--- title: Mean Girls Inspires Hilarious Meme at 2018 Tony Awards description: The Broadway production of 'Mean Girls' went home empty-handed after the 2018 Tony Awards — and everyone had the same joke about it. canonical: https://time.com/5308383/tonys-mean-girls-joke/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-06-11T17:00:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:53:21.117Z og:title: Everyone Had the Same Joke About Mean Girls At the Tonys og:description: The Broadway musical adaptation didn't end up taking home any awards og:url: https://time.com/5308383/tonys-mean-girls-joke/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Everyone Had the Same Joke About Mean Girls At the Tonys twitter:description: The Broadway musical adaptation didn't end up taking home any awards twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Everyone Made the Same Joke About _Mean Girls_ at the Tony Awards > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=5c8e67ca-6ccd-4bbc-bce6-b4596e216575&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1)  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Jun 11, 2018 5:00 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Jun 11, 2018 5:00 PM UTC At Sunday night’s [2018 Tony Awards](http://time.com/5307702/2018-tony-awards-best-moments/) in New York City, one of Broadway’s most popular debuts of the year came away empty-handed: [_Mean Girls_](http://time.com/4876937/mean-girls-musical-cast/). The stage adaptation of [Tina Fey](http://time.com/5264321/tina-fey-mean-girls-fetch-happen/)‘s beloved cult [classic movie](http://time.com/5135301/lindsay-lohan-mean-girls-lines-video/) was up for twelve nominations, but ultimately lost out on all counts as [_The Band’s Visit_](http://time.com/5307739/tony-awards-harry-potter-best-play/), starring Tony Shalhoub and Katrina Lenk in a subtle, haunting performance of missed connections, nearly swept the musical categories. (_Mean Girls_ was nominated for Best Musical, Best Book, Best Original Score, Best Actress in a Musical and more, all of which it did not ultimately win. In fact, it was the most-nominated show alongside the [_SpongeBob SquarePants_](http://time.com/collection-post/3103815/spongebob-squarepants/) Broadway adaptation.) So of course fans and spectators had plenty to say about the way the _Mean Girls_ situation played out. Mainly, since the original movie gifted pop culture with so many memorable lines, the internet was ready to bring some levity to the moment — using the show’s own script as a blueprint for the jokes to come. Harkening back to the classroom scene in which a visiting Santa Claus bestows holiday Candy Cane-grams upon some students (but not, unfortunately, [Gretchen Wieners](http://meangirls.wikia.com/wiki/Gretchen%5FWieners)), internet jokesters had the perfect architecture to turn the _Mean Girls_ loss into a Twitter-worthy meme. > [](https://twitter.com/LaVieTheatre/status/1006010198442602496) > [](https://twitter.com/yeahchalkley/status/1006011169428131846) > [](https://twitter.com/veepthroat/status/1006008759079133184) > [](https://twitter.com/lbyrnthndreams/status/1006034248774512640) > [](https://twitter.com/amdeeeeeee/status/1006008853169917952) Of course, some saw an upside to the shut-out. > [](https://twitter.com/mattredmond22/status/1006206448395804673) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5308383/tonys-mean-girls-joke/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5308383/tonys-mean-girls-joke/"},"headline":"Everyone Made the Same Joke About Mean Girls at the Tony Awards","datePublished":"2018-06-11T17:00:21.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:53:21.117Z","description":"\"None for you, Mean Girls\"","url":"https://time.com/5308383/tonys-mean-girls-joke/","keywords":["Newsfeed","mean girls","viral","Theater"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Raisa Bruner","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5308383/tonys-mean-girls-joke/","name":"Everyone Made the Same Joke About Mean Girls at the Tony Awards"}}]}] ```