Memetic Futures

The internet, though a wonderful tool in many aspects, has brought quite a few interesting twists (to say the least) to western society. It’s sped up communications to the point of instantaneous transmission, leading to what used to be considered only time enough for a rush-job into perfectly adequate time for completing an assignment or project. Though this has obvious implications for business and other more formal aspects of our li(v)es, the effect that I’d like to focus on is that of our culture. Internet culture is a thing now, and despite growing up with it it’s still confusing and surprising to myself now and then. However, one of the most prevalent things that internet culture has created is the “meme”, usually an image or phrase that communicates an idea that is usually imbued with humorous connotations then. 

These memes used to become popular through a few image-boards, posting them and then making fun of how simplistic or counter-intuitive they were, or even just some mildly funny aspect of it that was blown way out of proportion to make it ironically humorous. The latter portion of this is where the seeds for the present were sown, in shameless irony. Back before the turn of the decade, memes were generated at a relatively low rate, perhaps a new one popping up every few weeks, maybe once a week if it was a really sizzling day. These elder-memes would be posted with frequency at the time of origination, but then quickly toned down until it became one of the whole pool of memes, never being over-used or relied upon to create a punchline in and of itself. Around 2012 though, that all started to change. Memes were suddenly being produced at a much higher rate, the internet catching onto the idea of them and having quite a blast while doing so. For a span of a few years, the web kept churning them out at ever increasing speeds- until it started to leak. 

                           One of the earlier memes, Shoop da Whoop, based on a Dragonball Z parody

Suddenly, brands and stores started to sell and produce physical copies of memes, be it on clothing or other items. The internet’s meme culture was seeping out into the real world, and this led to only more memes being created. The whole internet was swept into a veritable meme-frenzy, producing dozens a day and posting them everywhere it could. The lifespan of a meme’s originality and humor was no longer months or even years, it became days if not hours. The natural progression of this would be for the dead horse to just be buried and done with it, but then irony crept into the mix. 

Around 2014, horrifically overused memes started to be posted again, only this time with the context of ironically laughing at them. People were no longer finding humor in the actual content of the meme, but instead in the notion of it being laughed at in the first place. It reached the level of meta-irony around early 2015, where even the irony wasn't funny anymore to the majority crowd. Instead of being original and coming up with different ideas, they instead added another layer of irony- posting an already ironic meme and laughing at how un-ironic the posting of it became. The signifiers of irony and humor became one in the same at this point, something no longer being considered entertaining unless it was an ironic, self-referential mockery of itself. 

This too spilled over, reaching what I would consider to be a boiling point when someone ironically spent 5000$ on purchasing “rare pepes” from a seller on ebay (or even more, though this bid likely didn't go through)- images of a poorly-drawn frog that were considered funny just due to the irony attached with posting them. An ironic purchase of an ironically ironic image that was put up for sale ironically in the first place. Proof of purchase was then posted ironically on many sites, making people ironically laugh at the expenditure of cash. That’s six layers of irony, in case you weren’t counting. At some point, this has to reach a point where it can’t sustain itself. The ironic tirade will have to crash and burn at some point, as we’re quickly approaching just laughing at the concept of irony itself. So what will the future hold for internet culture, and the real world culture that it’s slowly but surely osmosing into? Only time will tell, but I sure hope it won’t be ironic.