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In all fairness, as someone who never 'understood' the 'collective mind' behind skibidi toilet (and would argue there is none, he absurdity itself is the 'meme'

In all fairness, as someone who never 'understood' the 'collective mind' behind skibidi toilet (and would argue there is none, he absurdity itself is the 'meme' - a term used very loosely here, considering memes of yesteryear did in fact transport messages), the Zeit critic sounds like he 'got' the cultural references pretty spot on (and he himself points out that the references themselves do not have to be understood to be there.

mallowdram 1y ago
The point is that memes replace stodgy narratives, which are dinosaurs (news, history, novels), with semantic options. You can experience this as meaningless, or in well designed memewarefare, you can sense the density and how/where it applies to the culture today and sense that it has something to add when it's archaeology.
- DocTomoe 1y ago
  By definition, a meme is an idea, image, phrase, or piece of behaviour that spreads through imitation—usually because it captures something funny, relatable, or sharply true about human experience. These are as old as mankind itself. All major religions are essentially meme-conglomerates. 'Music to invade Poland to' is a memetic concept, so is the dies-irae-theme in all music since the 1400s. Memes itself are 'sodgy narratives, and dinosaur-like news, history, or novels (hell, novels are meme-machines - they have sprung everyhing from quintessential fantasy races to actual mythofascist-occult ideas to bona fide suicide waves). I'd argue that behaviours/media/ideas eventually need to be at least explainable to a significant part of a culture to become memes. You can explain 'Courage Wolf' to a completely uninitiated person of average intelligence in 30 seconds. You can explain 'Trollface' in a minute (with the whole cast in two more). Skibidi Toilet escapes such explanations and is thus not, IMHO, a meme format. It's viral, not memetic, it spreads, but does not encode universally-understood meaning. There's no payload, just absurd emptiness.
  - mallowdram 1y ago
    [dead]
  - aj_hackman 1y ago
    > All major religions are essentially meme-conglomerates. This is quite the reduction, akin to claiming that my wife and I got married because human beings are a pair-bonding species - it checks out on the surface, but discards an incredible breadth and depth of human experience. I do not close my eyes at night and talk to a loose collection of ideas cobbled together by a bunch of random people attempting to outline a system of objective morality in the pursuit of societal control. I am participating in an eternal relationship with the author of truth and love. > There's no payload, just absurd emptiness. It's developed a commentary on internet culture vs. legacy media.
    - dusted 1y ago
      > This is quite the reduction, ... Thank you, that spawned this notion in my head, I wonder why. It’s funny, I think, how quickly people dismiss the subjective experience of a crackhead having an ecstatic conversation with God or the universe — yet insist that the depth of their own experience of love, religion, or meditation can’t possibly be reduced to neurotransmitters.
      - lioeters 1y ago
        > love, religion, or meditation can’t possibly be reduced to neurotransmitters You can reduce all of human experience to chemistry, but you'd be missing most of the meaning, understanding, and wisdom of it. (If there is any, in the case of the cracked visionary.)
      - aj_hackman 1y ago
        > insist that the depth of their own experience of love, religion, or meditation can’t possibly be reduced to neurotransmitters To bring things full circle and quote a dead meme, why not get you a girl who can do both?
  - 1y ago
the_gipsy 1y ago
He did not get the refrences at all. Of course you don't need to understand all refrences to "get it", but he doesn't really bring anything to the table. From what I remember, the spinning animal goes deeper, the videogame-like spinning food like items go deeper. There are so many layers to it, that is what's interesting.

mallowdram 1y ago

The point is that memes replace stodgy narratives, which are dinosaurs (news, history, novels), with semantic options. You can experience this as meaningless, or in well designed memewarefare, you can sense the density and how/where it applies to the culture today and sense that it has something to add when it's archaeology.

DocTomoe 1y ago
By definition, a meme is an idea, image, phrase, or piece of behaviour that spreads through imitation—usually because it captures something funny, relatable, or sharply true about human experience. These are as old as mankind itself. All major religions are essentially meme-conglomerates. 'Music to invade Poland to' is a memetic concept, so is the dies-irae-theme in all music since the 1400s. Memes itself are 'sodgy narratives, and dinosaur-like news, history, or novels (hell, novels are meme-machines - they have sprung everyhing from quintessential fantasy races to actual mythofascist-occult ideas to bona fide suicide waves). I'd argue that behaviours/media/ideas eventually need to be at least explainable to a significant part of a culture to become memes. You can explain 'Courage Wolf' to a completely uninitiated person of average intelligence in 30 seconds. You can explain 'Trollface' in a minute (with the whole cast in two more). Skibidi Toilet escapes such explanations and is thus not, IMHO, a meme format. It's viral, not memetic, it spreads, but does not encode universally-understood meaning. There's no payload, just absurd emptiness.
- mallowdram 1y ago
  [dead]
- aj_hackman 1y ago
  > All major religions are essentially meme-conglomerates. This is quite the reduction, akin to claiming that my wife and I got married because human beings are a pair-bonding species - it checks out on the surface, but discards an incredible breadth and depth of human experience. I do not close my eyes at night and talk to a loose collection of ideas cobbled together by a bunch of random people attempting to outline a system of objective morality in the pursuit of societal control. I am participating in an eternal relationship with the author of truth and love. > There's no payload, just absurd emptiness. It's developed a commentary on internet culture vs. legacy media.
  - dusted 1y ago
    > This is quite the reduction, ... Thank you, that spawned this notion in my head, I wonder why. It’s funny, I think, how quickly people dismiss the subjective experience of a crackhead having an ecstatic conversation with God or the universe — yet insist that the depth of their own experience of love, religion, or meditation can’t possibly be reduced to neurotransmitters.
    - lioeters 1y ago
      > love, religion, or meditation can’t possibly be reduced to neurotransmitters You can reduce all of human experience to chemistry, but you'd be missing most of the meaning, understanding, and wisdom of it. (If there is any, in the case of the cracked visionary.)
    - aj_hackman 1y ago
      > insist that the depth of their own experience of love, religion, or meditation can’t possibly be reduced to neurotransmitters To bring things full circle and quote a dead meme, why not get you a girl who can do both?
- 1y ago

the_gipsy 1y ago

He did not get the refrences at all. Of course you don't need to understand all refrences to "get it", but he doesn't really bring anything to the table. From what I remember, the spinning animal goes deeper, the videogame-like spinning food like items go deeper. There are so many layers to it, that is what's interesting.