The early days of a meme, like the early days of childhood are filled with wonder… and confusion. “What’s going on?” you may ask, or even, “How did I get here?”
And so it is with the Length of Recording meme that is spreading across Twitter like a virus. The basic premise of the meme indicates how much time you spend talking about something you don’t care about versus something you do care about. The tweets look like they contain clickable audio recordings, but they are actually just composed of emoji symbols and long dashes.
They often start with the phrase “me talking about myself:” and lot of them expressing how much someone loves their boyfriend/girlfriend.
me talking about myself:
— k!m (@kxmdomi) July 6, 2017
▶ 🔘──────── 00:03
me talking about my boyfriend:
▶ 🔘──────── 12:09:44
But the entire thing appears to have stemmed from another of the most popular memes on Twitter, that men are trash.
https://twitter.com/minimalisthue/status/882075563762102273
People rapidly realized how widely applicable it is both on an individual and meta level.
me talking about myself: ▶ 🔘──────── 00:04 me talking about my fav. music : ▶ 🔘──────── 3:45:27
— ioanna🕯 (@ioannakls_) July 6, 2017
me talking about myself:
— . (@jaboukie) July 4, 2017
▶ 🔘──────── 00:02
me talking about how every national holiday is actually racist:
▶ 🔘──────── 36:56:68
A lot of people seem to be using it to talk about their personality quirks.
https://twitter.com/mairanotmaria2/status/882753677295046659
https://twitter.com/GirlPosts/status/882805049944092673
https://twitter.com/deathlylogan/status/882701838818181122
Or how much they enjoy some bit of pop culture.
https://twitter.com/andrewjkrause1/status/882830614780678144
https://twitter.com/PanicAtTheSisqo/status/882838587548499969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailydot.com%2Fwp-admin%2Fpost-new.php
me talking about myself:
— soy @ read pinned (@lukedoublef) July 6, 2017
▶ 🔘──── 00:10
me talking about a star fox fanfic I read 3 days ago & can't stop thinking about:
▶ 🔘──── 35:26:37
The meme also has tremendous legs surrounding the drama of various K-Pop bands, specifically Day6 and EXO.
https://twitter.com/kyvnqsoo/status/881682469002641408
https://twitter.com/twicespjm/status/881734322587226113
https://twitter.com/hipsbyun/status/882071151794470912
https://twitter.com/baekxsprouts/status/881683488482656257
There seem to be countless variations going on and, obviously, people have already started to hate/mock it.
https://twitter.com/GabeNOlsa/status/882837868829446145
me telling my girl how much i appreciate her
— alex (@mineifiwildout) July 6, 2017
▶ 🔘──────── 00:02
Despicable Me 3 (in Theaters & IMAX now)
▶ 🔘──────── 1:36:12
The original ones seem to have grown out of an older meme that consisted of people posting the fake audio recording as a prank. The idea being that people would click on it repeatedly trying to get it to play, and become increasingly frustrated.
https://twitter.com/memearchive/status/776107204134985728
I keep clicking but nothing's happening.
— The Truth Sheet (@The_Truth_Sheet) September 14, 2016
Apparently you can leave voice messages on Twitter's new update..?
— c (@cm12253) June 26, 2017
▶ 🔘──────── 00:21
https://twitter.com/ShanMacleod13/status/879428106498572288
But once enough people were in on the gag, some of them started using it with the assumption that people would know there was, in fact, no audio to play.
Friend: What do you love about Eunseo?
— a Nicole stan 🏐 (@eunseotrash) June 21, 2017
Me:
▶ 🔘──────── 9:58:14
Where the idea goes from here is anyone’s guess, but if it follows the normal course of memes, it’s a safe bet that things are only going to get weirder.
https://twitter.com/YahBoyCourage/status/882815902743396352