He Wasn’t A Memer Boy
So she said, “See you later boy”
Memes first began dominating the internet in the early 2000s, and originally existed as photos of cute and largely acceptable phenomenon with large white text on the top and bottom, solely to be found and enjoyed by Pinterest moms and middle schoolers. Examples of early memes would include ‘grumpy cat’ or the successful baby on the beach clutching his fist in supposed victory.
Presumably, anyone with an understanding of English and traditional Eurocentric society could see a meme in the early 2000s and understand it with no context required. As time has passed and the internet has become more immersive and omnipresent, however, meme culture has adapted into something exclusive and ironic and moderately incomprehensible to the outside observer. Memes today could best be described as meta, a term evolving from internet culture that’s defined on Urban Dictionary as being “about the thing itself. It’s seeing the thing from a higher perspective instead of from within the thing, like being self-aware.”
Examples provided include making a movie about filmmaking, or using a footnote to explain what footnotes are (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=meta).
Memes today are structured based off of the knowledge that their consumers are probably spending a lot of time looking at other memes, so they incorporate elaborate layers of self-deprecating irony. One of the boldest examples of this extensive knowledge network that can be provided is the relatively recent internet sensation of the orange cylinder, a trend utterly nonsensical to anyone who is not regularly immersed in meme subculture. The meme was just that: a photo of an orange cylinder. The meme had no meaning, and that was what made it so hilariously exclusive to regular meme subscribers.
The vast majority of society’s members could not understand, and are defined as “normies,” or those who don’t spend enough hours looking at these viral images to understand their ironic nature.
It seems unlikely that a group of unrelated internet subscribers could develop a reality so vast and all-encompassing that it would encroach on the realities of life outside of a monitor, but that is exactly what has happened. The particular brand of self-awareness and acknowledgment of layered futility that correlates with meme culture has become a personality type, and something that can not be turned on or off with the presence or absence of an actual meme. The subculture is largely involuntary, and it’s surprisingly easy for those immersed in meme culture to find others who are the same. The second I open my mouth to make any sort of cultural reference (which compose a large fraction of the modern millennial dialect), the niche to which I subscribe is made evident.
Roughly a year ago, I deleted around half of my social media accounts and got rid of the apps for the rest of them because I was tired of spending more time in a virtual world than the real one. Despite my current lack of daily immersion in online discourse, however, I’m still easily able to forge relationships with other participants in meme culture because I’ve subconsciously adopted the community’s mindset and sense of humor.
A helpful guide for finding meme lords in the natural world would include listening for words like “boi” used in verbal comparison. For example, a good friend of mine of the opposite gender recently tried to make a move on me due to my stunning personality and rockin’ bod, and in my distress I described the situation as “one healthy platonic friendship versus one attractive boi.”
Other dead give-aways include references to the 2001 American computer-animated film “Shrek,” bearing particular weight on the iconic song “All Star” by Smashmouth that was used in its soundtrack,
and nonsensical sexual euphemisms following the pattern of “I’ll — — — YOUR — — -.”
These hints are only helpful momentarily, however, because the culture is defined by trends that change almost daily, so by definition a comprehensive list of meme references cannot be formulated.
Meme subculture incorporates a gloriously vast range of individuals, as only relatively anonymous internet societies can. Some areas of cohesion among the population do exist; although never explicitly stated, the underlying themes found in the vast majority of memes provide evidence for implicit beliefs. One section of unmentioned agreement is that most members of the meme subculture are liberal, oftentimes even trending toward democratic socialism.
Another, less subtle demographic among extensive internet users is that a large and saddening percentage of them suffer from mental illness, but rather than attempting healthy coping mechanisms like therapy they choose instead to find solace in the anxiety and depression of other internet users.
Meme subculture has provided and strange and unprecedented safe space wherein introverts and the socially dysfunctional can express their issues and be reassured that they are not alone by showcasing bad mental health in an impersonal joke format, rather than something intimate and intimidating.
Meme culture doesn’t even look like something that exists to an outsider, and often the members are not fully aware of their own immersion and the way it shapes their perception of the entire world, rather than just internet visuals.
When the media one consistently intakes is layered with irony, that mindset becomes potent in every relationship and situation they encounter. In my own experience, I have noticed that I am significantly more comfortable around other people whose personalities have been shaped and altered by meme subculture, because our way of interacting with the world has an unprecedented number of similarities. I know that I can reference a Vine from three years ago and they’ll be able to build onto my joke without even comprehending that it’s happening, and I know that I can joke about existentialism and depression without them fearing for my mental health. More than likely, they’ll just contribute with more ironic and humorous nihilistic subtleties. To a normie, meme lords just look like people who occasionally glance up from their phones in order to crack jokes that aren’t funny. To someone intimately inundated with the culture, however, meme subculture is a potent reality and an all-encompassing way of life.
