Nothing has warmed my dark little Gen-X heart quite the way the rise of the “it’s just sparkling [whatever]” jokes has. There is something wonderful about the popularity of a very specific kind of phrasing to be used as a put-down. I’ve seen it used as “sparkling racism,” “sparkling consequences,” “sparkling anxiety,” and so forth, both political and not. It’s a great bitter dismissal or amused clarification. And what quite a lot of the people who use it don’t realize is that it’s playing on a line first spoken by Rob Lowe in Wayne’s World.
We’ve spoken before about “orphaned parodies,” those parodies that have escaped into the wider world, no longer trailing their original behind them. Most notably Bugs Bunny’s carrot and Foghorn Leghorn’s existence. This is a similar concept. These are orphaned jokes, references to a work of pop culture that are no longer a direct reference to their starting material and are just used in their own right, sometimes by people completely unfamiliar with their origins. I’ve noticed a few, but there are certainly others that perhaps even I don’t know are originally pop culture references; that’s the point of the category.
Another one, even wider spread than the Wayne’s World reference, is the concept of responding to any reference to something as a war with something along the lines of “My Dearest Martha.” This is, as people may not realize, a reference to Ken Burns’ The Civil War. One of the most moving moments of the documentary is the “Sullivan Ballou” letter. It is a letter that captures the poignancy and pain of a man who believes he will die and wants to tell his wife of his love for both her and the cause for which he is dying before he goes. Naturally, this gets used to parody people whining about being oppressed for not getting organic vegan diets while in jail on sedition charges.
Don’t get me wrong—I approve of its use that way, because what is parody even for if not deflating over-inflated egos? It’s just interesting that the phrasing “My dearest Sarah” does not appear in the original letter, which merely says, “Dear Sarah,” but otherwise it’s completely recognizable as a play on the specific moment. At least it is if you’re already familiar with the specific moment. It manages to be funny if you are not as well, because even if you don’t know the Sullivan Ballou letter, you get the idea of dramatic Civil War letters. Though I’ve definitely seen it referenced as Revolutionary War.
Once again, I am doubtless missing further examples; those are just the first two that come to mind. Interestingly, they’re both Generation X-era references. I strongly suspect that’s why they’re the first two that come to mind—they’re references from my own youth. I catch them the first time, whereas people perhaps younger than I am hear them, find them funny, and never think to track them to their origin any more than they would any other joke. Why would you bother doing that?
It’s only microtransactions if it comes from the Microtransaction region of France (I looked it up; they don’t have a specific French word); otherwise, it’s just sparkling supporting my Patreon or Ko-fi!
