It’s a hot summer day. Across the street from the beach, I saw this on the sidewalk: a satisfying example of how street photography reflects culture back to us.

Along Revere Beach Blvd

A meme is an activity, concept, piece of media or a catchphrase that spreads from person to person via the Internet. It’s an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means, especially imitation or mimicry.

In American popular culture, the casual greeting of “Hello there,” has evolved disrespectfully downwards. The modern catchphrase, “Hi there,” was replaced with “Hey guys!” which was unfortunately replaced with, “What’s up?” which was replaced annoyingly with, “What up?!” and then replaced by the unsavory “What up bitches?!”

The t-shirt puns its way into cleaning up the contemptuous expression of saying hello to people at the beach.