Tea in Meme Culture

by Andrew Shi

This week, we're taking a different—and more amusing—spin on tea-related content!

"The Tea"

"The Tea" is a slang term meaning “gossip” that originated in black drag culture before being popularized by memes. The term was added to Urban Dictionary on September 22nd, 2003.
Some usage examples of the term include “spill the tea,” which means to tell the truth about something juicy (as seen in the name of this blog!) Another example is “what's the tea?”, used when someone has gossip that you want to hear about. According to Merriam-Webster, the term was seen in print as early as 1991.

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In this meme, “you” are the teapot, and your friends are the cups. Gossip is portrayed in this picture as the tea that is bring poured out from the teapot, into the five cups. This teapot has multiple spouts because gossip in real life is usually shared with multiple people.

"But That's None of My Business"

​This meme is a sarcastic expression usually paired with an insult. The image features Kermit the Frog from The Muppets, used to poke fun at a wide range of questionable behaviors in everyday social situations.

This meme is a way of passively-aggressively calling certain people out on something without getting involved yourself and is usually used for comedic effect. Typically, the top text varies, while the bottom text is consistent as “but that’s none of my business.”
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As early as January 2014, Instagram users began posting captioned images of Kermit the Frog. In June 2014, an Instagram account with the username @thatsnoneofmybusinesstho was created, featuring various images of Kermit the Frog all captioned “none of my business”. The Instagram page gained over 130,000 followers in the four days following its creation.
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Here is an example of such a meme, made by us:

​This example calls out people who drink tea steeped from Lipton's tea bags when they could be drinking Xiaohusai tea. (Disclaimer: This is just a joke!) Lipton tea bags are made from lower-quality tea leaves and contain extra ingredients, such as sugar, that decrease the tea's authenticity. However, they are in wide use because tea bags are cheap and convenient. Tea from Xiaohusai, on the other hand, is organic, socially beneficial, and culturally authentic. Of course, we don't want to seem like we're calling out Lipton too aggressively, hence “But That’s None of My Business.”