Red Talk 009: This Boy be in My DMs! Hogwarts A&M! Kevin Hart Memes!
A Curate Red Digital Digest Februaaryn 27 - March 5, 2023
Welcome to week 9 of Red Talk! This is your weekly digest of digital trends curated by me, a social media-obsessed millennial who helps your favorite brands conquer social algorithms! After a lovely vacation, I returned to work last week and resumed my endless scrolling. The internet welcomed me with open arms! Funny and informative internet trends consumed my feeds:
This Boy Be in My DMs 💅🏽
Hogwarts A&M 🧙🏿♂️
Kevin Hart Memes 🤣
Before we get into it, if you haven’t signed up to participate in my upcoming interview series for substack, please do so here! I hope to use this newsletter to encourage community among like-minded creatives, marketers, executives, entrepreneurs, and businesses. If you know someone else who will benefit from this weekly digest, encourage them to subscribe!
This Boy Be in My DMS (Potential Reach: +200M)
Grossly undercounting reach here because the tool I use is only searching copy in captions, and the “DM Pretty” audio has been used at least 909K times on TikTok and in 82K reels and photos on Instagram.
Popular audio from New Orleans-based artist Tank of Tank and The Bangas’ poem “DM Pretty” has been trending on TikTok and Instagram for several weeks. I even saved the audio for the off chance I had six extra hours between clients, motherhood, and endless scrolling to make an entire reel with it. Here is an example of the audio being used on TikTok:
Limited time and production resources aside, I’ve decided to ditch my next reel after learning the origins of the audio from @meghan._.orourke (16.1K TikTok Followers) and how the original trending snippet, absent the appropriate context, removed the meaning of the poem. Watch below:
If you want to use this audio, please use it from Tank and The Bangas. They have since created a TikTok with a clip from this poem that lends itself to more lighthearted TikToks and Reels.
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General Twitter conversation and Google search interest in the band increased following the receiving credit for the viral sound. Buzz was comparable in volume to when Tank and the Bangas began their residency at the legendary jazz club, The Blue Note (shameless plug to the new IG I’m starting, follow!):
So if you want to dive deeper into the Tank & the Bangas rabbit hole, you’re not alone. I encourage you to watch the full set but the video I linked below starts with the poem that has become viral:
They may be new to many, but they are not new to music: check out their NPR Tiny Desk with 13 Million views here.
Hogwarts A&M (Potential Reach:1.4B)
Comedian Mel Mitchell’s (@thebaddestmitch on TikTok) Black Teacher at Hogwarts skits have gone viral in the past, but last week, the skits took on a new life and achieved next-level virality. Black TikTok creators founded the illustrious Hogwarts Agricultural and Magical University (HAMU), the first magical HBCU of its kind.
Mel Mitchell’s Ms. Mitch of Hogwarts made her first appearance in January of 2022, and the Black faculty of Hogwarts have driven 12M views across 27 TikToks on her profile to-date. 653K views (just 5% of all the views on her #BlackatHogwarts content) were on the 5 TikToks created since Hogwarts A&M was founded. Below is the first TikTok featuring Ms. Mitch of Hogwarts. On Mel Mitchell’s TikTok page you can find a number of hilarious skits about being the Black [insert role] within a popular franchise or series like the Black teacher of Euphoria or Whoville the Black Avenger.
Here are some of the best from the first MAGICAL and historical Black University: Hogwarts A&M:
HAMU has Sororities and Fraternities:
An amazing marching band:
Culturally relevant magical courses:
An online student store for merch:
HAMU has house strolls!
And Ms. Mitch reminded us who started this with her Ravenclaw Stroll:
Kevin Hart Memes (Potential Reach: +842M)
Once again, really hard to quantify the reach on this one because the listening tool I use does not search images…
Kevin Hart has been trending as a meme, and I know the potential reach is greater than 842M. Happy I’m able to chat about *this* Black comedian because I have unpopular opinions about everyone’s current Netflix fave 🙄. I can’t figure out why or how this Kevin Hart trend started, but it’s been hilarious and all over my Twitter timeline. Here are some of my favorite memes:
Thanks for reading this week’s Red Talk! Happy scrolling!
I too wonder why Kevin Hart started trending! Great Week 9, Red!