Archie Comics proves once and for all that it’s a modern brand with royal baby meme tweet

Archie Comics has, until recently, been a hallmark of old-fashioned Americana. Its red-headed protagonist drove a jalopy, drank milkshakes with his “gang” at Pop Tate’s Chocklit Shoppe, and is best pals with a guy who wears a whoopee cap named Jughead. Despite the efforts of gritty TV shows and a whole bunch of edgy comic spin-offs, Archie has always seemed impossible to uncouple from his place as a symbol of the mid-20th century.

But now, he’s finally shed this reputation. All it took was the Archie Comics Twitter account chiming in on a current event with two simple words: “i’m baby.”

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This message, which will surely be followed up by a new issue where Big Ethel does the Tide Pod challenge to get Jughead’s attention, was shared following the news that everyone’s favorite rich people who hate having last names, Meghan, Duchess Of Sussex, and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, announced their newborn boy will be called Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.

Having kept the world in suspense for the two entire days that make up this royal baby’s life so far, headlines have been filled with all sorts of details about his parents doing regular new parent things (only more importantly) and commentary on the choice to name the gilded little diaper-filler after your grandad’s favorite funny books.

None of this matters next to the only media commentary worth reading: Archie Comics recognizing the homage finally paid to them by the British monarchy through one of the internet’s most delightfully stupid memes. “i’m baby,” their social media stated and, with that, Archie vaulted into the modern world, triumphing over his antiquated image with a tweet acknowledging the even more antiquated image of a royal family anyone takes seriously.

Everyone benefits from this. We plebeians enjoy laughing at the kind of lowbrow joke we’re able to understand and Archie Comics gets to look cutting-edge in a way no amount of CW and Netflix series can accomplish. Best of all, the royalty has opened the door to a wide variety of comic book names to use in the future, allowing us to look forward to Duke Dilton, Princess Grundy, or, if the world is kind enough, maybe even King Moose I.

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