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This is why we can t have nice things meme


This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

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Part of a series on Image Macros. [View Related Entries]
Meme
Status
Confirmed
Year
2007
Origin
Livejournal
Tags
image macro, 4chan, lolcat, catchphrase, arguecat, paula poundstone, comment, comments, regret, cats, cops and stuff, jane austen's mafia!, foxbaby, fxmercenary
Additional References
Encyclopedia Dramatica Urban Dictionary

About

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things (also known as Arguecat ) is a series of LOLcat-style image macros featuring an angry-looking cat and the catchphrase. In discussion forums and imageboards, it is typically used in response to discussion threads or posts that are perceived as derailing from the original topic. Ultimately, the phrase implies that because of a person's inappropriate or destructive behavior, there is no point in spending money or time on various goods.

Origin

The phrase predates its internet usage. According to online discussions, the phrase has roots in popular culture, one of the earliest notable mentions came from American standup comedian Paula Poundstone who used the phrase in her 1990 HBO stand-up special Cats, Cops and Stuff.[1][2] During the special, Poundstone tells a childhood story about dropping a Flintstones jelly-jar glass in the kitchen. Her mother responds to the accident, "Oh, so we can't have nice things."

In the 1998 film Jane Austen's Mafia!, the character Tony (portrayed by Jay Mohr) says the line during an argument with his significant other (shown below).


The image macros began gaining momentum in 2007. On December 4th, 2007, LiveJournal[3] user foxbaby posted the earliest available version of the meme (shown below).


Spread

Over the next year, the meme continued to appear on various internet forums. On December 8th, 2008, for example, DigitPress forums[4] user FxMercenary posted the meme in a comment in the thread "Does replacing the battery in carts devalue them?"

The meme continued to experience regular usage during the height of LOLcats popularity in the late 2000s. On July 18th, 2009, for example, the meme appeared in a Caturday round-up on the website Master Marf.[5]

As LOLcats decreased in popularity, the phrase continued to find online relevance on various web forums and in image macro memes with other characters (example below, left).

On November 10th, 2017, American recording artist Taylor Swift used the phrase as the title of a song on her album reputation. The following year, on December 12th, 2018, Swift uploaded the song to YouTube, where the video received more than 861,000 views in less than three years (shown below, right).



Various Examples


Search Interest

External References

[1] Ask MetaFilter – THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!

[2] YouTube – Paula Poundstone 2 Pop Tarts, Death, Therapy, Darryl Hannah, Movies

[3] LiveJournal – 4chan

[4] DigitPress – FxMercenary's Post

[5] MasterMarf – Caturday

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True Origin Of "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things" Revealed

We’ve all heard the line “this is why we can’t have nice things”. But where does that phrase come from?

What Is The Origin Of “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”?

Nobody knows exactly where the phrase “this is why we can’t have nice things” comes from. However, it was popularised by the comedian Paula Poundstone who used it in a set. Some think she got the idea from Dorothy Solomon who wrote “I have little children instead of nice things.”

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Who Is Paula Poundstone? And What Did She Mean By “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”

Paula Poundstone is a famous comedian. She’s a British woman who got very popular in the late 80s and early 90s. Although today, she’s still performing, it’s fair to say that her heyday is over.

She’s the kind of woman who’s never afraid to say it how it is. Some of her sets might make you feel like you’re being targeted, but that’s why she’s such a good comedian.

Her line “this is why we can’t have nice things” comes from a story about her dropping a jar as a kid.

Who Was Dorothy Solomon? And How Did She Come Up With The Origin For “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things”?

Dorothy Solomon was not a comedian at all. She was what was known as a “polygamy educator”. It was her job to teach people about what it was like to teach people about polygamous relationships.

In one of her books called, “In my father’s house”, which is about life in polygamy, she has this quote…

“Why don’t you have nice things like Aunt Marion?” I asked my mother. “I have little children instead of nice things.” She smiled.”

Some people suspect this is where Paula Poundstone got the idea for “this is why we can’t have nice things”.

What Does “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” Mean?

Now that we have an idea where it probably comes from, what does “this is why we can’t have nice things” mean?

This isn’t one of those phrases with some kind of hidden meaning. It means what it sounds like it means.

When someone does something stupid to a cheap item, like drop it, you can say “this is why we can’t have nice things”. What you’re saying is “because you have broken this cheap item, it suggests that you would do the same with a more expensive item.”

“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” Is A Popular Meme

Online, you may have seen a lot of memes with the text “this is why we can’t have nice things” written on them.

Most of the time, these memes contain a picture of an animal doing something stupid, or making a mess. The idea is that it’s both funny and stupid.

Most of us know that animals are rather clumsy. And having a pet is not a good idea if you have a lot of expensive items in your house. The joke is that you’re treating the animals as a human by complaining about them breaking and damaging things.

“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” Is A Taylor Swift Song

“This is why we can’t have nice things” is also the title of a song by Taylor Swift. Unlike a lot of her other songs, this one is not about her ex.

Instead, it’s about all of the people who have betrayed her.

The feud started after Taylor won an award, and Kanye interrupted her to say that Beyonce should have won. After the feud supposedly ended, Kanye put a naked model who looked like Swift in a music video.

The message behind the song is “We can’t have a friendship, because you stabbed me in the back after I forgave you”.

“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” Is Just Part Of Our Language Now

Like we said at the beginning of this article, although Paula Poundstone popularised it, it’s impossible to know where the phrase comes from. It’s one of those phrases that has become such a key part of our lexicon that its origin has now faded from memory.

Maybe Poundstone was the first person to say this phrase. Maybe she stole it from someone else. What we’ve spoken about in this article is not fact, it’s merely theory.

Or maybe it doesn’t need an origin because it isn’t an idiom. An idiom is a phrase with a literal AND intended meaning (such as bun in the oven).

“This is why we can’t have nice things”’ literal meaning is the same as its implied one.

Conclusion

And that is all we know about the phrase “This is why we can’t have nice things” and its origin. To put it bluntly, we don’t know where it comes from, but the best we can do is have a good guess.

I got sick of looking for funny memes and created a robot that does it instead of me - Tribuna on vc.ru

Hello! A friend and I developed an endless personalized meme feed. I’ll talk about what attracted 12,000 users, how personalization works and why you should unsubscribe from meme channels.

97 578 views

Problems

At some point, I got tired of endless subscriptions to channels with funny pictures: they constantly distract with pushes and post the same content. Often you have looked at all the new posts, but you didn’t have enough - you want more. Looking for new good channels is still a pain. Sometimes you have to take turns going to Cart, VK, Insta and Reddit to taste the best from different sources.

I don't want to install apps or access websites. I want everything to be in my Cart. And I want the robot to understand my humorous preferences and, like a best friend, throw off only the most horny to me.

This is how the meme bot appeared.

Why are we the best way to yell at memes?

The bot sends a meme and two buttons: you press, the bot gets smarter and sends even funnier twitter.com/fcuktv

Our Telegram bot sends a meme with two buttons - like and dislike. All dislikes are removed, leaving only the best in the dialogue. We analyze your reactions to send only what makes you laugh. The bot collects content from hundreds of sources, so we will always have something new for you. And we also have a search for memes.

We have assembled a friendly team of 50+ "moderators" - super-users from all over the world who rake in freshly parsed content, leaving ordinary users only the juice. Every day, compliments and thanks from users arrive in the chat - this motivates and inspires so much.

Grocery numbers

DAU and Daily watched memes Our admin panel

We have doubled in the last month. Now more than 2500 users use our Telegram bot every week. The average session length is 25 memes. We have already collected 1,800,000 reactions to 50,000 memes, and users have been in the bot for 160 days.

How we recommend memes

Following the principle of Fake It till you make it, we are moving towards a complete understanding of the user's sense of humor gradually.

We have already tested many different recommender systems: from complete randomness to AI, ML solutions, conducted dozens of A / B tests and at the moment this algorithm gives the best recommendations: Find the most liked source of the meme and take the most a meme liked by other users. With this approach, our users like 2 of the 3 memes we sent.

As a result, “public opinion about the meme” is taken into account very strongly: a niche is lost when a particular meme only hits a certain segment. At this stage, while there are not very many of us, this is acceptable. In a few months, we will try ML approaches again.

Need technical details? Ask about them in the comments.

Our future

Other platforms

Cart has the most convenient Bot API, so it was convenient to start with it. In the future, we plan to expand to other platforms. A release on Facebook Messenger is expected soon. Then we will make a bot for Whatsapp, Slack and Discord.

GIPHY for memes

We recently launched an alpha version of inline meme search. This feature has already attracted us 98 new users: someone is looking for a meme on the topic under discussion → shares it in chats → people switch to the bot. There is an idea to become GIPHY for memes and then sell to someone for $400 million.

How to use inline search for FFmemesbot

memes

Targeted advertising

Advertising in meme channels is cheap, since absolutely everyone watches funny pictures: you can’t invite these people to a conference with a good conversion or sell them something. There are thematic meme channels: for example, Profunctor, who has collected the IT segment and can hunt them somewhere.

We have the ability to segment the audience by what memes the user likes, and highlight IT people, techies, gamers, people loyal to the opposition, etc. Thus, you can hit ads as precisely as possible and earn more than competitors in the cart.

Instead of conclusion

The essence of our bot:

We also send memes, but (so far) only alive

Thank you for your attention! What did you like, what did you find uncomfortable? What was missing? Write about your impressions in the comments, this is extremely important for the project, I will be very grateful. And of course, go to yell at the bot.

And if you are interested in doing something cool together, then let's discuss!

Harry Potter quotes: 27 wise phrases

  • Forbes Life
  • Society
Still from "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II"

In the 20 years that have passed since the release of the first film, neither the book nor the movie about the adventures of the wizard Harry Potter has become less popular, poterrian fans seem to know winged quotes from books by heart, and many are still trying to find additional meaning in the described heroes, events and wise words and philosophical phrases spoken by the heroes - sometimes funny, and sometimes terribly sad. The best quotes from Harry Potter about the meaning of life, friendship, love and magic in Russian are in our selection.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first Harry Potter film. J. K. Rowling, the writer who came up with the well-known story of the Boy Who Lived, did not participate in the filming of the special episode, which was filmed in honor of the anniversary of the famous film. Rowling was accused of transphobia, and then of anti-Semitism.

Related material

About good and evil

  • “There is no good and evil, there is only power. And those who are too weak to take it" (Voldemort)
  • Nothing I have seen confirms your claims that love is stronger than my magic.
    - Maybe you were looking in the wrong place.
    (Dialogue between Voldemort and Professor Albus Dumbledore)
  • “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times. Just remember to turn on the light.” (Professor Albus Dumbledore)
  • “It is the value of your beliefs that determines success, not the number of followers.” (Professor Remus Lupin before the battle with Voldemort)

About freedom of choice

  • “Money as you wish and life as you wish. Most people would choose those two. The problem is that people tend to choose what is worst for them." (Professor Albus Dumbledore on the Philosopher's Stone)
  • "In each of us there is both light and darkness. What matters is which side we choose." (Sirius Black)
  • "The choices we make, Harry, say more about us than our abilities." (Professor Albus Dumbledore)

New Technology

  • "Never trust anything that can think unless you know where its brain is" -Morta)

About accepting yourself

  • "I am who I am. And I am not ashamed of it. Never be ashamed of yourself" (Hagrid)
  • "You are not a bad person. You are a very good person with whom bad things happened."0114 (Sirius Black)
  • “Don't forget that all the great wizards in history at one time were just like us - schoolchildren. If they succeeded, then so can we.” ( Harry Potter)
  • “Don't you understand that it's not who you were born that matters, but who you become!” (Professor Albus Dumbledore)

Related material

Friendship

  • It takes courage to stand up to your enemies, but even more courage to go against your friends. (Professor Albus Dumbledore)
  • Books. Mind. There are much more important things, friendship and courage. (Hermione Granger)
  • Distrust of friends is the pinnacle of dishonor. (Professor Albus Dumbledore)

About love

  • "Those who love us are always with us" (Sirius Black)
  • "Do not pity the dead. Pity the living, and especially those who live without love.” (Professor Albus Dumbledore)
  • “Love (…) leaves its mark. This is not a scar, this trace is invisible at all ... If you are so deeply loved, then even when the person who loves you dies, you still remain under his protection.0114 (Sirius Black)
  • "A power both more wonderful and more terrible than death, than the human mind, than the forces of nature... the name of this saving force is love" (Professor Albus Dumbledore)

On the power of the word

  • “Words, in my indiscreet opinion, are an inexhaustible source of magic. They can hurt as well as heal." (Professor Albus Dumbledore)
  • "If you don't ask, you'll never know. If you know, you just need to ask" (Ghost of Elena Ravenclaw)
  • "...even the best of us sometimes have to take back what we say" (Professor Albus Dumbledore)

Dangerous dreams

    901 about the present, forgetting about your life.” (Professor Albus Dumbledore)

About the truth

  • “Professor, is this the truth or is it in my head?
    - Of course, in your head, Harry. But why can't this be true?
    (Dialogue between Harry Potter and Professor Albus Dumbledore)
  • "It's much easier to forgive people for being wrong than for being right" (Professor Albus Dumbledore)
  • "True. She is beautiful and terrible and must be handled very carefully.” (Professor Albus Dumbledore)

About the incomprehensible