Lana Del Rey and the internet are on the outs lately. Since a few outspoken outbursts about her perception as a woman — along with commentary about some of her female peers, mostly women of color — and the pointed diversity of her Chemtrails album cover, she’s been adding quite a few entries to her controversy timeline. No matter, the one time Kanye critic pulled a Kanye, and simply continued releasing hordes of new music to change the conversation.
Since then, Chemtrails and Blue Banisters have both come out, and are both quite excellent records, but Lana has also since stayed off social media. And her fans, well, most of us disagree with her comments but want to keep loving her music, a situation known to many as cognitive dissonance. Which was exactly the phrase that came to mind this weekend, when the US Army itself decided to use a quote from Lana to promote one of their female soldiers for a good old #SoldierSaturday post. “‘Being brave means knowing that when you fail, you don’t fail forever.’ -Lana Del Rey,” they wrote on Twitter, along with the image of a female soldier crawling through the mud.
"Being brave means knowing that when you fail, you don’t fail forever." -Lana Del Rey
📸 by Markus Rauchenberger#SoldierSaturday pic.twitter.com/57Aa4TnT2R
— U.S. Army (@USArmy) January 22, 2022
Between jokes about Lana fans being so depressed about her recent comments that they’d want to join the army, to digs about what kind of physical shape Lana fans are actually in, the internet had a field day with this one. Check out reactions to the strange pairing below.
https://twitter.com/RyanGirdusky/status/1485340945373667331
https://twitter.com/lucydacus/status/1485339789343674371
The army subliminally recruiting Born To Die girlies https://t.co/VtSWzQsnrt
— GL (@gldivittorio) January 23, 2022
US Army recruiting Lana stans because they know they are depressed and have nothing left to lose. https://t.co/gikTNG0Frc
— 🪩🤷🏻♂️🪩 (@NAWaggoner) January 23, 2022
pls😭they tryna recruit the girlies whos diet is cigarettes n diet coke https://t.co/NPDI486hoC
— giselle (@gmpradababie) January 23, 2022
https://twitter.com/IsaacSchutz/status/1485361828011986944
The slow but sure yassification of the United States Military Industrial Complex https://t.co/0kim1ZF7fK
— Pinta Graham (@tristancox_) January 23, 2022
“It’s me your little Venice bitch” https://t.co/dnM4XWGOTz
— S.A.M (@seeairuhm) January 23, 2022
https://twitter.com/msdelicate1/status/1485362585805410310
https://twitter.com/LILACH0URS/status/1485362543992336386
This account is like the principal trying to make fetch happen so hard https://t.co/SATDbAHdMe
— nick aka (@Niwona_) January 23, 2022
this would be the funniest thing i have ever seen in my entire life if it wasn't the dystopia i live in https://t.co/HFD20Hmi1s
— tanner (@tanneroftarth) January 23, 2022