In 2010, a woman in Sakura, Japan, published photos of her well -kept Shiba Inu on her digital diary. The dog, Kabosu, shot his owner a look with his eyes wide open, a comic image that quickly skipped from Tumblr to Twitter to Facebook at Twitter and the rest of the Internet.
A legend of meme was born. Someone on Reddit called the dog “Doge”, a meaningless nickname that was blocked. Another coined a cryptocurrency in the name of Doge.
Now, 15 years later, in the rapid elimination of the culture of the Internet, Doge is considered very old. But try to tell Elon Musk, who cooperated “doge” for the name of his effort to sell off the machinery of the federal government-più formally, the Department of Efficiency of the Government.
It is one of dozens of old ephemeral internets that are cooked in its daily vocabulary. A brief scoring through Mr. Musk’s feed X reveals a window of meme and jargon that ages: Dad jokes for a lot online. They include:
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Frequent references to “420”, a period of jargon half a century to smoke marijuana that is said to have started in a high school in northern California. (After smoking what looked like a live blunt on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Mr. Musk briefly changed his biography on Twitter in “420”))
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The number “69”, a term of jargon for a sexual act that is in circulation at least from Kama Sutra, regularly included. (Mr. Musk, who is 53 years old, is ready to underline that his birthday falls 69 days after 20/09.)
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By calling things that supports “epic” or “based”. These are adjectives favored by frequent Reddit and popular users by Joss Whedon’s fans, a director who created the television series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in the late 90s and continued to direct two of the Avengers films. (Mr. Musk said he wants to create an artificial intelligence “based” with his chatbot, Grok, and recently told Tesla Investors who expected an “epic” 2026 in front of the company.)
Mr. Musk’s jargon may seem inscrutable for people who are not imbued in online culture. But for his fans, the dated sensitivity of Mr. Musk is a kind of comfort food on the Internet – and a nod to a shared and injured world vision.
Mr. Musk’s posts are full of the language of war and conquest represented in video games. That charge is a cry of gathering for players and others from the very online world of Mr. Musk who – if they have a common political ideology – see someone who shares their skepticism of authority in him and their belief that America has gone too “alarm”. For them, Mr. Musk’s online updates on what Doge is about to come across more honestly than a press release or a press conference or – worse than everyone – something they read in the mainstream media. (It is a strategy that recalls the use of Twitter by Donald Trump to report authenticity during his first administration.)
“We are experiencing in the revenge of the Nerd era,” Hasan Piker said in an interview, a popular and politically progressive online personality that is not a fan of Mr. Musk. “This is the true and real revenge of the nerd.”
Mr. Musk did not respond to a commentary request.
Each photo of Mr. Musk who brandishes a chain saw while wearing “face” sunglasses inside (another meme) represents a triumph of the nerd culture with which he has been identified for some time. On Wednesday he participated in the first meeting of the new Cabinet of President Trump who wears a shirt that said “technical support”.
His fans answer him in his language. They send suggestions on how doge can set the government by dismantling entire sections, often codified in the language of images that are typically on Reddit. (Wojak, a roughly designed character made popular on the 4chan bulletin board, is a perennial favorite.)
Mr. Musk produces his over 200 million X -followers to ask for help with decisions in online polls. And he listens. The conversation becomes a cycle of feedback from privileged jokes for the billionaire, which once hosted “Saturday Night Live” and is proud of its sense of humor. (Mr. Musk sometimes overrated his popularity in the world of comedy. Once he joined the comedian Dave Chappelle on a stage in San Francisco. He was whistled.)
“Anyone can find their community, even if it is a frozen community in 2010,” said Brian Feldman, an internet culture writer who has long followed the exploits of Mr. Musk, in an interview.
But for those who are immersed in the modern culture of the Internet, Mr. Musk’s communication style is far from trendy. This is particularly true when the current terms such as “No Cap” (translation: no lie) or “Lowkey has fallen” (drop of popularity or relevance) are already showing their age. As with recent questions about Mr. Musk’s statements of superior video game skills, they see cracks on his supernella facade.
“More than people would like to admit, they often become trapped on the internet they meet for the first time,” said Feldman.
Last week, Mr. Musk appeared in a conservative political conference wearing dark sunglasses, a large gold chain and a shirt that said that “not procrastinating” but instead worked on “secondary missions” (a common practice in the tentacles of role -playing play). He played the quotation of the Hindu Scripture Bhagavad Gita that Robert Oppenheimer said he was crossing his mind while he treated the first atomic bomb: now I have become death. The Chancer of the worlds.
“I became meme,” Musk said to a mostly silent crowd. “There is living dream and the meme is alive, and it is practically what is happening.”
Even some of his most fervent followers on X indierce. “Elon Musk fell from Lowkey,” a user wrote.
Mr. Musk’s online vocabulary is a 2010 reminder, when the culture of the nerd was ascending. Reddit was a meme factory for favorites such as Lolcats and Icanhazcheeseburger. The players met in web forums or in online role -playing games to go out and fight through digital basements.
This was also the beginning of Mr. Musk’s metamorphosis from the simple billionaire to the celebrity of the Internet. That year, he appeared as himself in the second film of “Iron Man”. His online fans ate it.
All this also coincided with the ascent of Web 2.0, a more social version of the Internet. Twitter – long before Mr. Musk bought it and replied – was a square. Facebook went beyond likes and state updates with “groups”, a function that allowed people to train their smaller communities. The Chat 4chan forum was full of anonymous online trolls, often angry that bound to vulgar behavior.
While the online groups had existed for years, the new social networks were more strictly processed and rewarded the behavior that Musk often shows today. The right type of post could collect steam and shoot on the internet.
The provocateurs have moved beyond the small scale trolling to aggressive mass movements, such as Gamergate, a campaign of targeted harassment against a game designer by video games players who said they represent a lack of ethics in the journalism of games. He turned into a social movement that fought diversity, feminism and what the players have seen excessively progressive values in films, television, literature and video game industry – a point of view that Musk shares.
Gamergate has also reported that digital demonstrations could, for better or for worse, lead to a change in the real world.
Mr. Musk’s style of tweets has changed from the updates of the Anodyne company to a more obvious train. In 2018, he tweeted that he had obtained a Tesla acquisition offer for a share price of $ 420. Once, when a competing car company tried to underestimate it at a price, Mr. Musk said he would drop the cost of his Tesla Model X at $ 69,420.
“The glove was thrown down!” He proclaimed on Twitter. “The prophecy was fulfilled.”
Unlike other technological billionaires, who seemed to live a life very far from the normal people of the internet and became less online the richest they had, Mr. Musk was making themselves recognizable with memes, absurdities and incessant places. And parts of the online world embraced him.
“Many people find him discouraging, I believe,” said Coldhealing, a pseudonym cultural commentator who regularly follows Mr. Musk and other social movements online, in an interview. “But there are many people who resonate with, and even if I think it is 10 percent of the maximum population, it is an influential 10 percent.”
Mr. Musk’s online life became even more bombardy after Pandemia Covidic began in 2020. He attacked Tesla Short-Sellers and state officials from California who did not allow him to reopen a Tesla factory. In 2023, he even tweeted the photos of himself by leading to Mark Zuckerberg’s house, threatening to fight with the CEO of Facebook. (At the time they were in the grip of the organization of a real combat game between them. It never happened.)
He was published by playing Elden Ring, Path of Exile and other video games such as Diablo IV. One of the richest men in the world was telling players that he was one of them.
Blizzard’s former video game manager Mark Kern, wrote in a post last week that people should not joke with the players. “We are forged by infinite battles against the boss against impossible probability. We don’t give up. We don’t stop. We are the terminators of the cultural war. “
“Yes,” Musk wrote, citing the post.
Conservatives who do not spend much time online also embraced the image of Mr. Musk who saw a chain saw what they see as a swollen federal government, even if many of them are not exactly sure of what they are trying to say or when they should laugh.
“It is valid for people who have no idea what they are saying, but they still think that this language of experts is talking,” said Feldman, the internet culture writer.
But Mr. Musk could find his limits online. It was difficult for some of his followers to shake off the theatrical appearance of the last week at the conservative political action conference, which reminded them that it is difficult to remain fresh when you are, in fact, not very young. (Kabosu did not live to see the meme that inspired entering the American political life. The eighteen year old Shiba Inu died last year.)
“Anyone else feels the atmosphere in Tpot/Tech?” A user X wrote, referring to an online community called “this part of Twitter”, which is largely made up of technological workers who have historically warmed up to Mr. Musk. In other words, Mr. Musk was starting to seem a little out of the world and increasingly unpopular.
However, Mr. Musk seems to double. His post on X has increased in recent weeks, a few days numbered in hundreds. And he is still validated by his fans.
Thursday, Mr. Musk published another meme on his X account – one of dozens of places he had made that morning. In it there was a photo of Mel Gibson in the role of Mad Max in “The Road Warrior”, the action thriller of the early 80s on a nomad that was run as a hunting hunting in a post -apestical world. In daring letters, the meme said: “Lord, it’s time to start thinking if the guy you are attending has a potential of post -apestical warlord”. (Film fans may note that Max’s wife and son were killed by a band of motorcyclists in the first film “Mad Max”.)
A follower replied with a photo of a man who wore a slutty helmet and a armor with an assault rifle in one hand and one spear in the other. It was one of over 7000 responses.
“Yes,” said the follower, adding an EMOJI of fire.