You’ll note in my previous post about Beyoncé today, I did not address her reaction to winning the Grammy for Best Country Album. That post was meant to focus on her tour announcement and the Album of the Year Grammy that had eluded her up to this point. But it wasn’t all serious at the Grammys for the Queen of All Culture last night. And this relates to Beyoncé omnipresence and how she added to that library last night. 

 

Beyoncé gave us a rare moment of candour and vulnerability at the Grammys. Rare because, as we know, she stopped giving interviews, she stopped participating – meaningfully – in the celebrity profile industry. Since relieving her father, Mathew Knowles, from his position as her manager in 2011, Beyoncé rewrote her own publicity and marketing plan, abandoning the game plan that artists typically followed when releasing and promoting new music. She withdrew, she withheld, she detached… 

 

And yet, even though there have been few press tours, not too many interviews, and little engagement from Beyoncé over the last 15 years, Beyoncé has remained ubiquitous. And one of the reasons for this is because her retreat coincided with the rise of social media. And social media users kept her name in their feeds through meme. The Beyhive was the driving force of this, obviously, but Beyoncé meme generation has made Beyoncé present, in spirit even when she wasn’t in person. Even if she went underground for months, doing whatever it is she does in secret, Beyoncé was always there. 

 

The memes went nuclear during the Renaissance World Tour. There’s been a steady stream of them after Beyoncé Bowl. And now, after the Grammys, she’s given us even more. Making history as the first Black woman to win the Grammy for Best Country Album, and dropping a reaction that was designed to be GIFed instantaneously. I know you know it, I don’t even have to show you, because it’s already made its way around the internet 100 times and seared into your brain, and it hasn’t even been 24 hours. 

 

This, also, like her vulnerability, is a side of Beyoncé that we don’t get often: silly, goofy, a little corny, and also really cute! She is FUNNY. When she chooses to be, actually, she’s hilarious. But never unaware. Mother knows what her hive is going to do. Buzzfeed has compiled a list of some of the memes that popped up but here’s a good one that foretells what will happen. 

Get ready because B’s reaction will live on well beyond last night. You might as well enter it into the Meme Hall of Fame right now because there is no way there will be a short shelf life for it, not until she herself replaces it with something else. And maybe she did already because she was in a mood last night to give us sides of her that she keeps locked up. 

 

A red carpet interview AND a red carpet shoutout to the Hive? 

 

I told you earlier it was a unicorn event, a comet event. A celestial phenomenon with no guarantee of reoccurrence. Why would she need to when she knows what the internet can do with just a simple flip of her hair or the shift of her eyes? One night she gave us a full body shock, and a purring kitty. It’s enough to keep the timeline fed for at least five years. 

Credit: @asbillmemesit 
Credit: Complex