From Esquire
2021 may only be two weeks old, but we’ve already started cranking out internet moments worthy of The Discourse. This is our job as citizens of the world wide web: find moments, mock them, use weird internet lingo, and turn it into digital vernacular. The best memes of 2021 have arrived. And the first one has a harmony, melody, and a reason to believe in the collaborative nature of TikTok.
Even if the last two weeks have been more of the nightmare we’ve become accustomed to, the first meme of the year is full of good vibes, happiness, and rum. Specifically, it’s Shanty Tok. If you’ve heard the echoes of the folksy song, sang in a multiple-part harmony by young men on TikTok, then you’ve had a brush with the trend. This layered cover of the folk song “Wellerman” by The Longest Johns is the most optimistic version of a meme: just people living in the moment with a four, six—hell, sometimes eight part harmony.
But that’s just the first meme of 2021. Watch this space as we fill this post out throughout the year. Shanty Tok won’t be the last meme we see, but it’s going to be a challenge to knock it off the throne for best. The bar is high. The Wellerman cometh. And if you need a boost in your mood, go ahead and relive the best memes of last year too.
Shanty Tok (January)
TikTok user Nathan Evans, a postman from Scotland, started January’s feel-good meme by posting an a capella cover of “Wellerman” on his TikTok. In the coming days, it blew up, with additional people duet-ing the original TikTok with their own iterations of the song. The fun part is that you can add all kinds of riffs in. This is, arguably, the first time that white culture has done something good since approximately the first sea shanties, centuries ago.
In a month full of tumultuous moments, Shanty Tok has given us a bit of calm in the online storm. Also, not to overlook the win for the genre itself: sea shanties have never been more searched on Google as they are today.
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