For better or worse, internet and video game culture are irrevocably tied with memes. Video games are ripe for meme material, but sometimes video games also take advantage of other circulating memes. Now, it seems The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is doing so with the long-lasting "woman yelling at a cat" meme.
For those unfamiliar, the history of this particular meme is quite interesting. The image on the left is a screen cap from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills episode 14 "Malibu Beach Party From Hell" featuring Taylor Armstrong and Kyle Richards. The still found its way online in 2011 and became a meme onto its own. Around the same time, the image of the cat (named Smudge) had been posted on Tumblr with the caption: "he no like vegetals." The two circulated independently until one Internet user put them together, and the two memes became one.
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After Nintendo made the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword image publicly available, many quickly caught onto how this image looks a lot like The Real Housewives portion of the image. Zelda is in a similar stance to Taylor Armstrong, with her hand and arm in a similar position. Zelda seems a little less worked up than Armstrong, but it's clearly a similar form. In this instance, Link is taking the role of Kyle Richards, with his facial expression not being too dissimilar from Richards'. More of the latter's face can be seen in the meme, but while this is not a 1:1 recreation, it comes awfully close.
Close enough, in fact, that Xbox responded to the above tweet with an image of a cat (though it wasn't Smudge). Some have taken the meme's similarities and run with it, including the above but editing images of Smudge to include Skyward Sword character Groose, a Remlit (small, evil-looking cat-like creatures found in Skyloft), and in one case, Sonic the Hedgehog.
For the most part, it seems users are having fun with this as a video game meme format of sorts. Some, like the aforementioned Sonic edit, is making a serious commentary on various Nintendo practices that some feel are anti-consumer. Others used it to comment on Donkey Kong's anniversary, or lack thereof. Either way, some memes are sprints instead of marathons, and that likely seems to be the case for this meme. It'll still circulate, as all memes do, but once The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD releases and is beaten by fans, they'll likely move onto the next meme and game.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD launches July 16, exclusively for the Nintendo Switch.
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