Have you ever heard of the “gray goo” hypothesis? No, we’re not talking about the contents of biocontainment bags pulled from the 50 Shades dungeon. It’s just one of many apocalyptic scenarios that mankind may face in the future, should we get all the way up to the “self-replicating nanomachines” branch on the technology tree without blowing ourselves to hell first. Long story short: nanomachines need matter to replicate, which is their primary purpose (in this construct), so they consume the entire planet’s biosphere and everyone on it before making their way out into the universe, with “grey goo” just being an apt descriptor for everything left over once they’ve eaten their way across the globe. You’re probably saying to yourself right now, “Wow, that’s terrifying, but how does this relate to Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, dude?”
Well, based on this brand-new trailer that Warner Bros. dropped earlier on Thursday, we’re thinking that once Barbie hits theaters, there’s gonna be a countdown clock starting somewhere in whatever crazy reality is watching our own. Once a 4K copy is out for streaming a few months after its release, we think it’s only a matter of time before the internet is hit with the “Pink Goo” apocalypse: A sea of Barbie GIFs that will crash servers all over the world. Your Twitter feed will be unusable. Instagram will be nothing but Barbie. And at that point, it’ll take a serious meme warrior to make it out alive.
So grab your Photoshop weapons and peep this shit:
If you want to see the future, imagine a zoomer tapping on GIPHY and selecting a RyGos react to dunk on their iMessage peeps, forever.
Here’s a synopsis, which is as terse as you’d expect a movie this high-concept to be:
“To live in Barbie Land is to be a perfect being in a perfect place. Unless you have a full-on existential crisis. Or you’re a Ken.”
Barbie hits theaters on July 23. May God help us all.