“Why are we even here?” Zero Memes from Canadian Athletes in Paris
“Memes don’t just happen. We need drawn-out and extensive plans to generate them.”
A French pole vaulter fails to qualify for the finals because his ‘cornichon’ got in the way. A Turkish shooter dresses like a Graphic Designer from Calgary. An American West Point rugby player obsesses over Lego sets. These are just a few memes generated at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Team Canada’s meme count: Abysmal.
“No one got engaged or made a hundred TikToks about muffins or got caught sleeping before their event. Why are we even here?” said Woody Chesterfield, Vice-Chair of the Canadian Olympic Meme Association (COMA).
“We can’t sleep on this,” the COMA Vice-Chair said. “Memes don’t just happen. We need drawn-out and extensive plans to generate them.”
Chesterfield and his team have already started strategizing for the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. He showed me into his office, a trash-strewn Peugeot rental, and presented some of his plans.
“We’ve got sketches here from Lululemon for the Alpine Skiing events. You see the skiers will wear hoodies and shorts to play off the ‘guy who wears shorts in the winter’ meme.” He then showed us the Team Canada facepaint design as well as the branded cigarettes the bobsled team will smoke during their event, “you know, like the ‘Dart Guy’ meme.”
COMA’s secret weapon: The Toronto Mans. “We’re teaching a middle-aged white curler from New Brunswick to speak in fake Toronto patois, mostly by saying ‘fam’ a lot. We think the Olympic community and, more importantly, the internet will love it.”