It’s Dolly’s world, we’re just living it: why the icon is 2020’s meme queen

The internet’s Dolly Parton has big click energy. Exhibit A: the #DollyPartonChallenge. You’ll have clocked the pervasive Instagram tetraptych: four pictures displayed in a grid, with the captions, “LinkedIn”, “Instagram”, “Facebook” and “Tinder”.

The aim is to post four pictures of yourself that fit the four themes. (LinkedIn demands a more respectable portrait, Facebook a family-friendly mien, Instagram a casually enviable display, and Tinder a raunchy thirst trap.)

Parton, 74, begat it. “Get you a woman who can do it all,” Parton wrote to her 2.9 million Instagram followers last Tuesday, alongside her four chosen snaps. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ellen DeGeneres, Gordon Ramsay and Kerry Washington are among the thousands to have jumped on the bandwagon — yes, a photo of Gordon Ramsay in a skintight wetsuit is now doing the rounds.

Thanks Dolly.

While rumours persist of a “life” before 2020 (10 Grammy awards; five decades of country music superstardom; confirmed status as a rhinestone-clad, frill-seeking, all-American, multi-hyphenate national treasure), Parton’s breakout status as this year’s undisputed meme queen makes this influencer a talent to watch.

For Dolly Parton can do it all, including stage a resurgence in the modern zeitgeist that defies her homely roots and increases intergenerational support for her.

Cases in point: she’s the subject of the wildly popular podcast Dolly Parton’s America; the inspiration for a Netflix anthology series, Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings; the creator of a transatlantic musical; and the featured vocalist on an EDM song (Faith, by the Swedish duo Galantis). A true Renaissance woman for millennials, Parton boasts an #inspo trove of upbeat source material.

This week, Instagram is alight with a renewed interest in Dollyisms — inspiring quotes from the Parton archive, such as “The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain”, and “If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours”.

It helps that elements of the Parton allure that were previously sneered at for being “tacky” have been rehabilitated. As The New York Times’s Lindsay Zoladz noted last November, all the attributes that used to set her up for criticism — “the outrageous, hyper-femme style; the unapologetic business savvy needed to pull off her late-Seventies pop crossover; even the so-what acknowledgement of her own cosmetic surgery — are no longer taboo”.

Zoladz added that “a generation that’s grown up with Snapchat-filtered selfies and pop feminism seems to have an innate understanding that artifice doesn’t negate authenticity, or that a penchant for towering wigs and acrylic nails doesn’t prevent someone from being a songwriting genius”, noting that Parton is said to have first tapped out the tune to 9 to 5 with those same nails.

Yes, she (or her social media team) are internet savvy: she knows her way around a Jolene meme, can parlay fluently in emoji-based tweets with Old Town Road’s Lil Nas X, and is ephemeral catnip for YouTube remixers (Google “Slow Ass Jolene”). But her mystique is built on stronger foundations: she’s determinedly apolitical, a staunch LGBTQ ally, and a tremendously gifted songwriter. She’s also cultivated a hefty amount of outlandish rumours to underline her icon credentials, which the internet laps up (she’s taken one subway in her life, hasn’t displayed her arms in years to hide sleeves of snake tattoos, and her dad paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal).

But if anyone embodies the “you do you” ethos, it’s Dolly. Everyone loves a legend.