Side Note

Breaking: Zendaya is Meechee

Most “Vine comedians” were pretty bad; for all its boons, the defunct video-looping service foisted medium talent, vaguely glamorous hacks like Logan Paul and Lele Pons on the public. But there were plenty of plain comedians on Vine who were actually funny, many of whom have continued working in entertainment following Vine’s closure. Over the weekend, Gabriel Gundacker — whose series on music fandom remains a formative text of modern criticism — went viral for a very silly, very simple, very catchy song he wrote about an incredible cinematic development: Zendaya is Meechee.

These are all posters from Smallfoot, an upcoming animated film about a Yeti — and his Yeti community — who tries to befriend a human. It’s out this Friday, but if you haven’t seen a trailer, you might walk by these character posters on the sidewalk and think: LeBron James is who? Danny DeVito is what? There are so many new words and phrases forcing their way into our lexicon, like Airbnb or athleisure. Why couldn’t Dorgle or Gwangi be a part of that? And here we are, entranced by a song that’s not even a minute long. Vine may be dead, but thankfully, its stars still have somewhere to go.