Veronica Belmont on being overtaken by a meme

A long time ago, Veronica Belmont was featured in a blooper reel for her old TV show in which she clowned around with a Cthulhu t-shirt, wiggling back and forth and saying "So lifelike." A creepy Internet person turned the moment into a GIF that has followed her around ever since, so that other creepy Internet people post it every time she opens her mouth online, and creepy Internet porn companies use it in their ads.


In a beautiful XOXO talk, Belmont describes the process by which her identity was overtaken by a meme, and how the process has made her reflect on her own reflexive participation in negative Internet activity. As Matt Haughey puts it: "It's a great talk that really drives the point home that sometimes the Internet can be a crappy place, but on the bright side, the Internet does let people hear the rest of a story, like this one."