The unsinkable memes inspired by ‘Titanic’

The film lives on in GIFs, Instagram cover songs, conspiracy theories, and posed photos, a quarter century since it was released

James Cameron’s drama on the icy seas released 25 years ago but its audience extends beyond that of the film. It has been most vividly immortalised online, in the form of screenshots, GIFs and covers of a power ballad.

The story of Jack and Rose has spawned countless memes, many of them snippets of the movie’s script. The line ‘Gentlemen, it has been a privilege playing with you tonight’ is rehashed whenever things go wrong.

“It has been a pleasure tweeting with you all during a genuine zombie apocalypse,” a netizen wrote along with the clip from the movie on March 11, 2020, the day the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic. Others have invoked the scene to refer to tanking cryptocurrency prices.

Versions of ‘I want you to draw me like one of your French girls’, Rose’s instruction to Jack after seeing his sketchbook, now serve as captions for images of cats and fictional characters like George Costanza reclining.

And there is no end to the treatment meted out to the theme song My Heart Will Go On online.

Matt Mulholland, 34, a musician and producer in New Zealand, went on to create what might as well be the Internet’s ‘Titanic’ soundtrack: a pitchy recorder cover of Celine Dion’s hit. “I really loved the idea of taking something incredible and beautiful and emotional, and just ruining it,” he said. The video has 36 million views on YouTube.

The song’s plaintive tin whistle solo is also being recirculated on TikTok as a soundtrack for people pretending to take the advice of their trolls.

The film also gave rise to conspiracy theories. Spoiler alert: Jack dies. But for years, viewers have insisted that he should not have, because they believe there was enough room for Jack on the piece of wood that floats Rose to safety.

It was the most-requested myth in the history of ‘MythBusters’ when the science entertainment show put it to the test in 2012, ultimately concluding that climbing on the board would not have saved Jack from hypothermia. Indeed, adding Jack’s weight might have further submerged the board.

And let’s not forget about the timeless ‘Titanic pose’. When Amara Lambert, a photographer in the US, is working with a couple who is nervous in front of the camera, she tells them to do the ‘Titanic pose’. Everybody knows what she means. On Instagram, there are more than 20,000 photos tagged #titanicpose: shorthand for an image of one or two people with their arms outstretched, surveying their kingdom.

“I think it’s that feeling of freedom,” Alex Biro, an HR consultant who started the @spread_your_arms_wide Instagram account in 2015 to document the pose during his travels, explained why it has caught on.