Culture

Elmo Is The Viral Icon That 2022 Desperately Needs

Elmo has a mischievous lust for life. He's also petty. Let's be more Elmo.

by Joseph Earp  7 January 2022
Elmo is the viral hero of 2022

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Sesame Street, one of the most important and influential children’s shows ever made, has a simple prerogative: to represent the inner lives of its audience with care, attention and love. And nowhere is that better represented than in the character of Elmo.

See, the thing about Elmo is that he is — despite being a puppet — deeply human. He has an affable quality, sure, a kind of mischievous lust for life that defines the way that he interacts with his friends. But he’s also petty. He is not some idealised version of us, a kind of golden mean to strive for. He is flawed. He suffers from jealousy, like the rest of us. He has an egoism to him, like the rest of us — he is always balancing the needs of those around him with his own needs, and sometimes he gets that balance wrong. He has a churlishness, a quick temper, a destructive urge that he requires guidance to leave behind.

Little wonder, then, that in the first week of 2022, Elmo has gone hugely viral. He has become a mascot for all of us, a reminder that we should always strive to do better: that we can be kinder, though the path to that kindness is rocky and forked. Bringing Elmo into your life doesn’t require denying who you are, or pretending that you don’t have flaws. It requires being honest about what you want, and the mistakes that you can make in trying to get it.

Oh, I mean, there’s also the fact that he says “balsamic vinegar” with more razzle-dazzle than anyone on the planet Earth.

And, of course, there’s his vibrant and earnest pronunciation of “paper towel roll”, a flourish that will stay in your head for days as soon as you hear it.

But he is more complicated than the way he chooses to speak. There is an essential fragility to him. He doesn’t always understand the world, and that lack of understanding frightens him. He wants to live, damnit, and sometimes that process of living is complicated and messy.

Another way of saying this, I suppose, has been provided by the wonderful comic Paul F. Tompkins:

I mean, how else to describe his take no prisoners attitude towards, uh, cheese?

Or his absolute refusal to become blinded by star wattage, as exemplified by his feud with Jimmy Fallon?

Or his absolute celebration of himself, a kind of self-love that manifests itself in this clip, in which he celebrates his own little victories with vim and vigour?

Oh, or his ongoing feud with his friend Zoe’s pet rock, a battle of the wits that has already become a massive and pervasive meme?

We might not always like to admit that we too, like Elmo, need support and direction. But heading into the new year, it is time for us to accept our dependence on others, rather than pretending that it doesn’t exist. We are all of us tiny creatures, bent towards the light. Let’s not forget that. And let us use Elmo to learn how we can be.