If you are one of the unfortunates who still opens Twitter—sorry, X—on a not-irregular basis, you will encounter a curious phenomenon. (If you are not, you are indeed fortunate.) Twitter feeds across the globe are, right this very moment, featuring a plethora of pictures and text, with some of that text reading: “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.” Curious! Awkward! Definitely a way that people speak! A situation one often encounters! What’s going on here?
Gentle reader, if you’ve made it this far, it’s because you’re genuinely wondering and blissfully unaware of why so many people are typing the phrase “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.” I wish to be in your shoes. Since I am in my own socks, I will seek to end the mystery. The sentence entered our English orbit on Wednesday, November 15th, 2023, a day that shall live in movie dialogue head-scratching history. This declaration about a man in the Amazon with someone’s spider-studying mother right before she died was spoken by Dakota Johnson’s character Cassandra Webb in the first trailer for Sony’s superhero movie Madame Web. She is speaking about a mysterious man who was, we believe, in the Amazon with her mother, who was researching spiders, right before she died.
Though a lot of things happen in the Madame Web trailer, it’s Johnson’s delivery that made the leap to social media and became a meme. As Tom Ley writes in Defector, tongue firmly in cheek, “[T]he trailer features what might be the best line read in cinema history.” Don’t just take our word for it:
he was in the amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died pic.twitter.com/DkzYSFhKaH
— alex (@alex_abads) November 15, 2023
Why has this line, of all lines, struck such a chord? Well, we’re all extremely tired, for one thing, and need something to laugh about on this flaming putrescent planet. The grammatical and over-the-top dramatic twists and turns of “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died” appear to bring together, in one sentence, everything that feels overdone about superhero movies and the scripts that somehow make it to screen with millions of dollars behind them. And Johnson sounds about as dead inside as the rest of us as she makes her declaration. Also, it’s just fun to say and write and think about. Try it! “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.” Didn’t you feel your brain magically blink offline for a moment, all other cares forgotten?
Now folks on Twitter/X are running wild with the line, adding it to photos unrelated to Madame Web that further serve to underscore the absurdity of the whole thing.
he was in the amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died pic.twitter.com/MnDYwX0a6N
— Ash Crossan (@AshCrossan) November 15, 2023
he was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died pic.twitter.com/xJ4HSc1iXx
— alex (@alex_abads) November 15, 2023
he was in the amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died pic.twitter.com/adWQw8rYkK
— alex (@alex_abads) November 15, 2023
and just like that… he was in the amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died pic.twitter.com/X5HcJvulln
— A N D Y (@_andymendes) November 15, 2023
"So how did you two meet?"
— @benjaminjs.bsky.social (@BenjaminJS) November 15, 2023
"Funny story. He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died." pic.twitter.com/id1GztSuXC
this woman was trying to cut the tsa precheck line and this lady in front of me was like "i think the line is back there" and she said “he was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died“ and then stepped in between us https://t.co/sR6A9IxAA0
— Who? Weekly (@whoweekly) November 15, 2023
Of course there is the odd person out there who is genuinely devoted to the comics lore and is taking the line for what it’s worth. Sorry about the rest of us.
"Ezekiel Sims- he was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died."#MadameWeb seems to be setting up a backstory involving spider research in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, which has several connections to the spider mythos of the comics… pic.twitter.com/GRCnVgutXy
— Max?Marvel (@MaximilanMarvel) November 15, 2023
Because the majority of social media denizens have devolved into the realm of the absurd.
In Madame Web did Dakota Johnson
— Chas LiBretto (@ChasLiBretto) November 15, 2023
A strange line read decree:
'He was in the Amazon with
My mom when she was researching
Spiders right before she died.'
– Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Surely, no one involved in the business of marketing superhero films predicted that of all the moments in the busy Madame Web trailer, the one that would make even more people aware that a movie called Madame Web exists was the delivery of “He was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died.” But I have a feeling they’ll take what they can get.
Happy He Was In the Amazon With My Mom When She Was Researching Spiders Right Before She Died Day! Everything is fine.
He was in the amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died. pic.twitter.com/Jr7w5KvVjq
— ☕Stephen M. Colbert (@smcolbert) November 16, 2023
(image: Sony Pictures)
