2 ms·

As a benign Internet phenomenon, I personally don't get memes. At all. I see how some people might like them, I understand the jokes, but they just don't entert

As a benign Internet phenomenon, I personally don't get memes. At all. I see how some people might like them, I understand the jokes, but they just don't entertain me and the lack of originality (inherent to the format) irks me. Whenever someone puts up an otherwise excellent piece of writing on some topic and includes memes to 'lighten it up', I struggle to fight the automatic impulse to disqualify the author. I severely dislike the way a lot of memes use images or videos of people caught on camera doing something odd or stupid, who in the worst case end up being ridiculed for years by millions of strangers just because they looked silly. But the concept of memes is exploited in an explicitly malign manner too. Anyone who has come across that type of meme knows what I mean; the thought terminating clichés which push one or another form of hate by means of seemingly innocent ridicule and jocularity. Anti-Semitic, trans-hate, gay-hate, political mudslinging, dehumanizing of refugees. Often you can't even tell which are the output of genuine troll factories like the one in Saint Petersburg, or just edgy teenage shrieking. These hitch a ride along in the broader meme culture, and for enabling that type of discourse alone I personally hate the whole concept of memes. I think the damage they do and have done as a delivery vehicle for hate to society worldwide is severely underestimated, and we lack defence mechanism against this phenomenon. <meme ref"Old man yells at cloud"/> (The fact that this jest will accurately identify one specific image to 95% of the readers is in itself testament to the effectiveness of memes as a viral vector for societal diseases (i.e., hate) as well.)

hnbad 3y ago
I think there's a significant distinction, at least among younger generations: memes like "old man yells at cloud" (or "surprised pikachu") aren't used to make you laugh. It may produce a short smile sometimes or it may have made you chuckle the first time you saw it but it's so widely known at this point that it acts more like a shorthand for a shared cultural context. The "KEKW" emote the article mentions falls into this category: yes, it's used as a reaction but like an emoji it's neither to be understand literally (you're not literally cry laughing like a dolphin) nor is it meant to be hilarious, it represents that specific reaction - and more likely than not in an ironic way. I've seen older people (elder Gen X and beyond) belly laugh at "stale" memes and even multiple iterations of the same meme template but not so much for younger people (young Millenials and below), the same way you wouldn't laugh at a Shakespearean metaphor that has become a regular turn of phrase. I think on the whole, thanks to the evolution of memes on social media (e.g. the entire iterations of "deep frying" that went through various forms of maximalism, minimalism, absurdism and deconstruction, e.g. "Steamed Hams but ordered by phonemes") many younger people don't think of memes as "jokes" as much as "toys" to experiment with as a form of self-expression. I think there may be another generational divide between Millenials and Gen Z where Millenials will more readily use memes and "GIFs" as a form of canned reply but I'm too out of touch to analyze that further.
- elthran 3y ago
  > I'm too out of touch to analyze that further You're not out of touch, it's the kids that are wrong!

hnbad 3y ago

I think there's a significant distinction, at least among younger generations: memes like "old man yells at cloud" (or "surprised pikachu") aren't used to make you laugh. It may produce a short smile sometimes or it may have made you chuckle the first time you saw it but it's so widely known at this point that it acts more like a shorthand for a shared cultural context. The "KEKW" emote the article mentions falls into this category: yes, it's used as a reaction but like an emoji it's neither to be understand literally (you're not literally cry laughing like a dolphin) nor is it meant to be hilarious, it represents that specific reaction - and more likely than not in an ironic way. I've seen older people (elder Gen X and beyond) belly laugh at "stale" memes and even multiple iterations of the same meme template but not so much for younger people (young Millenials and below), the same way you wouldn't laugh at a Shakespearean metaphor that has become a regular turn of phrase. I think on the whole, thanks to the evolution of memes on social media (e.g. the entire iterations of "deep frying" that went through various forms of maximalism, minimalism, absurdism and deconstruction, e.g. "Steamed Hams but ordered by phonemes") many younger people don't think of memes as "jokes" as much as "toys" to experiment with as a form of self-expression. I think there may be another generational divide between Millenials and Gen Z where Millenials will more readily use memes and "GIFs" as a form of canned reply but I'm too out of touch to analyze that further.

elthran 3y ago
> I'm too out of touch to analyze that further You're not out of touch, it's the kids that are wrong!