These 'A Star Is Born' Memes Will Distract You from Our Hellworld

Over the weekend, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, after numerous allegations of sexual assault, and climate scientists determined that we have roughly ten years left to avoid a global “climate catastrophe.” But a newfound sense of despair wasn’t the only thing born this weekend: Thanks to the release of A Star Is Born, a truly wonderful meme was born that offers a little bit of reprieve from our current hellscape.

It all began with the release of the trailer, when a particular scene struck a nerve:

“Hey!”

“What?”

“I just wanted to take another look at you.”

Now, like the original movie itself, the scene has taken on numerous new iterations—applying the sweet exchange between Bradley Cooper's Jackson and Lady Gaga's Ally to those in our society who might need a little extra love.

As this is the third remake of the story, a lot of A Star Is Born has been borrowed from previous versions. This exchange occurs in all four—1937, 1954, 1976, and 2018:

But seeing as it is the first remake to be made in the era of memes, it's easy to see how Lady Gaga’s pleased “aww shucks” look has captured the internet. Gaga’s knowing look is reminiscent of memes of yore, and Cooper and Gaga make such an odd couple that pairing them up with pretty much anyone still gets the sentiment across. If Gaga and Cooper can star opposite each other, why not Gaga and Clint Eastwood?

The sequence is also just so simple and so ripe for parody:

Lady Gaga stans wouldn’t stand for just one meme to emerge from A Star Is Born, though. Gaga’s epic HAAAAA AHHHHHH AAAHHH howl from the film's already Oscar-worthy original song "Shallow" has mesmerized the internet as well, becoming a meme of its very own:

The whole movie and its premise is over-the-top, touching, and earnest in a year that has made us all particularly cynical. This is why A Star Is Born is so memeable in these trying times.

Did we need yet another remake of this story? Probably not, but it's not terrible like everything else in our news feeds, and sometimes the only way to cope in these dark times is to superimpose jokes onto movie screenshots. Sure the movie features incredible music, drag queens, Bradley Cooper’s dog, and Lady Gaga as a brunette. But what really makes it all come together is going online after you’ve seen A Star Is Born and bearing witness to all the new memes before you. As the movie was just released Friday, there’s still time to go off the deep end and dive into them all.

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