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A creative new meme is spreading throughout China, and it has people reinventing themselves with spontaneous makeovers.

China’s “Karma’s A Bitch” Meme Features Magic, Instant Glow-Ups

BY Joe Berkowitz1 minute read

Toward the end of 2017, a lot of people felt run ragged by a historically chaotic year. The evidence was all over Twitter, where the “Me at the Beginning of 2017 vs Me at the End of 2017” meme showed off clever side-by-side images of popular public figures looking their best and worst. (An archetypal example might be Leonardo DiCaprio at the top of Titanic, right next to Leo at the end of The Revenant. It was a tough year, indeed.) It’s 2018 now, though, and many are hoping it won’t just be 2017, Part Two. To that end, a new more uplifting meme is now surging in China, and it’s pretty much the opposite of Me vs Me.

The “Karma’s a Bitch” meme features mostly women–though men have certainly been in the mix too–dressed extremely down, and then uttering the titular phrase, like a magic mantra, and then instantly transforming into a glammed-up version of themselves. This metamorphosis occurs right as the star of the video waves a towel in front of her- or himself–a technique that recalls some of the digital sorcery of so-called Vine magician Zach King. The line, “Karma’s a Bitch” comes from a popular bit of dialogue uttered by Veronica on Riverdale in its current season. While the meaning of it can go a couple of different ways, Fast Company is choosing to look at it as a collective wish for karma to right some of the things that went wrong in 2017.

Have a look at some of the best memes below, as brought to our attention by BuzzFeed‘s Kassy Cho on Twitter.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joe Berkowitz is an opinion columnist at Fast Company. His latest book, American Cheese: An Indulgent Odyssey Through the Artisan Cheese World, is available from Harper Perennial. More


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