Depending on the contents of your For You page, there’s a good chance you’ve seen a few edits of a particularly unconventional pair swarming the screen. Dubbed “Plasticpunk” by its surging fanbase, the coupling of Regina George from Mean Girls (2004) and Devon Bostik’s Rodrick Heffley from Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010-2012) comes out of left field for those who’ve never before come across the “crackshipping” phenomenon. In fact, Plasticpunk’s rise to fame is many netizens’ first foray into compatibility across franchises. This duo has the internet in a vicious chokehold, and upon closer examination, it’s more than clear why.
For one, the characters fall in line with digestible tropes that mesh perfectly. Rodrick is the bad boy, the older brother dressed in black with eyeliner and a grungy garage band. Regina, on the other hand, is hot pink. She’s the queen bee, a blonde socialite with a nasty bite who loves to stir trouble. Both Regina and Rodrick possess a contrarian zing that ruffles feathers in such a lovable way. The romance writes itself.
Plus, in regard to their respective movies, these characters are easily some of the most striking and memorable within the cast. Regina George and, frankly, Mean Girls as a whole, continue to dominate the cultural zeitgeist almost twenty-two years since its release. And you’d be lying if you said you didn’t have a gnarly crush on Bostik’s Rodrick back in middle school.
Originating from @monialynn‘s post featuring her fan art of Regina and Rodrick, it didn’t take long before Plasticpunk seeped into every corner of social media.
Edits that splice together movie scenes to feign interactions between the two are everywhere. They feature 2000s rock songs like The All-American Rejects’ “Dirty Little Secret,” which swiftly became the relationship’s anthem. On top of that, more fanart soon followed the original work, and over three hundred fanfictions have already emerged on sites like Archive of Our Own. Some even dressed as the couple for Halloween.
With all this excitement, it wasn’t long before the universe expanded to rope in other characters, too. From what I’ve seen, many draw comparisons between Rodrick and Janice’s alternative style to add an angsty sapphic element to the lore. There are also new ships (“relationships” in internet-speak) cropping up inspired by this new wave of franchise-mixing, such as my personal favorite, Karen Smith and Jennifer Check from the 2009 cult classic, Jennifer’s Body.
For the uninitiated, the term crackshipping describes a relationship between two characters from entirely different media (books, games, shows, films) that is more often than not impossible to achieve in canon. While it is typically a more fringe or unserious fandom activity, Plasticpunk is a prime example of crackshipping gone mainstream. Other examples of crackships that quickly established themselves as household names are Elsa and Jack Frost, Rapunzel and Hiccup, and Twilight Sparkle and Mordecai, just to name a few.
All in all, while it may be the first time you are witnessing it, crackshipping is nothing new. Whether it’s strictly comedic or passionately genuine, drawing fanart and gushing about a relationship between two characters from entirely different worlds is harmless fun that entertains fans and incites creativity.