How memes help commodify comedy
If Marty McFly had travelled to 2019 instead of 2015, how would you explain the concept of a meme to him?
It is now 2019 and we have yet to reach peak-meme. The future imagined by Robert Zemeckis a few decades ago had flying cars, self-lacing shoes, and time travel — but we got memes instead…oh, and the shoes too I guess. That is not to say it is a disappointing time to be alive; on the contrary, technology is moving so fast that we will probably be reaching the singularity earlier than anticipated. But I digress.
Memes are currently one of the longest-lasting fads of the Internet-era (going on 10 years depending on when you pinpoint the birth of the first memes), and it turns out that explaining why is not that difficult:
- Humans thrive on feelings of relation and belonging. Memes are based on colloquial experiences that are easy to relate to, yet hard to explain.
- A picture can say a thousand words. There’s a reason why excellent painters or photographers get famous; explaining a feeling is one of the most complex tasks set before anyone trying to communicate. Memes explain feelings.
- Memes are based in comedy, no matter if the underlying theme is happy or sad. Topics previously reserved for stand-up comedians are now free play for anyone — so long as it can be distilled into a meme.
The the third bullet is the main point of my article. Comedy has been mostly the same since its inception. If you really think about the content in a show with Jerry Seinfeld, Dave Chapelle, or Kevin Hart, you will realize that it is mostly anecdotes, or observations from everyday life, with a twist. That twist is usually reductio ad absurdum, meaning the writer extends the scenario to an extreme to prove a point, or in this case: to make it funny — sound like anything you know? Memes work in exactly the same way: everyday life + feelings + reductio ad absurdum = meme. Any massively distributed media, whether it be through traditional channels or on the Internet, is fair game in 2019; everything is eternal on the Internet.
Now if anyone has the ‘solve-all’ formula for how to go viral, just hit me up on social media!
