You know the gesture I'm talking about? If you google for it, the first thing you'll find is probably this:
Now that is clipped from this...
... which I found through the wonderfully helpful Know Your Meme site. It has an article "Mind = Blown."
The phrase “mind blown” has been used to express shock and bewilderment since as early as 1996 with the inclusion of a song titled "mind blown" in N.W.A rapper MC Ren's second solo album The Villain in Black. By 1997, the phrase had found its way into online vernacular, as evidently used in the title of a post on the Usenet group alt.fan.david-bowie to describe the poster’s reaction to seeing David Bowie perform live.Of course, people were saying that blew my mind and so forth for decades. It was already so widely in use by 1969 that The Rolling Stones could use it in a joke (in "Honky Tonk Women").
And, yes, I know that 50 years later, Mick is still dancing...
— Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) May 15, 2019
But back to the subject. "Mind = blown" became a stock form of expression on the internet, but what about the gesture?
On April 19th, 2010, the /r/MindBlown subreddit was created to share awe-inspiring images and videos. As of August 2013, it has accrued more than 430 readers. On July 9th, 2010, a thread for "mind blowing" images thread was created on the New Schoolers forums, where it accrued nearly 70 pages over three years. As early as May 2011, the phrase became associated with a reaction GIF of a clip from the Adult Swim series Tim and Eric's Awesome Show (shown [above])....Is it enough of a cliché yet? It's used profusely in an ad. Doesn't that mean it's time to stop?
Additional images, including both reaction GIFs and those meant to evoke a "mind blown" response, can be found with the hashtag #mindblown on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr.
I don't mind people writing "mind blown" or "mind = blown." I'm just annoyed by the gesture, which I'm seeing in completely nonhip advertisements. Maybe you can do it ironically, acknowledging its overuse and abject squareness, and maybe I'm giving it new power — the power to annoy — by writing this.
Here are lots of GIFs doing the gesture, in case you want access to the cool trend of annoying me.
via GIPHY
ADDED: The OED traces the underlying idea — blowing a mind — back to 1966, but in a way that strongly suggests the expression was already current:
24. j. to blow (a person's) mind, to induce hallucinatory experiences (in a person) by means of drugs, esp. LSD; hence transferred, to produce (in a person) a pleasurable (or shocking) sensation.This is blowing my mind:
[1966 San Francisco Examiner & Chron. 12 June 33/3 The Barry Goldberg Blues Band..does an LP called ‘Blowin' My Mind’.]
1967 San Francisco Examiner 12 Sept. 26/3 On a hip acid (LSD) trip you can blow your mind sky-high.
1967 San Francisco Chron. 2 Oct. 49/3 Because when the Red Sox rallied to beat the Minneapolis Twins..Boston fans blew their minds....
Here, you can buy the album "Blowing My Mind" at Amazon, where one reviewer says:
The best track is "Blowing My Mind," with catchy chord changes and decent lyrics, but Goldberg sings it like he's soaping his pits in the shower.
"Yeah, we can practice in my parents' garage, but we got to play the songs I want to play. OK? So who knows 96 Tears by Question Mark and the Mysterians? Anybody? No? Anybody know She's About A Mover by the Sir Douglas Quintet? Alright, Hang On Sloopy it is. Ah 1, ah 2...."
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55 comments:
Scanners did it best back in 1981.
I don't think I have run across the video versions of heads exploding, but I must watch and read the wrong things. I see a lot of verbiage saying this or that will cause heads to explode.
The very young female instructor in my exercise class plays "Gimme Shelter."
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Just what everyone whats to hear while working out.
Great Job! Ya didn't blow it!
The movie Mars Attack with Slim Whitman singing the Indian Love Call comes to mind.
Didn't I blow your mind this time?
One of the classics.
It's more efficient to blow the windmills of your mind.
So annoying Althouse has replaced hating Trump as the cool trend.
Budd Dwyer live suicide, not a mere gesture.
Theres also the finale to kingsman:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-australia-48305001
On a similar mindset:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/05/the-week-in-pictures-train-wreck-edition.php
A 73 year old man dancing like that blows my mind.
John Henry
I'm surprised there was no mention or reference to Vanilla Ice's sophmore album Mind Blowin in the Know Your Meme article. Maybe it's just a little too old of a reference for the audience.
Loretta Lynn called herself a Honky Tonk Girl,
Ever since you left me I've done nothing but wrong
Many nights I've layed awake and cried
We was so happy, my heart was in a whirl
But now I'm a honky tonk girl
First I heard the term was in Sunshine Superman by Donovan. Heard it on boomer radio the other day and it holds up well.
I think the first time I heard it: "A pay phone was ringin' and it just about blew my mind" - Bob Dylan's 115th Dream (Bringing It All Back Home - 1965)
I've been around; I've heard the term "mind blown" myriad times, of course. I don't recall ever seeing this gesture you're talking about accompanying it. Don't watch a lot of TV and since DVR hardly ever see a commercial - maybe that's it.
"I'm surprised there was no mention or reference to Vanilla Ice's sophmore album Mind Blowin in the Know Your Meme article. Maybe it's just a little too old of a reference for the audience."
The article isn't at all about the older phrase "my mind is blown" and other things like that. It's specifically about "mind blown" the 2-word phrase.
But if it were about the older concept, the mind being blown, the original stuff is at least mid-60s, which is when Vanilla Ice was born, so he would only belong in an article about how "blowing my mind" was a dumb cliche. I agree that it is, but VI's participation in the stupidity is a minor issue, the absence of which is totally unsurprising.
It's not that it's too old but too young.
How the heck is Mick still so dang sexy?!? He's so old!
"First I heard the term was in Sunshine Superman by Donovan."
That song was released on July 1, 1966, so the ridiculous Barry Goldberg thing has it beat.
But both recordings show, I think, that the phrase was already known and understood.
Like much slang, it's drug talk.
Now, I'm reading the Wikipedia article on LSD, just to try to get the idea of when it became a standard topic in American culture. I believe the answer is 1965 or 1964, because I first heard about it from my 8th grade home room teacher.
Anyway, at Wikipedia, this image of a man's body, labeled to show where the effects of LSD take place, is cracking me up. It's SFW, because nothing is happening below the elbows.
"I don't recall ever seeing this gesture you're talking about accompanying it."
I bet now that you've been alerted, you'll see it (especially if you watch comedy shows on TV).
Evidently Barry Goldberg can't sing for shit. But He has played keyboards with some very famous artists.
Professor Anne shouldn't the be a "Bob Dylan" tag on this article? Barry Goldberg was Dylan's keyboardist when Dylan went electric in 1965 at Newport. It blew that commie fuck Pete Seegers mind.
"How the heck is Mick still so dang sexy?!? He's so old!"
News to old men: You can be sexy. And now you can't rely on the excuse that you are old. Be like Mick. And if your urge is to switch the subject to Keith... I know what you're doing and you're not Keith (you're not Mick either) and thinking you're being like Keith is a way to embrace going to hell. Now, get up and dance like Mick.
We used to say dance like Fred Astaire.
"Professor Anne shouldn't the be a "Bob Dylan" tag on this article? Barry Goldberg was Dylan's keyboardist when Dylan went electric in 1965 at Newport."
First, who are you to ask? You can't even spell my name right!
Second, if I did indirect tagging like that, I'd be down a rabbit hole from which I would never emerge. Is that what you want? I'm onto you.
Third, I didn't know, but listening to Goldberg, I did think he sounded like Dylan. Also thought he sounded like Sonny Bono. And Cher.
"Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away"
Merry Clayton's vocals were so mind blowing that you can hear someone in the studio say "Whoa" in the recording. She made this some great.
From Wikipedia: "Goldberg's uncle was Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg."
I saw the Stones in 1975 at Chicago Stadium. We had 13th Row Center seats. Amazing.
@John Henry - I think that we can officially pronounce Mick Jagger as a "wonder of nature"
Yeah just a fair warning to all you Althouse Fanboys, LSD is not for Cucks.
I'm not into exaggerated gestures. Especially from Men. Its very "Pajama Boy".
"It blows my mind" is also 60s lame. It should be retired and join "Groovy" in the retired cliche hall of fame.
The odd thing about Jagger is he looks and sounds like a scrawny monkey, but he's actually very intelligent. And he's somehow tapped into the fountain of youth. Of course, its pathetic that someone that old is still "Rocking" on stage - playing the same music he did when he was 25.
Yep, you need to keep active when you age. Use or lose it.
Jagger has been a fitness nut all his life. So there's that.
It's not just dancing that makes older men sexy. There's a certain charisma that goes along with it.
I miss Bill Wyman. I had an older female cousin who looked just like him back in the day. It used to blow my mind every time I'd see her in Milwaukee.
Bill Wyman and Mick Taylor definitely had the best hairstyles. Keith's hair always looked ridiculous (it still does). Charlie Watts sports a limp dishrag. He looks so much better with short hair and IIRC, he was one of the first big rockers to adopt the shorn look (Black And Blue).
News to old men: You can be sexy.... Now, get up and dance like Mick.
"I'm going to do my mind-blowing dance"
...oh- and like Mick-- dont get fat.**
Please, everyone-- dont get fat.
Issue afatwa against your fat.
Rage, rage against the accumulation of fat
** and be rich, and/or good looking
"Room 101" for Althouse ironically wont be a cage of Rats
Big Brother will have garnered a list of her terrors she has freely posted.
Men in shorts, sock, and sandals will easily break her. Boom!(hand gesture)
My "stepson" just got hired as a stagehand for the Stones. He usually works for Cher, but got offered the Stones and couldn't pass it up, at least for a while. Cher treats him pretty well, and he can still work for her when available. He loves it, and gets to meet lots of famous people.
I think "heads exploding" and "blew my mind" are overlapping, but different.
Rage, rage against the accumulation of fat
We wear the carbon chains we forged in life. We made it link by link, roll by roll; We girded it on of our own freewill, and of our own freewill we wore it.
Today's sermon talked a bit about hope and it made me think of the Mick Jagger video.
If he can do that at 73, perhaps there is hope for me! Maybe I'll be able to dance like that at 73.
On the downside, I've never been able to before and I am only a couple years away so what are the odds? Not that good.
I am hoping for a miracle.
I'll settle for not taking a minute to get up off the floor after playing with the grandkids.
Seriously, I just cannot get over that video. It is totally amazing. It would be amazing in any event. Major surgery a month ago? The cherry on top of the whipped cream.
John Henry
@chicklit
that was beautiful!
...but it scares the dickens out of ya, right?
Michael Jackson was a better dancer than Mick Jagger. I bet if he had lived to 73 we would all be amazed at his agility and youthful spirit. Interesting footnote: there was less difference in age between Michael and his sex partners than between the Stones and their various partners......The Stones were indeed fortunate to live in that moment of time. They got to be not only absurdly self indulgent, but they were able to account their vices as acts of liberation. I see where Bill Wyman is in a bit of trouble for grooming that thirteen year-old girl. It will probably have a deleterious effect on his career going forward.
Mick Jagger can dance like that for two minutes. And he feels it for hours afterward.
Methinks the professor is running out of things to be annoyed by. Or should I say, things by which to be annoyed?
Van Morrison's first solo album was Blowin' Your Mind. He's a man who holds grudges, and he's held that one for 50 years. He hated the title, he hated the psychadelic cover and he hated that it was released without his consent while he was sill working on the songs.
Unfortunately he still owed Bang more songs so one of the world's best songwriters at his early peak passive-agressively spent his time writing and recording the worst drek that could still be termed a "song". (And these sessions are still inflicted on unsuspecting buyers today..)
William,
Doesn't Jagger dance like that for 45 minutes or so throughout an entire show?
Then travel a few thousand miles and do it again the next night?
There's a good video of Bob Hope and Jimmy Cagney (who ever thought of either of them as dancers besides me?) on YouTube. Hope is playing Eddie Foy and Cagney James M. Cohan at some sort of celebrity roast.
One challenges the other to a dance-off, they jump up on the table and do a 2 minute tap routine. Much more vigorous than Jagger in the video. With the added risk of falling off the table, which Hope almost does at one point. Recovers very nicely, though.
https://youtu.be/JOoNOs8Ql28
Jack(?) Warner's granddaughter wrote a bio called The Brothers Warner. She mentions the routine and says that both took several weeks to recover from it.
The book is great, BTW. (Portal)
John Henry
I have the Bang sessions and like them. Not as much as the Moondance, Hymns to the Silence, Irish Heartbeat and some other albums but they are OK. Unfortunately I have them on cassette.
Unfortunately he still owed Bang more songs so one of the world's best songwriters at his early peak passive-agressively spent his time writing and recording the worst drek that could still be termed a "song".
Orwell wrote Animal Farm because he owed Victor Gollancz another book on a contract, had fallen out with him, and wanted write the simplest thing he could get by with. He didn't think it "drek", but he didn't think it very good, either.
Yet, because of the Cold War, most people think Animal Farm and 1984 were the only 2 books Orwell wrote.
Ditto Nevil Shute and "On the Beach" Shute thought OTB a fine novel, though.
I am a big fan of both and have read everything they published.
John Henry
When I went looking for the Hope/Cagney clip YouTube recommended this one too:
https://youtu.be/mz3CPzdCDws
It's a mashup of Rita Hayworth, dancing Staying Alive with Fred Astaire, red Skelton, Phil Silvers and a number of other hoofers clipped from various films.
These mashup are always fun.
John Henry
"I hate Trump, but I love The State," Mind blown!
I'm not talking about the stuff Morrison did for Bang before Blowin' Your Mind was issued and before he was pissed off that didn't get released on BYM. There is definitely some good stuff there, like an early "Madame George" version.
I'm talking about the stuff here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Complete_Bang_Sessions.
Stuff like "Ringworm" & "You Say France & I Whistle".
I’m not against socks and sandals. Just need to have the right socks.
96 tears was one of those classic songs from the 1960s. Question Mark and the Mysterians was a band made up of latinos and Question Mark was a very interesting character. "Question Mark was an eclectic figure, publicly stating that his soul had originated from Mars and that he once walked on Earth with the dinosaurs." A couple of the original band members have passed away and I don't know if Question Mark is still performing or not. I hope he is. The last video I found was 2007. About the LSD, there was a classic episode of the TV show Dragnet where Detectives Friday and Gannon track down an LSD dealer named "Blue Boy." (He's called that because he paints his face blue.) The show makes mention of the fact that LSD isn't currently illegal, because it's such a new drug. During the episode, they get the notice that the Federal government has made LSD illegal and they go to arrest Blue Boy. But it's too late because Blue Boy has overdosed. It's another 1960s classic.
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