A conversation with the online community’s favorite source for local satire
Editor’s note: This week, we wanted to do something fun and light so we invited our satirical, memeing, counterparts The Hartwell Pun into the office for an interview.
Many of you may not know what The Hartwell Pun is and some of you may not know what a meme is. That’s the purpose of this story.
We’ll start with the Merriam Webster definition of “meme”: “An idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.. An amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media.”
Memeing is broad and can apply to a lot of types of media in our culture, so here’s my crack at a definition of the type of meme we’ve attached to this article: An online phenomenon, popularized in the early 2010’s, in which the creator makes light of, or satirizes, an idea/theme — often to the backdrop of a popular image.
The Hartwell Pun is a Facebook account with close to 4,000 followers. It creates memes referencing Hart County, our local politics, stores, this newspaper and much more.
The following Question & Answer interview should hopefully answer most other questions about The Hartwell Pun.
We’ve mutually chosen to keep the identities of The Hartwell Pun’s administrators anonymous for a few reasons, primarily 1) Their anonymity adds value to their craft. 2) Doxing (exposing someone previously anonymous) can unfortunately have safety repercussions, as described in the following Q&A.
That said, there are some identifying comments in this article that The Hartwell Pun admins said they are comfortable with.
This newspaper does not endorse The Hartwell Pun, its answers or its postings.
We just think it’s kind of funny. Enjoy.
The Hartwell Sun: Let’s start with your history. When did this whole thing come to be? Did you have any prior experience memeing?
The Hartwell Pun: Have you ever heard of the Bowersville Neighborhood Watch page? Well, this has nothing to do with that (*laughs*). We were inspired by them. They were really great, hilarious people and we wanted to do the same thing but on a larger scale for Hartwell. That started in 2019.
She always kind of wanted to be a comedian and I always wanted to write for a newspaper so we just kind of put it together.
THS: When I first spoke to you, you described yourself as: ‘just a couple of girls who love their town.’ Can you elaborate on that in the context of what you do online?
THP: We’ve just always lived here and we want to see things go well and actually, we’re often on the opposite side of the memes that we make. We think it generates some discussion that way.
We’ve always lived here. For some reason, people love to think we just moved here. They use it as an insult on some of our posts, like, ‘You transplants!’
THS: What makes Hartwell so “memeable”?
THP: You asked me to go back and find some of our favorite memes from over the years and I realized most of them are about food in town. But that pretty much sums up all there is to do here. Nothing to do but sit around and get all fat and sassy. That’s probably why it’s so memeable.
THS: When did this thing really take off?
THP: The Chris Farley rain meme (see attached) is the one that really took off for us. It went viral. There were over 50,000 shares directly from the page and we saw several news sites and even an Atlanta strip club share it from their own pages.
We’re kind of a big deal. I had a friend in Florida post it last week and it caught me off guard. It just keeps popping up everywhere. Our reach was 4.8 million but a quick reverse image search will bring up many more results. We were the OP (original poster). That’s why Farley is screaming right at Hartwell.
THS: The Hartwell Sun has been a target of your satire over the years. I mean, your name itself is a play on our own. Can you describe our relationship? And be honest.
THP: We honestly couldn’t think of a better name. But we were often taking stories from The Hartwell Sun and making memes about them so it just kind of fit.
THS: Is there any goal here for you, other than comedy?
THP: I think a more informed public. People don’t really go and buy the print newspaper like they used to. You always hear people in Hartwell complaining about The Hartwell Sun but it’s a lot of people that don’t read it. A lot of times you’ll talk to people about a local issue and they’ll have no idea what’s going on.
I think it gets people involved when, say, the city is doing something that the public generally doesn’t like, but [the public] isn’t doing anything about it.
With the [2019] Bowersville speed bump issue, we were stirring that pot. That one probably got us into some trouble.
THS: Do you have anything better to do than meme?
THP: Yes, we have a lot better things to do. [One of us] has a kid. We both have jobs. That’s why we’re hiding our faces right now.
We could be on drugs instead of making memes so we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.
In other words, there are worse things we could be doing. Like taxes. That would be horrible.
THS: Some say “memers” are modern day rock stars. Any thoughts there?
THP: That’s true (*laughs*). We feel powerful.
THS: I’m going to ask you what they asked the Beatles: How long until the bubble bursts? How long will this last?
THP: We’ve been best friends since high school. We actually got in trouble back then for wearing a disguise at Walmart. Got pulled over in the parking lot. We had no idea it was illegal to wear masks. We were just ridiculously bored kids. Now we are walking into your office as totally mature adults doing the same thing. Take that Hartwell PD.
So yeah, if we’re the Beatles, they’re definitely gonna need one heck of a Yoko to bust this apart. But we tend to see ourselves as more of a Travis Tritt than the Beatles.
I didn’t really expect it to last this long. It’s kind of a fluke that it kicked back up recently. We hadn’t really been active for a while.
We got really discouraged after the speed bump thing in Bowersville. We were enjoying it but then we got doxed. It wasn’t fun at all. We had people sending us physical threats, and threatening to sue and we allegedly broke up a marriage.
People would get our phone numbers and call us drunk at midnight, threatening us, all because of memes and speed bumps.
THS: You recently posted a fake Best of Hartwell certificate “awarded” to you for Best Memes. You’re the self-proclaimed “biggest idiots in Hartwell for three years running.” How does that feel?
THP: I’m very proud that you gave us that award. I want a real one.
THS: Maybe next year.
Do you create your own memes, have them submitted or both?
THP: Mostly our own. We have very high standards because we learned from the past with the Bowersville thing. You can’t post, like, allegations. We screen them. We get a lot of submissions and a lot of them are not nice.
THS: Who do you think is your target audience?
THP: Probably mostly older millennials. They’ve lived here for a long time and there’s not much going on here really. They get the jokes about, like, there being so many chicken joints to eat at and stuff.
THS: What would you like to see from this town going forward?
THP: Serious answer: I’d like to see it continue to grow. I’m enjoying watching it grow despite what I might joke about.
THS: I think a lot of Hartwell would disagree with you there.
THP: You’re right. A lot of people want it to be a nice quiet place like where they grew up or where they retire. A lot of people want it to stay like that rural, lake community and I understand that too.
THS: It’s mostly comedy on your site but I’ve noticed you’ve spoken up on some of the recent sexual assault news. Is there a reason why you chose that issue to get serious about?
THP: I feel like it’s the type of thing that could easily get covered up here. And if you just kind of let the issue fade without speaking up, there’s a good chance nothing will get done here. We know there are people who do bad things but have supporters here in the community.
THS: What role do you think your type of comedy has in 2021? Does it have a big place?
THP: It does serve a big purpose, I think. When people are on their phones mindlessly scrolling, I feel like they’re kind of looking for an escape, even if for two seconds or less.
THS: Well, this was great. Thanks for coming in.
THP: We enjoyed it. Thank you.