Pop Smart - The zombie meme

I was out of town for the opening weekend of Song of the Living Dead, Dad’s Garage Theatre’s world premiere musical about love and zombies. Instead I saw it last night at a special Thursday fundraiser for, appropriately enough, historic Oakland Cemetery, which is still recovering from the tornado damage from earlier this year.

I’ll write about Song of the Living Dead at length in next week’s issue, but I will say that, for me, the most memorable thing that happened off-stage at last night’s performance was the woman sitting directly behind me who blurted “Oh shit, what’s THAT?!!” when someone (or some thing) began moving through the seats.

Song of the Living Dead fits in with a surprisingly prevalent contemporary vogue for zombies, which you find not only in movies like 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead and Diary of the Dead, but all over pop culture and the Internet. I see references to zombies all the time on blogs, and recently noticed a popular meme that goes like this:

“You are in a mall when the zombies attack. You have -

01 one weapon.

02 one song blasting on the speakers.

03 one famous person to fight alongside you.”

Apparently weapons and famous persons can be real or fictional. Participants in the meme, wherever it appears, are invited to answer the question in the comments field, or pass it along in their own blogs. It’s fun to play along – my answers are after the jump.