An Unhinged 2019 Greta Van Fleet Performance Has Become A Massive Meme
"Someone said this was Pete Davidson in a wig and I believed them."
There is no band at once as outrageous and as boring as Greta Van Fleet.
Somehow the group have managed to court a strange kind of infamy across the course of their career while making music that seems designed to score car commercials. There’s a vacuous niche at the centre of their artistic universe, a total lack of ingenuity or originality that might be worth commenting on if it wasn’t quite so mundane. Simply put, the band are energy vampires, content to suck the interest out of everything from the riffs that they’ve pilfered from Led Zeppelin to their whole, “boys next door noodling in their parent’s garage” schtick.
All of which makes it understandable that their 2019 performance on Saturday Night Live has become a massive meme over on TikTok. After all, memes are how our culture works out and explores the products that we consume, and there’s nothing in greater need of being worked out than this bizarre cultural object.
First things first: watch the performance itself, if you can stand it, so you can understand where the memes are coming from.
Still with us? Well done you. If your first thoughts are, “what is going on with that strange head bob that the singer keeps doing,” then don’t worry, you are not alone. Many TikTok users have thought the same thing, leading to a raft of jokes about the bizarre performance style.
And then there are those weird vocal flourishes, strange ornamental sounds that have to be heard to be believed.
Oh, and if you thought that the singer bears an uncanny resemblance to Saturday Night Live veteran Pete Davidson then worry not — you’re in good company there too.
Keep on being Greta Van Fleet, Greta Van Fleet.