Culture

Brangelina Are Getting A Divorce And The Internet Is Flooded With Jennifer Aniston Memes

Is it a bit weird to be talking about #TeamJen in 2016?

by Meg Watson  21 September 2016

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Good morning! While you were sleeping, your computer and phone were on fire. Any device in your life that has access to the internet is now a charred husk of what it once was, as a volatile mixture of rage, sadness, glee and furious meme-making caused it to combust at around 1am Australian time.

It was then that the news broke: Brangelina is dead.

As first reported by TMZ and later confirmed with statements from Jolie’s lawyer, Angelina Jolie has filed for a divorce from Brad Pitt. The initial news from TMZ says the decision was influenced by Pitt’s alleged “substance abuse and anger”; other reports suggest there may have been an infidelity (some claim Jolie hired a private investigator and discovered an affair between Pitt and his Allied co-star Marion Cotillard). All we know for sure is that the split is happening due to “irreconcilable differences”.

“This decision was made for the health of the family,” said Jolie’s lawyer Robert Offer, in a statement. “She will not be commenting, and asks that the family be given its privacy at this time.”

The internet isn’t exactly respecting their wishes.

Before we go on, let’s get a few things straight: Jennifer Aniston doesn’t have any social media accounts. She hasn’t made any public comment on the topic. She also very likely isn’t a) particularly hung up on the wellbeing of an ex’s relationship more than a decade since they’ve been together, and b) celebrating what is undoubtedly a painful time for Pitt and Jolie’s family. But, despite this, Twitter has been absolutely flooded with gifs of her celebrating the news.

The divorce is being taken as a definitive win for “Team Jen”.

The huge reaction to the divorce shouldn’t come as a surprise as the couple lived their entire relationship, often very purposefully, in the public eye. As BuzzFeed’s Anne Helen Peterson (a writer who may be the world’s foremost scholar on the topic) put it this morning, “Brangelina were the Hollywood couple: the pinnacle of glamour, of otherworldliness”.

“The makeup of their family, the way they traveled, the way they understood the world, the way they looked when they stood together on the red carpet and made eyes at each other at the table at the Golden Globes, the way they suggested a vigorous intellectual curiosity and a dedication to humanitarianism and really good and sustaining sex, or how they made it seem like art film and blockbuster Hollywood could, indeed, co-exist — that’s why they mattered.”

If you’re ever going to get worked up about a celebrity break-up, it’s this one.

But the idea of viewing it all through the lens of “Team Aniston” vs “Team Jolie” is a bit more complicated. Like Brangelina itself, the rivalry between the two women was forged in the glossy print of what was probably the best-selling period in gossip mag history. The mythic nature of Pitt/Aniston/Jolie’s fame and relationships stoked a persisting (occasionally imagined) drama which cast Jolie as the ‘homewrecker’ and Aniston as the ‘scorned woman’. This image has defined so much of Aniston’s public persona ever since — and it’s something she’s often spoken out against.

Just this year, Aniston wrote about the “disturbing scrutiny” which has been placed on her relationships over the years. “We are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child,” she wrote. “We get to determine our own ‘happily ever after’ for ourselves.”

Does that mean you shouldn’t post a pic of Rachel Green dancing or sipping champagne? Probably! But, it’s admittedly pretty hard to consider real-world people and the consequences of funny gifs when the news feels like some kind of 2005 time warped fan fiction.