Please read this post, as this is not a 'post your favorite meme' thread.

A little background, first. In 2007, few months before I discovered Menewsha, I discovered 4chan. If you don't know what 4chan is, you're probably better off; it is where probably 70% of internet memes came from, and is affectionately referred to as the Internet's asshole.

2008 was the year that 'trollface' first surfaced. At the time, the use of trollface was funny, fresh, and original. The same year, rage comics were introduced, also a refreshing breath of life into the tepid sewer that is 4chan. It seemed like things were taking a turn for the better, with original content seeing a huge increase.

Fast-forward to the year 2012. Trollface and rage comics are still popular, but are almost one in the same. Internet memes are almost interchangeable: rage face, troll face, forever alone, me gusta, and the like. Image macros are as simple as taking a picture, putting it on a multicolored background and giving it a name like "hipster kitty."

Now if you're anything like the rest of the internet, you like this stuff. For me, this stuff is tripe. Maybe it's because I was around for its creation and it's just lost its magic to me, but I feel like it's more than that. I have yet to see any original content come out of 4chan in the last few years, and this has been made worse by the entire Cheezburger Network (ragebuilder, LOLcats), and 9gag.

My intent is not to start a flame war here, but please. If you think this stuff is funny, please explain to me why. I just really cannot wrap my head around why using the word 'le' and posting the same pictures that have been posted for the last 4 years is funny.

I think it's the fact that younger and younger audiences are coming onto the internet these days and these things are still new to them, thus they are being constantly rekindled.

Since I to have been on the internet for awhile now, I find myself agreeing with your observations.

I've been a redditor for the last three years (my cake day was last week actually. yay karma! ^^) and I had to unsubscribe from f7u12 because it gets boring after awhile.. I do like the classic rage comics with the four panels. It's simple and make me smile at the tiny rages we all get, like running out of milk or the dog not pooping when he wants to go out.

As for all these new memes coming out.. Awkward Penguin, First World Problems, all that jazz. It's fun to see them every few days, but I think people are just making up new ones just to seem cool and half the time they aren't even funny, just whiny and dull. The "all the things" from Hyperbole and a Half blog hurts me because I love that girl and the comic she used that picture in was about how she's struggling about being an adult and doing adult things like clean the house, go shopping, eat healthy.. I don't know, it just feels weird seeing other people using her images. But it's the internet and that sort of stuff happens.

Oh! Also high-five for /b/tards! A very sad, and sick high-five.

Originally Posted by Artifex

I think it's the fact that younger and younger audiences are coming onto the internet these days and these things are still new to them, thus they are being constantly rekindled.

I might believe that, but on the other hand, I'm 19 years old and people in my age group are still all over this. Perhaps it's just a new thing to them, but I can't imagine how any of these current 'memes' stay funny for more than a few days, especially with how far they get spread now. They all used to be pretty much confined to 4chan or Something Awful (depending on where they started) and would gradually leak out. Now they get spread via Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other small social networking sites.

I think a lot of it is that it is still new to a lot of people. I like rage comics, they make me laugh :ninja: and a good meme will too.

I think a good example of old news being new to others is something I saw that made me giggle at the time. How old is Numa numa now, hmm? But last summer, a bunch of young guys drove past me with that blasting out of their crappy car. You can bet your life that they just found Gary Brolsma on Youtube or wherever so it was fresh and new to them.

I wonder how much they'd have wanted to die, if they'd known that a female twice their age knew what they were listening to, and was laughing at them because that stuff is so old now :lol:

To me it depends on how they're used. Sometimes I find it funny while other times I think "Arg...another one".

Eh, I like funny things. If it's funny I'll laugh. Some memes, no matter how old or over used are funny to me. Some just aren't. And it's also how it's used, the context and of course the content.

Plus I don't deal with 4chan or whatever so I'm now drowning in memes either, I haven't seen one in a few days. So I guess over saturation could be a problem as well.

I still think memes are funny :D

I think that memes mostly appeal to younger audiences or those of which who are easily amused, like myself.
Although, there are some good memes that stay pretty funny for awhile, but they've already went and gone.
Of course after being around the internet the majority of my life only the best memes are funny to me any more.
Maybe you just aren't as easily amused as me, maybe you just saw them more often then i did, or maybe a combination of the two. If you don't like memes it's fine, it's not like your starting a fight, lol.

That's my 2 cents worth :D

The internet by its nature likes distractions, and it likes them in small doses. For people like you, Pkero, with a good attention span, memes can get tiring and grating, for sure. But the rest of the netizens, it's right up their alley.

Originally Posted by Cardinal Biggles

The internet by its nature likes distractions, and it likes them in small doses. For people like you, Pkero, with a good attention span, memes can get tiring and grating, for sure. But the rest of the netizens, it's right up their alley.

It's not so much memes that bother me, as it is the ones that are repeats. Take Advice Dog and every single spin-off it's caused. They're just all the same copy-pasted zero-effort jokes over and over again. I feel like even the best jokes lose their comedic value after awhile, so I don't understand why this stuff continues to thrive years after the horse was beaten to death.

Like this meme for instance:


Still makes me laugh every time, mostly because I don't see it used very often. But this:



Ehh.

When places like reddit, 9gag, facebook, etc get their putrid hands on something, it's time to abandon ship and move on. Just let the plebs have their fun, there's no need to get butt ravaged.

Originally Posted by Smellerbee

When places like reddit, 9gag, facebook, etc get their putrid hands on something, it's time to abandon ship and move on. Just let the plebs have their fun, there's no need to get butt ravaged.

Oh god, someone who speaks my bitter, angry language.

But you have a point. My desire to avoid this crap caused me to delete Facebook my yesterday, so I can now successfully avoid the big three.

I chalk it up to the same reason Brad and Angelina have been married so many times on the cover of tabloids -- the people who enjoy these things either have very short attention spans in general or just don't bother committing that level of entertainment to memory and forget that they've already seen that.

That and I'm pretty sure there's some sort of almost desperate mind-frame going on with some of the sites like 4chan and Cheezburger that once they know something is successfully "funny" they feel the need to OWN it, and once they own it, it's their successful thing and they can't let it die. So it continues to get spread about long past the expiration date.

Originally Posted by Mystic

To me it depends on how they're used. Sometimes I find it funny while other times I think "Arg...another one".

I agree with this.

It depends on if the meme aligns with my particular sense of humor. See, both of the examples you gave earlier didn't seem funny at all to me. The first one was incomprehensible, and the second just seemed in very poor taste.

And I do agree with the idea that it's the younger crowds that find these things and keep them alive. Take my eldest niece. She continually shows me things that I've already seen and deemed unfunny, and thinks they're the funniest thing ever.

I once got banned from 4chan. ಠ_ಠ Because I hate bacon.

I have to say I agree with you.

I admit, some of the new memes are at least somewhat funny (or they have the potential to be funny anyway), but a lot of the jokes people tack on them are just...meh. It's interesting to see them once in a while, but with people making up so many new memes it kind of ruins it. They just overuse them too much.

I don't understand the bacon thing. It kind of has a life of its own now. You know it's bad when Burger King sells bacon sundaes.

^ Or is it oh so gooood. :drool:


Memes: I'll laugh if it's funny. Don't care how old/overused it is.

I don't eat meat so I'm not too sure. :P My sister says that chocolate and bacon is the most amazing thing ever though.

I'll try that one day, if someone else has paid for it, but I'd not buy it myself :lol:

I one time saw fudge that had maple bacon on it and thought that was pretty odd.

I'm sorry, but I will never ever ever be tired of a good LOLcat.

Granted, there are a LOT LOT LOT LOT of HORRIBLE LOLcat captions. But every once in a while, a good one comes along and makes me feel warm and fuzzy and LOLLY!

Some of the ragecomics are still new to me. The rage faces themselves aren't, but if used well they can result in a really great end product!

To me, what you're saying comes across kind of like "Oh, since bread has been invented sandwiches have just been SO overdone, so we should just drop sandwiches already because I'm so tired of bread!" So I disagree; I still love sandwiches (rage comics) and people are making new ones with different kinds of bread (rage faces) all the time.

Sort of the same reason why I think you're full of yourself, and you might just think you're clever.
Stop going to 4chan; if you've grown out of it, don't force yourself into it or badger someone else for finding it humorous. We don't all spend every free waking minute surfing the bowels of the internet; we haven't seen it all, and we certainly haven't clicked links that have to do with cups and girls in pairs.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I have never been to 4Chan. I realize that's where a lot of memes come from, but I also realize that, for the most part, 4chan's content is not filtered for "quality," so if that's where you go, you're going to see a LOT of things that aren't funny or amusing. The stuff that DOES catch on because of its cleverness is the stuff that gets perpetuated to the rest of the web, where people like me consume it casually.

So to go along with my sandwich analogy, you're eating every darn thing the chefs make, and now you've sworn off your sandwiches, whereas I wait for another restaurant to pick up the best recipes and only try those. So my experience as a whole is better, simply because the content has been filtered for quality.

---------- Post added 04-20-2012 at 08:02 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Mystic

I one time saw fudge that had maple bacon on it and thought that was pretty odd.

Sorry for the late response //lazy at reading

I had maple bacon saltwater taffy last weekend (at a fudge shop!) and it actually wasn't that bad. It's definitely not my favorite taffy, but for the price (free sample! :D) it was fine for me, and I could definitely see people liking it, especially if you like maple syrup. To me, the maple overwhelmed the bacon taste.

I like fruit taffy though so I don't think I'd buy it, but I could still see it selling well because it didn't taste bad (I'd pick it over licorice flavored xD)

bacon's not worth the hubbub, not really. I'm guessing there's a hedonistic component I'm not attuned to. I used to eat meat, including bacon, and I don't really miss it.