Internet Nostalgia

Let’s Revisit the “Downfall” Memes

Human monstrosity as meme generator.

Welcome to part 17 of our Internet Nostalgia series, which looks back at phenomena that captured the internet’s imagination and attention for a fleeting moment and then vanished as everyone moved on to something else. This series looks back at those olden times and what they told us about the internet and ourselves. If you have a suggested topic, email me at williamfleitch@yahoo.com. Last week: The Balloon Boy Hoax. This week: The “Downfall” memes.

Date: 2006-today.

The Story: The movie Downfall, you should know, is pretty great. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s drama, which was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2005 Academy Awards, attempts to accurate dramatize the final days of Adolf Hitler, as everything collapses around him. Driven by a committed, frightening performance from Bruno Ganz, Downfall is the sort of focused, driven, hypnotic, fact-based historical drama that attempts to provide human perspective on horrific global history. The movie is anything but a defense of Hitler — it shows his monstrosity at its most stark and horrific — but it does attempt to accurately represent those last moments as they might have happened, to the people most closely involved. It is acutely observed, meticulously…