With social media, anyone can become a critic. It seems like any time a new trailer for a superhero movie comes out, there are countless accounts across TikTok, X, and Instagram of people trying to point out every possible Easter egg. Some of these may hold merit, but others could be pure speculation. In a sea of content, everyone wants to stand out, leading to a rise of corn-plating.
“Encanto” was a cultural juggernaut when it came out. People obsessed over the cultural aspects of the film and observed tiny details about everyone’s favorite secluded uncle, Bruno, who may sound familiar because he’s voiced by John Leguizamo. At first glance, it would appear @hourlydolores posting about Dolores holding corn (without any additional observations) is a way to keep the “Encanto” conversation going without it being meaningful. In this manner, corn-plating holds a negative context with people seemingly wanting to limit discussions of movies and TV shows when they think the person isn’t adding anything.
Corn-plating could be seen as similar to the “Curtains Are Blue” meme. This is an image that goes around once in a while showing two interpretations of the sentence “The curtains are blue.” The first is an in-depth analysis of blue symbolizing depression while the other is “The curtains are f***ing blue.” It implies there’s no greater meaning to derive from certain details and that people can think too much about trivial details. Dolores holding corn and Art understanding German seem inconsequential, with accusations of corn-plating potentially shutting down further discussions. But seeing as the term is still new, there may still be a way yet to reclaim it because corn-plating doesn’t have to be all bad.
