Make It Stop

Elon Musk's obscene economic influence has swallowed ‘Baby Shark’

Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo don't.

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The phrase “burgeoning Elon Musk meme economy” is a cursed Madlib combination of words that would have no use to any rational person, say, three years ago... and yet here we are: The insufferable “burgeoning Elon Musk meme economy” has expanded to encompass the insufferable children’s song, “Baby Shark.”

After recently responding to a (likely automated) South Park promotional tweet with a reference to the campfire singalong-turned-online kids’ anthem, shares of Samsung Publishing, one of the majority shareholders of the company that produced the viral 2016 South Korean cover, rose over 10%. By the end of trading, the company’s stock was up around 6.3%, according to a report from Forbes...

Because this is what happens when you allow the “Well, actually” guy in the back of your high school AP Econ class more power than most nations on the planet. Doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo...

Two Elons are not better than one.picture alliance/picture alliance/Getty Images

Probably won’t change much. Probably... — In all likelihood, the Baby Shark’s baby bump (sorry) is just an economic blip for Samsung Publishing... but this is Elon Musk we are yet again talking about. For all anyone knows, the SpaceX CEO and Tesla Technoking could take an extra hit from Joe Rogan’s gravity bong later this afternoon and subsequently decide to double down on SharkCoin or some similar bullshit, thus tanking the equally bullshit Dogecoin — or hell, probably the entire cryptocurrency market — in the process.

Musk’s adoring fanboys will start a Change.org petition to make “Baby Shark” the new national anthem, and it’ll probably garner enough signatures to force Congress to actually waste everyone’s time more than it already is and vote it down. Then Musk will jokingly tweet that he’s outsourcing all Tesla jobs to Canada, and there goes our precariously recovering domestic economy.

Stick to Starlink, for the love of God — Look, pretty much everything Musk is involved in is either a) a de facto branch of the Department of Defense, or b) a sham in a sportscar’s paint job, but one project does deserve a begrudging nod of respect: Musk’s satellite internet project, Starlink, which appears to actually be making good on its promises to deliver fast, reliable online access to rural areas. So that’s cool.

Then again, we’re ignoring the absurd amount of space pollution the endeavor will eventually generate, but at least people will be able to Tweet their outrage about it.