If you’re searching online for Ford cars for sale, it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself searching exclusively through discontinued models. Most of you may already know this, but Ford Motor Company had announced this past year that they would be discontinuing their sedan offerings to restructure their lineup around more popular crossover and SUV models. Needless to say, it’s only a matter of time before models like the Taurus, Fusion, and Fiesta are little more than a memory. That is unless internet meme culture has anything to say about it.
A good meme is usually praised for its timeliness and topicality. That said, a great meme tends to be more of a slow burner, the internet equivalent of an invasive venereal disease that’s been present and spreading long before it ever manages to catch your attention. If you’re looking for a perfect example, consider the “Telling My Kids / Imma Tell My Kids” meme that rose to popularity in late November, despite it having debuted back in September.
Credited to Twitter user @Wake_n_Bacon, the phenomenon first originated on September 19th when the aforementioned user posted a picture of a brown-skinned, turban-adorned cartoon character with the caption, “I’m gonna tell my kids in 2055 that this was Justin Trudeau” (a reference to the problematic photos which surfaced showing the Canadian Prime Minister wearing blackface and a turban).
Since then, the internet has run rampant, with these memes gaining momentum through progressively more interesting attempts to mislead future generations in hilarious ways. For those of you living under a rock, here are some of our favorite examples here at The Lemon…
“Imma tell my kids this was Britney, bitch..”
“Imma tell my kids this was Obama..”
“Imma tell my kids this was Abraham Lincoln…”
“Imma tell my kids this was Kurt Cobain…”
“Imma tell my kids this was Danny Devito…”
But now it seems that this particular meme is being put to work, in the interest of memorializing those slowly fading Ford models (even if it’s in an entirely inaccurate way).
For example, here are some examples of ‘Imma Tell My Kids This was the Ford Taurus’ memes.
And ‘Imma Tell My Kids This was the Ford Fusion.’
And (yep, you guessed it) ‘Imma Tell My Kids This Was the Ford Fiesta.”
So what does Ford have to say about this trend? According to James D. Farley, Jr, their President of New Businesses, Technology, and Strategy, the company has “zero problems with it.”
“Considering that this is free advertising, we couldn’t have asked for better results. Let’s be honest, the discontinuation of any model wouldn’t even be on the table if it hadn’t fallen completely out the public’s favor in the first place. Once people stop liking a car, they’re going to forget about it anyway, so we might as well wave goodbye and make it formal. But what these memes are doing is returning these cars to the collective cultural mindset of Zoomers everywhere. We’re basically being made relevant without even trying.”
What this means for Ford’s long-term strategy remains to be seen. Best case scenario, it helps to remedy the inevitability of slow-moving inventory. Worst case scenario, someone will need to sit Ford execs down to teach them the difference between “someone laughing WITH you” and “someone laughing AT you.”
