Signing the petition

Nathan, at Polybloggimous, has pointed out that something has gone bad--as in spoiled, as in past its expiration, as in needs to be dumped down the garbage disposal with the hot water running and one's breath held as one attempts to dump the offensive material into the sink while forcing it down the drain with a wooden spoon while not touching any of the foulness. And he's absolutely right.

We--as in you, dear reader, and he and I; not as in the royal "We" he insists on using in his post (he says for gravity; I suspect MPD)--are talking about bacon as an internet meme.

If you have no idea what I'm writing about, you should stop reading. Not because you may be puzzled or confused, but for your own safety. Reading a blog post about the saturation of bacon on the internet might lead you to a Google search for bacon as a meme. This in turn might lead to reading blogs about bacon, looking at pictures of bacon taped to a cat, reading reviews of utterly-repulsive-sounding baconish things, marathon viewings of Footloose and She's Having A Baby or an obsession with scientific method. That last probably wouldn't be so bad, except your scientific inquiries will most likely be limited to what hasn't bacon been combined with? Fat lot of good that will do the human race.

Bacon has gone from being a meme to being a virus. A virus of the mind. A delicious, hickory-smoked virus of the mind, yes, but still a profound danger. If you don't have it yet, get out before you come down with it.

Nathan traces the high point of internet baconary to John Scalzi's Whatever, and (much to his credit) Scalzi himself issued a sort-of apology for unleashing baconism on the universe. While I think it's fair to say that Scalzi was a sort of "Patient Zero", he shouldn't shoulder all of the blame: there are those who trace baconology on the web back to 1996. And I regret to say--though I suspect Mr. Scalzi might agree with me--that while he may be an epicenter of fatty porcine eruption onto the web, the high point of bacon as a meme was the bacon flowchart.

This is a wave that has crested, a peak that has been flown over, a line that has dipped, a sinkhole that has sunk, folks. It was funny, and now it isn't. It is done. Wired has (or had; I think they've renamed it) a recurring feature in its print edition--"Wired/Tired/Expired" (curiously, Wired magazine has itself never appeared, to my knowledge, in the last category). The bacon internet meme is defunct, pushing up the daisies, an ex-parrot, has joined the choir invisible, if you know what I mean. The internet bacon meme is assuredly not pining for the fjords, nor is it resting.

And it just isn't funny anymore.

Sorry.

So, consider this another front in the revolution. Kill this meme! It is over! It is done! Death to the bacon meme! From now on, bacon is something to be eaten with eggs, or on a cheeseburger or pizza, or wrapped around a meatloaf (and if you haven't tried that, it's practically a religious experience, brothers and sisters). Put chopped up bacon on your salad! Put it on a turkey sandwich! But tape it to cats no more, proffer it randomly in comment threads no longer! Let bacon be what it is--among the most sublime of foodstuffs, not the subject of decreasingly-droll japes and failed attempts to jest!

Le bacon est mort! Vive le bacon!