. But Getwell Road looked real nice, tho.”
Neverending #buttholegate
The Imagine Butthole Cafe Facebook page always remembers.
The scandal was born seven years ago last month and internet scientists have yet to calculate the cumulative hours sunk into the hilarious, Memphis-only rabbit hole. Even researching this brief post, I was sucked into it.
Here’s our brief reporting of it when it happened in 2017.
But the wild story and the reaction to it went all over the world (and that’s not hyperbole). Here are some stories from Eater and Vice.
Susan Ellis, our food writer and managing editor at the time, listed ButtholeGate as one of the top food scandals in Memphis.
In the Best of Memphis issue of 2017, I picked ButholeGate as the year’s “Best Butthole Buzz.”
“The only butthole-related scandal that mattered this year was ButtholeGate, of course. This mighty beast of social-media hilarity and hurt feelings rose in July from a Google review (yes, a Google review) of Imagine Vegan Cafe in Cooper-Young. ButtholeGate paralyzed Memphis Facebook and Twitter for nearly two days, and the story finally spread as far as The Washington Post (yes, that Washington Post). Before it was all over, the humor harvest yielded “Butthole McYodelTown,” a puckered logo for “Hole Foods Memphis,” and #buttholesoutforchelsea. — TS”
ButtholegGate (SEE?! I can’t even stop writing about the thing now!) surged again on Reddit around its anniversary last month with some curious folks just wanting to know what the heck was going on. Delicious hilarity ensued. Check it out: