Between the Emojis: Nicki Minaj’s Response to Seth Rogen

Within minutes of me  posting Seth Rogen’s response to discovering that he was in a Nicki Minaj song, she tweeted him back, “Seth You’re My Hero!!!”

I made a movie like SETH RO!!! #YouAlreadyKnow Go check out the video on VEVO now!!! cc: @Fergie Seth, you’re my hero!!! https://t.co/Rl0hbO0RPI

— NICKI MINAJ (@NICKIMINAJ) September 13, 2017

The emojis around Minaj’s calling Rogen her hero tell an interesting story about her regard for Rogen.  They can – because he likes to efface the line between his life and his comic characters – be read in terms of an ambiguous relationship between the schlemiel and the beloved that we see (time and time again) in many a schlemiel routine.  The schlemiel – as many American versions of the character tell us – is either a cuckhold or a nice guy (but not a lover).  See, for instance, this video by Lil Dicky (someone who works in the same circles of Minaj), which shows this idea is alive in 2017.

Nicki’s tweet begins with an emoji that suggests that she is laughing so hard that she is crying.  And after she says “Seth, you’re my hero!!!” she punctures with one emoji that expresses utter sadness (that this is true) and an emoji with a wink.

In other words the message to Rogen’s “losing it” (as one zine says it) is mixed.  (His tweet – as a side note – had 200,000 more likes than Minaj’s.)

I got name dropped by @NICKIMINAJ in a song so I’M FUCKING GOOD YA’LL.

— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) September 13, 2017

The mixed message is for the schlemiel the two expressions basically say,  “Your not my real Hero” but we are friends.  I’m not really dissing you but I am.  Its the charm of the schlemiel that makes him a friend…not a lover and not a hero.  His heroism is – as Ruth Wisse says at the outset of her book The Schlemiel as Modern Hero – ironic.     The irony is that he’s not a real man.  Not one that Minaj would call a hero.  But he’s a nice man, a funny guy, she can share a laugh with and have some fun.

Playing on the spoof interview show by Zack Galifiianakis, “Between the Ferns,” I’d say that the message to the schlemiel, from one of the most desired women in the world today, is between the emojis.