The inside joke everyone’s in on

A meme in modern times is a repeated joke, image, video or anything that gets copied, pasted and shared all around the internet. Just think about all the humorous pictures plastered all over Facebook: the rage comics, the troll faces and more recently, the Pepes and Harambees. Most memes start off small, and are spread among a niche group of people, and most do not travel beyond that point. However, some gain enough traction and become mainstream. At that point, memes gain a life of their own, far out of reach of the original creators and communities that birthed them. Memes spread like an infection, mutating like a virus each time they are shared out of context. Years go by, and people continue to share these punchlines without knowing the original jokes.

During the early days of the internet, there were no mainstream social media sites. Memes were spread through relatively archaic means such as email and message boards. Before search engines like Google and big social media sites like Facebook, it was much harder for memes to spread.

Memes are now a staple of internet culture, and they are something I enjoy very much. However, it makes me sad when I see a 10-year-old joke from 4chan start making its rounds through mainstream social media. People spread memes without knowing what was so funny to begin with. On top of that, some memes are so old that it’s sad to see people using them at all. Have you ever seen your parents post a meme that was used to death years before? That is the feeling I get from most mainstream memes in general.

A top tier meme is essentially an inside joke. What makes a meme funny is that only a select few people understand why it’s funny. Naturally, people want to be part of the in-crowd of an inside joke, but once everyone understands the meme or the meme gets dumbed down to the point that everyone understands it, it is officially dead.

I’m not saying that actively excluding people from enjoying memes is the right thing to do. What I am saying is that if you enjoy memes, do a little digging. Do a little research into your favorite memes, and join communities online like Reddit and 4chan that are famous for being their birthplace. Understand why memes are funny instead of blindly jumping on the bandwagon. Be there when the joke is told or be the one who tells the joke. There you can witness the birth of a meme and fully appreciate it.