In the last few years, it’s only become more and more relevant. This meme-turned-slang has become a way to criticise and poke fun at cancel culture.
The Milkshake Duck is probably the best example of the internet adapting real-world events and finding the humour out of them. The official definition, according to Dictionary.com is,
“A Milkshake Duck is a person (or thing) who becomes extremely popular on the internet for some positive reason, but as their popularity takes off and people dig into their past, they quickly become an object of outrage and hatred.”
Origin
Milkshake duck originally began as a tweet from popular Twitter account, @pixelatedboat.
The joke was referring to cancel culture, the surge of celebrities being caught for politically incorrect and sometimes criminal actions. Many of these celebrities were once deeply loved, which is why the innocent Milkshake Duck joke is so funny.
The joke quickly circulated with thousands of likes and retweets. Twitter users then started using the term when instances of cancel culture would occur
In June 2017, the term was given an official urban dictionary meaning then eventually awarded word of the year 2018 by The Australian Macquarie Dictionary Committee.
“The Committee’s Choice for the 2017 Word of the Year is milkshake duck. This is an absolute winner! Even if you don’t know the word, you know the phenomenon. Milkshake duck stood out as being a much-needed term to describe something we are seeing more and more of, not just on the internet but now across all types of media. It plays to the simultaneous desire to bring someone down and the hope that they won’t be brought down. In many ways, it captures what 2017 has been about. There is a hint of a tall poppy syndrome in there, which we always thought was a uniquely Australian trait, but has been amplified through the internet and become universalised.”
Milkshake Duck Examples
Examples of this term perfectly fit the scenario and show us this was a necessary addition to the English language.
After US boy Keaton Jones shared a video about being bullied last month, his family experienced an online backlash over allegations they had racist views
Ken Bone, a man who participated in the 2016 US presidential debate, was loved by the public. He was later condemned for having made objectionable comments online and for having a questionable Reddit history.
A Florida policeman was dubbed “hot cop” because of a meme but was then investigated over alleged anti-Semitic Facebook posts. And in 2016, an audience member on a live television programme was celebrated for questioning why low-income Australians would miss out on a tax cut. He was then publicly criticised when it emerged he had criminal convictions.
And with new people constantly becoming famous overnight on social media, it seems that the phenomenon of the Milkshake Duck is far from over.
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