Burma-Shave Is Dead. Long Live Burma-Shave.
Sometime in early 2021, Instagram, in its algorithmic wisdom, began prodding me to follow something called Burma-Gram. For once, the algorithm was right: I loved the account.
Burma-Gram didn’t use fancy tricks or filters. Each Burma-Gram post was a reel, and each reel followed the same format: Against a background of computer-generated blue sky and green grass, four or five white-on-red signs told a brief rhyming story. A final sign read simply “Burma-Gram.”
Some of the rhymes were sweetly nonpartisan: “If you’re feeling bummed / Because it’s Sunday / Take a deep breath / At least it’s not Monday.” Some were groaners: “On this Father’s Day / Though your kids may scorn / Serve up some dad jokes / Make ’em eat pop-corn.” But others carried pointed messages: Oppose Trump, take precautions to stop Covid, enact stricter gun laws (“Latest shooting / More blown away / Reps will do nothing / Thanks NRA.”)
The account had nothing to do with the country of Myanmar (formerly Burma), and the profile revealed nothing about the author. Instead, it said only: “Burma-Shave jingles (Google it) for the Instagram era. Click a pic and swipe left. 👈”
As it happened, I didn’t need to Google it. I’d read about the once-ubiquitous Burma-Shave signs and had even written about them. But how many other Instagram users…
