A 50-year-old shipwreck ballad is TikTok’s unexpected new obsession. Gen Z has turned Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 ballad “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” into…an ongoing meme? The song about a Great Lakes freighter that sank exactly 50 years ago this week has seen steadily increasing search volume every November since 2021. And despite its hyper-specific subject matter, the song has gained as it’s set to posts about everything from costumes about the shipwreck to everyday disasters set to the song. There’s even merch: popular Etsy bumper stickers read “Stop Honking! I’m crying to ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’.” Gen Z constantly gravitates toward niche internet subcultures and loves resurfacing forgotten cultural artifacts, so the Edmund Fitzgerald, somehow, hits perfectly. It’s specific enough to feel like an inside joke, historical enough to feel substantive, and emotional enough to become a genuine gateway into Great Lakes maritime history. (Atlas Obscura)
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