5 ms·

Ah, the days when memes were actually funny

by tomc1985 6y ago

btilly 6y ago
I remember "all your base" as a meme on Slashdot. They weren't particularly funny then, either. More generally, memes are only funny to people who are immersed in them. You were probably more immersed in the memes then so they were funny to you. And less now so they are not. But nothing fundamental has changed. Memes by their nature tend to be based on inside jokes that are only funny to the people on the inside.
- 1_2__4 6y ago
  Without commenting on what OP meant I would say memes definitely used to be more quirky and funny and lighthearted in general. Heck, originally calling them memes was because they stuck around and passed between people despite often being nonsensical. They tend to be more opinionated nowadays, and popular ones are usually topical, political, snarky, or all of the above. Not a random mistranslation of an old video game.
  - tomc1985 6y ago
    I don't know why this comment was downvoted into oblivion as you hit the nail on the head. If there is one thing I can think of that separates memeing 20 years ago from memeing today its that todays memes are far more expressive -- as if they are used as a substitute for conversation or discourse -- than funny. It seems they are overwhelmingly trying to express emotions than be lighthearted or funny. I'm part of several gaming subreddits that hold an overly hostile view of the game's developers, and the number of memes used to stab or jab at said devs outnumbers old-school "funny" memes or even the more contemporary "shared experience" memes practically two-to-one. Plus, there are all these unwritten social rules about meme templates, and indeed they seem to have their own economy of sorts. Take everything together and it seems that memes are serious business, which is stupid if you ask me. Memes are supposed to be funny and lighthearted!
    - NortySpock 6y ago
      "Supposed to be" funny, sure, but this is drifting towards "funny sad" or just anger. I think with all the frustration out there, urban red-state Millennials like myself are stuck expressing themselves in meme form since our congressional representatives (Missouri) appear to be chasing rural voters who think Biden is a scary socialist. One of these days I'll find time to grab a stamp and mail off a few memes on paper to my congressperson, since they don't seem to be reading my emails to them or listening to the voicemails I send them. To wit: "If the money to feed, clothe, and house the homeless has to come from taxing Jeff Bezos... I'm not going to lose any sleep over that."
      - tomc1985 6y ago
        Just be careful their meaning isn't lost as I doubt your congresscritter is part of the in-group that would actually get them
    - Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
      image macros have been around for 20 years as well
- xtracto 6y ago
  Other memes i remember from /. are: In soviet russia SUSTANTIVE VERBs YOU! In north korea email is for old people
  - vesinisa 6y ago
    Slashdot was ripe with memes. One of the more sinister ones was posting a comment link to something mundane looking, but it was actually a link to a .cx shock site containing "goat" in the domain name. Later it evolved into Rick Rolling, but the goat thing predated that by long. I think the prank / meme became so widespread that at some point they changed the site code to spell out the linked domain name in text after the <a>.
    - IcePic 6y ago
      Imagine a beowulf cluster of those..
      - midasuni 6y ago
        With hot grits
    - QuesnayJr 6y ago
      I fell for that one so many times that I became completely desensitized to the picture.
    - midasuni 6y ago
      The goatse meme lived on until 2012 when the bbc broadcast an Olympic logo suggestion based on it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YXyTn3-bluk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YXyTn3-bluk
      - mauvehaus 6y ago
        And instead we got one that's been described as "Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob". I'm not sure we did better.
  - 6y ago
- tomc1985 6y ago
  I don't know if I've ever been immersed in 'memes', in fact I don't think you really could be immersed in them around the turn of the century. They were just amusing gifs being passed back and forth, that seemed to be especially good at catching peoples' eyes. Think dancing baby, zombo.com, cheezburger cat... they were funny, we passed em on, that was that. I do remember saving the ones I liked in a 'funny pics' folder -- which I still have -- but I'm not sure there were very many people 'immersed' in them any more than any other fringe part of internet nerd culture. That said, AYB was probably the first meme I ever 'immersed' in, in that it was the right combination of weird and zany and that it fit my zeitgeist back in the day. But then icanhazcheezburger.com and KnowYourMeme came around, and that their efforts to collect and categorize probably marked the beginning of the end.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fullshark 6y ago
Yes when we were 15 years old
mhh__ 6y ago
I absolutely love the variation and thought that goes into many a meme these days. Bad memes are awful (Sturgeons law), but a good meme is cheap fun that I can consume in a second
- tomc1985 6y ago
  Sure there's lots of variation but they seem to be little more than people trying to passive-aggressively express some agenda or frustration, most of the time.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
idk, when memes became mainstream (I'm thinking mainly of the heaps and heaps of impact font advice animals and rage comics) they weren't funny. I prefer the absurd ones nowadays, the endless rapid fire clip shows on youtube, etc.

Ah, the days when memes were actually funny

I remember "all your base" as a meme on Slashdot. They weren't particularly funny then, either. More generally, memes are only funny to people who are immersed in them. You were probably more immersed in the memes then so they were funny to you. And less now so they are not. But nothing fundamental has changed. Memes by their nature tend to be based on inside jokes that are only funny to the people on the inside.

1_2__4 6y ago
Without commenting on what OP meant I would say memes definitely used to be more quirky and funny and lighthearted in general. Heck, originally calling them memes was because they stuck around and passed between people despite often being nonsensical. They tend to be more opinionated nowadays, and popular ones are usually topical, political, snarky, or all of the above. Not a random mistranslation of an old video game.
- tomc1985 6y ago
  I don't know why this comment was downvoted into oblivion as you hit the nail on the head. If there is one thing I can think of that separates memeing 20 years ago from memeing today its that todays memes are far more expressive -- as if they are used as a substitute for conversation or discourse -- than funny. It seems they are overwhelmingly trying to express emotions than be lighthearted or funny. I'm part of several gaming subreddits that hold an overly hostile view of the game's developers, and the number of memes used to stab or jab at said devs outnumbers old-school "funny" memes or even the more contemporary "shared experience" memes practically two-to-one. Plus, there are all these unwritten social rules about meme templates, and indeed they seem to have their own economy of sorts. Take everything together and it seems that memes are serious business, which is stupid if you ask me. Memes are supposed to be funny and lighthearted!
  - NortySpock 6y ago
    "Supposed to be" funny, sure, but this is drifting towards "funny sad" or just anger. I think with all the frustration out there, urban red-state Millennials like myself are stuck expressing themselves in meme form since our congressional representatives (Missouri) appear to be chasing rural voters who think Biden is a scary socialist. One of these days I'll find time to grab a stamp and mail off a few memes on paper to my congressperson, since they don't seem to be reading my emails to them or listening to the voicemails I send them. To wit: "If the money to feed, clothe, and house the homeless has to come from taxing Jeff Bezos... I'm not going to lose any sleep over that."
    - tomc1985 6y ago
      Just be careful their meaning isn't lost as I doubt your congresscritter is part of the in-group that would actually get them
  - Jon_Lowtek 6y ago
    image macros have been around for 20 years as well
xtracto 6y ago
Other memes i remember from /. are: In soviet russia SUSTANTIVE VERBs YOU! In north korea email is for old people
- vesinisa 6y ago
  Slashdot was ripe with memes. One of the more sinister ones was posting a comment link to something mundane looking, but it was actually a link to a .cx shock site containing "goat" in the domain name. Later it evolved into Rick Rolling, but the goat thing predated that by long. I think the prank / meme became so widespread that at some point they changed the site code to spell out the linked domain name in text after the <a>.
  - IcePic 6y ago
    Imagine a beowulf cluster of those..
    - midasuni 6y ago
      With hot grits
  - QuesnayJr 6y ago
    I fell for that one so many times that I became completely desensitized to the picture.
  - midasuni 6y ago
    The goatse meme lived on until 2012 when the bbc broadcast an Olympic logo suggestion based on it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YXyTn3-bluk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YXyTn3-bluk
    - mauvehaus 6y ago
      And instead we got one that's been described as "Lisa Simpson giving a blowjob". I'm not sure we did better.
- 6y ago
tomc1985 6y ago
I don't know if I've ever been immersed in 'memes', in fact I don't think you really could be immersed in them around the turn of the century. They were just amusing gifs being passed back and forth, that seemed to be especially good at catching peoples' eyes. Think dancing baby, zombo.com, cheezburger cat... they were funny, we passed em on, that was that. I do remember saving the ones I liked in a 'funny pics' folder -- which I still have -- but I'm not sure there were very many people 'immersed' in them any more than any other fringe part of internet nerd culture. That said, AYB was probably the first meme I ever 'immersed' in, in that it was the right combination of weird and zany and that it fit my zeitgeist back in the day. But then icanhazcheezburger.com and KnowYourMeme came around, and that their efforts to collect and categorize probably marked the beginning of the end.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

fullshark 6y ago

Yes when we were 15 years old

mhh__ 6y ago

I absolutely love the variation and thought that goes into many a meme these days. Bad memes are awful (Sturgeons law), but a good meme is cheap fun that I can consume in a second

tomc1985 6y ago
Sure there's lots of variation but they seem to be little more than people trying to passive-aggressively express some agenda or frustration, most of the time.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

idk, when memes became mainstream (I'm thinking mainly of the heaps and heaps of impact font advice animals and rage comics) they weren't funny. I prefer the absurd ones nowadays, the endless rapid fire clip shows on youtube, etc.