Earlier this week, a video surfaced on the internet featuring a group of very excited girls in Mall Road, Murree alongside a news reporter. The reporter talks about the first snowfall of the season, it’s the time to be jolly and how students are flocking to the holiday destination on field trips from all over Pakistan. Then, he goes around entertaining answers from the group of girls who made a few….bloopers on air. One of them says, “aspire to inspire” while the other interjects, “bohot maza aaraha hay, we are proud of you”
“We are proud of you”
The phrase soon caught on as the next meme sensation, with various online forums reposting the video. Comments flooded in, your friends tagged you in posts, folks on Twitter picked it up and quoted it in conversations. And they were all very, very entertaining.
Crush: hi
me: becomes empty minded,forget what to say
replied* ? pic.twitter.com/YkK5iPLIV9— maryam (@Antss_EverAfter) January 11, 2017
tomorrow I'm gonna reply every asalamoalaikum with 'we are proud of you"
— k (@therealsnorky) January 9, 2017
Waiter: What would you like to order mam?
Lahori girl: We are proud of you!— Uja. (@UjaHashmi) January 11, 2017
We are proud of you pic.twitter.com/S2YrZCVcQ3
— عـــــرفان (@IffiViews) January 11, 2017
What's all this fuss about "awfcoursee Assspire to Inssspire & We are proud of you?" that's pretty much how an average Lahori talks.
— Osama. (@ashaqeens) January 11, 2017
@PainduSarkar Yeh sab dekh kar kasam se daddo mazza scene hogaya hai aur… @RizwanPehelwan @RizWanKenobi_ @palwashaminhas pic.twitter.com/EU2jZnvEpx
— Hafsa Khawaja (@Hafsa_Khawaja) January 10, 2017
It was so entertaining that we also joined in for a brief moment in a post that was later removed as we learned more.
Amidst all the ruckus, another post was brought to our attention from a person who allegedly goes to school with the ladies.
Atika Ahmed wrote about the way the virality of this meme has affected the girl’s life,
“I asked sir about this girl. He said trip ke baad wo aik din bhi college nahi aai. He even asked this girl’s friend about her. The friend said that the last time she talked to her, she was crying on top of her voice and was continuously saying that she can never face the world and that she just wants to die now and that all she wanted to say was that she is proud of her teachers and the college but with all the chaos and energy around she just got confused.”
The friend also urged the people of the internet who have made her butt of all the jokes to imagine if their humiliation had become public knowledge the way hers had.
“I’m sure her confidence has been shattered for the rest of her life”, she concluded.
Another person in the post, Sayyidah Jannat Ul Mava adds, “what amazes me is that they do not even think once that they could’ve been the highlight of this meme, too. She was just excited and full of energy, somebody else at her place could’ve also made a similar sort of mistake.”
The internet is a beautiful and an equally cruel, unforgiving place depending on which side of the viral meme-verse you’re at.
With people who aren’t in the public eye, is it morally correct to binge on these memes and cruel jokes, especially when the said person might not enjoy this at all? Be it anday wala burger, bik gayi hay gormint or any other faux pas that has been perpetuated.
The real question remains where do we draw the line?
Cover image via: ARY