Poor old Beyonce, she performs at the Superbowl…

Gets her funk on during the performance…

And it was not pretty.

Ms B struck a multitude of unflattering poses while getting fierce at the Superbowl, and the photos were released (because bad photos are better than good photos).  Her publicist contacted the offending website, politely asked for the photos to be removed.  But, once it’s on the internet its kind of like asking the the guy who took your virginity to please put it back.  And so, because of a demand to remove all traces from the internet, there has been quite the back lash, in the form of internet memes.

What’s a meme you ask?

Why, you see them everyday on your Facebook feed.  It can take form in a the way of a link, hashtag, a video, or say, an unflattering picture of Beyonce turned into a joke or a catchphrase.  This term was derived from the ancient Greek word for “imitated thing”, and was coined in 1976 by British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book “The Selfish Gene”. (And its pronounced “meem”–not “mimi”, which is how I’ve been saying it in my head.  Thanks Wikipedia!) I learned this after I tried to jump into a Twitter conversation like it was a game of double dutch and someone dismissed with me: “It’s just an internet meme”, to which I crawled into a hole to Google the concept.  A meme is simply a means to spread a concept or notion across the masses. It is mostly humorous, satirical and if popular, has the capacity to spread like wildfire.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t enjoy unflattering photos of myself. In fact, I have a ton of not-so-great angles, but you’d hope to be cool and confident enough to brush off a bad picture–‘whatevs, I know how good I look in real life’.

You know how it is, God giveth and God taketh away. Sometimes you are deemed “World’s Most Beautiful Woman!–exclamation point no less–all the times I was given the honor I said “Cool it on the with the exclamation point guys, they already know that I’m beautiful, no need to shout it from the rooftops”.  But sometimes, you strike the wrong pose and graphic designers photo-shop the image next to Chris Tucker in the cult classic comedy “Friday”.

Or Ben Hur…

Or the Mona Lisa…

I’m not sure what’s happening here…but I like it.

Oh Beyonce, I wonder if you had just been cool, confident and quiet that you would have earned this hilarious, yet humiliating place in the world of internet memes.  I mean, it’s not like you don’t take an amazing picture, what’s a couple of nasty ones tossed into the mix?  Take it from one “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” to another, we all have bad days.  A lot of photographers and fashion designers say I look a lot like a young Elizabeth Taylor.  Here’s one from a recent shoot.

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.   That is totally retouched.  I mean, of course I am still a jewel to behold, but on any given day without the filtered lens, its a little bit more like:

Hmm, maybe there’s still a soft focus happening here.  Okay Beyonce, here it is, untouched, unforgiving–what I look like first thing in the morning:

Okay, you got me, I was just trying to make you feel better.  I’m actually quite ravishing from the minute I open my eyes in the morning.  That’s just one of the alligator snapping turtles we have at the exotic zoo on our expansive property.  You know how it is eh, B? When you have so much money you run out of the normal things to buy and eventually think you can control things like the internet?  Listen, girlfriend, I know you’ve had a rough go recently, with people thinking you faked your pregnancy, accusing you of lip-synching the national anthem, joking about your hulkish manner and the most recent scandal, soaking with your baby in a hot tub.  But you are Beyonce, and don’t think for a second I wasn’t emphasizing each syllable when I said your name.

You’re going to be okay, you’re young, popular, the wife of a famous rapper and the mother of a baby whom you named after a color.   While you are the victim of the occasional backlash, you have enough talent to bounce back, and enough money to make documentaries about yourself or even buy a planet…and not even a small measly one.  You really have your pick of the solar system.  Because you’re a star darling, and don’t you forget it.  Those knuckleheads behind the internet rarely meme what they say anyway.

All Images Courtesy of Google