Kylie Jenner’s “Rise and Shine” Has Now Completed The Full Meme Cycle
Moore’s law roughly states that the growth of technology doubles every two years, but perhaps we need something like Kylie Jenner‘s law (or perhaps Stormi’s law) to describe the growing (perhaps unsustainable) increase in the speed of a meme’s lifecycle. Because a short clip of Jenner singing the apparently original ditty “Rise and Shine” to her one-year-old daughter Stormi at the end of a video otherwise meant to give her fans a tour of the Kylie Cosmetics headquarters went from offhand observation of an awkward moment to fully exploited meme at breakneck speed. Ariana Grande is involved. There’s official merch. Stormi herself has rendered her verdict. There’s really no milestone this meme has yet to reach. It’s all quite astonishing really considering it’s a three word “song” a young mother sang to her infant child (what, are you all under the assumption that your own mothers had Mariah Carey-levels of skill when they sang to you?).
In retrospect, though, it’s sort of amazing how long it took for the moment to emerge as a full-blown meme after Jenner’s original video was uploaded on October 10th. At the time, most people were still caught up on the mandate of all-pink accessories or the champagne vending machine at Kylie HQ. According to Know Your Meme, it wasn’t until a day after until someone on Twitter even made textual reference to the “rise and shine” moment. Though it wasn’t until October 13th (practically an eternity in today’s meme economy) that the moment appeared in isolated video on Twitter.
Maybe it was the hypnotic nature of the moment on loop (plus the realization that young Stormi was already quite arisen when Jenner began singing) that really sent people into hyperdrive, but form there the moment was fast-tracked to meme status.
People quickly began remixing the video to surreal effect. Miley Cyrus, by the way, uploaded this video to her Instagram stories.
Of course, amateur dance remix of the audio weren’t that far behind.
Musician King Princess, noted remixer of memes, gave us a full on house remix.
People themselves got in on the action themselves by uploading videos of their own rendition of the song, some with some Twists. An interactive element if crucial for full exploiting something to its full meme-potential in this day and age.
Other celebrities got involved, notably with Ariana Grande offering her own cover.
Jenner decided to laugh along with it, and even played a remixed version for her daughter Stormi, who at first seemed to enjoy the ditty before then demanding that she listen to music by her father Travis Scott.
Jenner’s billionaire entrepreneur instincts soon kicked in and she began selling merch featuring her lyrics.
She’s also teased the possibility of either Kylie Cosmetics or Kylie Skin products baring the name “rise” and “shine.”
The whole thing really went from observation to full-out meme to commercial opportunity in just a few days fast. Unfortunately, as every meme is born, we must accept that someday that meme would die. So leave it to Jenner’s ex Tyga to decide to rain on the parade. He uploaded an Instagram of a rather garish-looking sports car with the caption “rise n shine.”
We guess we’re glad, however, that we went through the full meme cycle before the weekend. Let’s get some rest everybody, relax a little bit, and report back to the internet on Monday to figure out what meme we’re going to send into hyperdrive next week. Maybe Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes will give us something to work with in the meantime.
Related: The Perks of Working at Kylie Cosmetics, According to Kylie Jenner’s Office Tour
