Kim Kardashian unintentionally sparked a new meme trend on Oct. 27, after revealing that she surprised her family and friends with a trip to a private island for her 40th birthday. The way in which the birthday girl announced this surprise, though, couldn’t help but make fans draw comparisons to movies, shows, and other pop culture references in which a group of people were also led to a surprise on an island after much anticipation (or somewhere much more sinister).
In an Instagram post on Oct. 27 post, Kim wrote, “After 2 weeks of multiple health screens and asking everyone to quarantine, I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private island where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time.” Fans borrowed these same exact words, but instead of sharing them over photos of Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Rob Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and more family and friends (like Kim did), they instead shared photos of the airplane crash scene in Lost, the “Spooky Island” amusement park from Scooby-Doo, and the “Scary Island” episode from The Real Housewives of New York City.
There were also numerous references to Shutter Island, a 2010 thriller in which Leonardo DiCaprio’s character conducts an investigation on an eerie island. The best “island” meme, arguably, went to the digital director of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, who shared a photo of Biden’s island on Animal Crossing (yes, you can actually visit).
Not all the references were about islands. Fans took the joke further by hilariously alluding the “surprise” to a scary twist, like posting screenshots of scenes from I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (featuring Brandy and Jennifer Love Hewitt) and Battle Royale (a Japanese horror film in which a high school class is tricked into going on a field trip that turns into a fight for their lives).
There were endless memes. Other standouts included tweets that gave shout-outs to Fyre Festival, a poorly planned music festival on a remote island in The Bahamas that ended in disaster in 2017.
Before becoming the center of a new meme, Kim revealed that she had an amazing time with her family abroad. “We danced, rode bikes, swam near whales, kayaked, watched a movie on the beach and so much more. I realize that for most people, this is something that is so far out of reach right now, so in moments like these, I am humbly reminded of how privileged my life is,” Kim wrote in her birthday Instagram post, which showed the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star partying with many friends and family (Kim’s husband Kanye West and sister Kylie Jenner were absent from the photo roundup, however).
After a relaxing getaway, Kim is looking forward to getting back to work as she enters a new decade of her life! Kim’s heart is in the work she’s doing with prison reform and her goals for this next decade really center around the work she wants to do to make changes to the laws. This decade will be all about creating her legacy,” a source EXCLUSIVELY told HollywoodLife after Kim rang in her 40th year on Oct. 21.