Last week, we shared an 18-second teaser for Zack Snyder’s Justice League and as promised, HBO Max released an incredibly intriguing 2:27 trailer beginning with Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) saying, “The bell’s been rung. Out in the dark, among the stars, the god is dead” and ends with Jared Leto’s Joker saying, “We live in a society, where honor is a distant memory. Isn’t that right, Batman?”
The twitterverse spontaneously combusted into a frenzy of excitement over Snyder actually making Joker say “We live in a society.”
While George Costanza said it first, “We live in a society” has been making memes for years and has been misattributed to the Joker. There was even a change.org petition circulating for DC to make the memes a reality by having Joker actually say, “We live in a society.”
Though he has never said it until now, the phrase “We live in a society” was wildly popular among those who felt that they, too, were strange, unusual, and otherwise ostracized. Originating in 4chan, the meme evolved from misogynistic gamer culture into the now popularized “We live in a society” we now use to taunt the very people who originated it in the first place (according to knowyourmeme.com).
These self-declared social rejects not only celebrated their “misunderstood uniqueness,” but also mocked those who were still “in” with the rest of society as “sheep.” According to this “edgy” Joker fan logic, those who broke away from the collective were innately better than those who stayed, of course, the meme backfired and “society” now uses the meme to ridicule those who thought they were being so deep.
It seems that Snyder is in on the joke and even the Joker himself, Jared Leto leaned into the joke as well when he shared the trailer on his Twitter.
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The reactions to “We live in a society” are priceless:
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The full 2:27 trailer can be seen here.
Joia DaVida lives in a society where she reports on the entertainment industry in both Chicago and Los Angeles.
