DIGITAL LIFE

The history of the meme that became reality when it became Amazon's most absurd product

The image that we transmit at a distance is everything that speaks for us since the beginning of the confinement by the coronavirus. Therefore, role-playing in a video call is important. The devil is in the details: an unfortunate background can make us look informal to coworkers, embarrassed on a date or, in more extreme cases, until we become a joke on the television show Sálvame Deluxe. Therefore, the safest option, and the one that seems to prevail among experts, guests and commentators who appear on television, is a good bookcase with thick books behind it. Casual intellectuality. And that also gives rise to all kinds of memes.
Last week the image of an offer, as a parody, of a cardboard stand with a false printed bookcase circulated on social media. Announced as “perfect for actors, journalists and comedians”, and with an alternative version “with Star Wars dolls”. The cardboard was sold at a price of 150 euros (about 900 reais). The photomontage was created by Madrid illustrator Eduardo Berazaluce, who released it on April 19 on his Twitter profile.
“The idea came to me while watching people's video calls on television, with shelves everywhere [laughs]. I thought a funny meme was needed, inspired by the aesthetics of Wallapop, and I did it with the image of a cardboard holder to make it more vagabond, ”he tells EL PAÍS. Although the publication had only about twenty retweets and approximately fifty likes, its image went to WhatsApp and from there it returned more strongly to Twitter thanks to profiles with greater reach, such as that of Pablo Simón, political scientist at EL PAÍS, or that of the writer Juan Gómez-Jurado. It went viral.
The meme evolved and communication vehicles like Onda Cero [Spanish radio network] came to consider it real. Even in the second wave of image diffusion, the top part with the name of a fake company created by the author (TodoCartón) had been omitted: a user, as he himself told Berazaluce, believed it was real and cut it out so do free company advertising. So, at one point the illustrator tweeted: “It would be fun if someone made it and sold it”. And, as superstitions warn, you have to be careful what you want.
Yesterday, through a page dedicated to decoration, Eduardo Berazaluce discovered that the online store Oedim Decor, which makes custom prints and manufactures photocalls and decorative vinyl murals, offers Amazon the possibility to buy an article in the image and similarity of the imagined by the Twitter user, “ideal for making video calls”, with the same dimensions that he indicated in his assembly (180 cm wide by 240 long) and for the same price. Although, yes, with the option to pay in four installments over 90 days.

eduardo b. @eduardobera

#ConexiónHonduras9 #LoDeQuedateEnCasa5 #QuedateEnCasa 

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18:38 - 19 de abr de 2020

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“I put a very high price on purpose, it's part of the game, it's a piece of cardboard! Like the measurements, it is bigger than a double mattress, where are you going with this? ”, Berazaluce, clearly amazed, tells EL PAÍS. “They had to change the background I made and put in some very old books, without copyrights, and of course they also removed that from Star Wars. Creating a meme is not the same thing as selling something, so you need to be careful ”, he explains.
Berazaluce rules out the possibility of receiving a commission: the company (which is part of the Oedim S.L. headquarters, dedicated to large format digital printing, based in Jaén) did not call him. Although it does not predict a great success for the product. "They work with vinyl, cardboard, printing ... I think they did it a little bit like clickbait, so that people can go to their page and see other things", he thinks. EL PAÍS tried unsuccessfully to contact Oedim.

Jaime Lorite-Espana