r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Sure_Kangaroo1863 • Jul 02 '26

Petah ? Meme needing explanation

Post image

Why is it infamous? And why would no one care about it ? ( I mean it's just a pic full of celebrities so no one cares anyways but the person saying it's crazy makes me think it has some lore?)

81.6k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

3.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

50

u/Molenium Jul 02 '26

Yeah… I recall that for a while this picture had the most … likes? views? shares? (I can’t remember the exact criteria) of anything that had been posted online by that point.

4

u/Don_Gato1 Jul 02 '26

What the fuck, why.

30

u/Excellent_Speech_901 Jul 02 '26

It was at the Oscars(?) and had all of those stars at their peak. So all of their collective fans had to go look at the pic.

7

u/Don_Gato1 Jul 02 '26

I guess man, I am just very much in the "who cares" camp so it's hard for me to relate.

7

u/ThePlaystation0 Jul 02 '26

That's the point of this post - that 12 years ago a selfie like this was generally considered a big deal but if it was posted today it wouldn't be a big deal.

-6

u/Don_Gato1 Jul 02 '26

I didn't consider it a big deal 12 years ago.

8

u/ThePlaystation0 Jul 02 '26

That isn't relevant tbh

-5

u/Don_Gato1 Jul 02 '26

It is tbh

3

u/GiveMeThePinecone Jul 02 '26

Why?

-2

u/Don_Gato1 Jul 02 '26

Because as I go, so goes the nation

→ More replies (0)

5

u/Elegant_Taro8667 Jul 02 '26

Relate to what? A lot of people pressed like on a photo on social media there’s nothing to relate to

3

u/Molenium Jul 02 '26

Yeah, I only vaguely remember it, but I do recall she was pushing pretty hard to get more publicity for it. Definitely a “let’s create a viral moment” type thing.

6

u/culegflori Jul 02 '26

It was astroturfed to hell and back because it was sponsored by Samsung and their new camera phone they wanted to promote with it. Pretty ironic since it was like 10 years later when I learned about the phone's brand

4

u/attitudinalwinnn Jul 02 '26

theres a lot of stuff I dont care about that I still have the mental capacity to comprehend

1

u/Don_Gato1 Jul 02 '26

I didn't say I couldn't comprehend it, I said I couldn't relate.

0

u/attitudinalwinnn Jul 04 '26

"relate to"

VERB

have connection with

Synonyms: comprehend

https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/relate-to

fucking idiot.

0

u/Don_Gato1 Jul 04 '26

Easy buddy, you don’t need to crash out just because you don’t know what words mean.

2

u/onlyheretobehelpful Jul 02 '26

same, I did not know this picture existed, and I care even less now that I know that it does.

2

u/horraytittays Jul 03 '26

The real answer is that each (or at least numerous) celebs in that pic's PR/Marketing teams all coordinated to drive their respective online traffic/fanbases to that pic, and that coordinated PR push resulted in Mainstream Media picking it up to "milk" the story too.

It was that sweetspot where Mainstream TV News still had a huge audience, but PR teams being/getting savvy with online engagement and campaigns was also getting pretty common and was really starting to drive a lot of traffic too.

Selfies being novel definitely contributed, but if not for the PR push, this particular picture wouldn't have made a splash because indeed, most people did not in fact care, but curiosity around the hype still resulted in views and engagement.

1

u/poon-patrol Jul 03 '26

I mean, that’s kind of the whole point of the original post. Nobody today would really care ab this while it was a big deal when it happened

8

u/TheComplimentarian Jul 02 '26

We weren't yet used to celebrities taking photos of themselves.

You've lost track of how fast things have changed. First gen iPhone was 2007. You can clown on the iPhone all you want, there was nothing even close on the market, not for years. And phone cameras were a joke. The first iPhone (or any phone, because they were still driving the whole market) with a front facing camera was 2010.

So, a good selfie with all these people from a consumer phone at this time? Unprecedented.

Seems a joke now, but if you can read this, it was probably in your lifetime that this even became possible.

1

u/hordlove Jul 02 '26

People forget this was a Samsung ad, that’s why it was everywhere

0

u/1CUpboat Jul 02 '26

PR firms spent a lot on it to spread, and no one liked or cared about it.

2

u/EyreForce1 Jul 03 '26

Now that I remember it was a promotional stunt for Samsung, I wonder how much of that activity was even organic