Ken Bone, Chewbacca Mom and Keaton Jones were all victim to the milkshake duck. If none of this makes sense, you haven’t spent enough time online

What is a milkshake duck? And why isn't it the word of the year?

So, what’s all this about a milkshake duck?

In June 2016, Twitter user @PixelatedBoat coined a neologism that was arguably robbed as Oxford Dictionaries’ 2017 word of the year: “Milkshake duck”.

“Youthquake” isn’t even a word (@pixelatedboat) The whole internet loves Milkshake Duck, a lovely duck that drinks milkshakes! *5 seconds later* We regret to inform you the duck is racist

The tweet went viral for neatly describing a now familiar arc, where the internet rushes en masse to embrace something or someone as cute, worthy, fun or funny – then just as quickly drops it, when it’s revealed to somehow be unpleasantly complicated.

In just 140 characters, as was the style at the time, @PixelatedBoat encapsulated social media’s inclination to cast heroes and villains in black and white; to gloss over nuance and pay for it later; its short-sightedness, its fickleness, its breakneck pace, and its penchant for animals doing human things.

'Youthquake' named 2017 word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries Read more

With 30,000 favourites to date, the tweet is about as close to canon as it gets on a platform built for goldfish memories. “Milkshake duck” has become a useful shorthand, referenced if (or, as seems increasingly the case, when) a favourite is revealed to be problematic.

“Milkshake duck is doing the rounds again,” observed @PixelatedBoat in May, nearly a year after the lovely, racist duck’s debut. “Did someone fuck up real bad?”

Its impact was cemented on Friday when it was recognised by Oxford Dictionaries on its shortlist for word of the year, along with other necessary and oft-reached-for neologisms as “broflake”, “gorpcore” and “newsjacking”.

Oxford Dictionaries (@OxfordWords) 'Milkshake Duck' was one of our shortlisted words for #WordOfTheYear. Do you know the story of the term? https://t.co/rMWX2ZS5Tg

In one of the many unjust upsets we’ve become resigned to in the past 18 months, each of those lost out to “youthquake”: a word apparently for social or political change led by young people that I’d wager as recently as Thursday had never been spoken aloud. It was explained as “the right note on which to end a difficult and divisive year”, as a hopeful word – evidencing the lengths Oxford Dictionaries had to go to to find one.

Milkshake duck, on the other hand, became the defining term for a recurring phenomenon unique to our times. According to Google Trends, it had been used fairly consistently since June, when Oxford Dictionaries predicted that “Pixelated Boat may see continuing use of their accidental coinage”; youthquake, on the other hand, rumbled below the threshold of recognition.

@PixelatedBoat, meanwhile, has a new name on Twitter: “Youthquake isn’t even a word”.

“Youthquake” isn’t even a word (@pixelatedboat) New display name for the articles that embedded the duck tweet

To add to the indignity of milkshake duck’s loss, it had demonstrated its usefulness only days before, in the case of Keaton Jones: a young boy in Tennessee who went viral for tearfully denouncing his bullies. What could be more clearly deserving of sympathy and support?

*5 seconds later*

How very 2017: the trial by media of 11-year-old Keaton Jones | Hannah Jane Parkinson Read more

Shortly after celebrities, athletes and Donald Trump Jr had rallied behind Keaton, his mother was alleged to have “been involved in murky – or outright inflammatory – doings”, to quote from Oxford Dictionaries’ definition of “milkshake duck”. With fake accounts further muddying the waters, some facts remain unclear even now – but if it quacks like a milkshake duck, and posts “ironic” photos with Confederate flags like one…

@PixelatedBoat told me that, as far as memory served, his iconic tweet had been inspired by the backlash to “Chewbacca Mom”, whose full-throated enjoyment of a Star Wars mask streamed on Facebook in May 2016 broke video records for the year. After having had “the internet in absolute hysterics”, there was a growing rumble of criticism – a booquake, if you will (... no?) – of her monetising her viral fame and “white mediocrity”.

A better example? “The Hot Florida Cop was about as perfect as a Milkshake duck gets,” said @PixelatedBoat, referring to a recent tale of two headlines:

14 September: “Florida ‘hot cops’ become Internet sensation after Hurricane Irma Facebook post”

15 September: “Florida ‘hot cop’ removed from force amid anti-Semitic claims”

It’s an “inevitable consequence” of time spent in the social media spotlight, said @PixelatedBoat. “Someone can get famous in a matter of hours, but there’s also a good chance they’ve created a public record of all their worst opinions.” The internet’s impulse to seek those opinions out, however, is harder to parse.

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Someone saw the lovely duck, famous for drinking its milkshake, and thought to dig through its chequered history for the public good. The duck’s racism certainly complicates its cuteness, and resulting viral fame, but doesn’t necessarily negate it. Milkshake ducks are made, not born. And for what?

“Yeah, I don’t really understand the motivation, except that people are motivated to do anything that gets them attention online, and finding the ‘gotcha’ on something currently popular is one way of doing that,” said @PixelatedBoat. “And, I guess, it’s good business if you’re the website that digs up the dirt – it’s a way of generating more clicks out of a viral story.”

@PixelatedBoat felt bad, said @PixelatedBoat, for Ken Bone, the man made into a meme after asking a question during the town hall debate of last year’s US presidential election. Some of the subsequent scrutiny of Bone’s personal life “seemed pointlessly cruel”.

But that’s the way of the internet ecosystem, it seems – building up people who didn’t ask for it, tearing them down under separate standards, “as flies to wanton boys”, etc. @PixelatedBoat, who declined to be quoted under his real name, is aware he is not exempt.

“It’s terrifying that I created a meme that will destroy me when I inevitably do a problematic tweet,” he tweeted, on milkshake duck’s one-year anniversary. “Milkshake duck is my sword of Damocles.”