telocaster said:
is there a meme that flat out annoys you and makes no sense? For me it is the my little pony fad. Its not really funny and it gets annoying when people obsess over it.
Oh, sweet OP. You've gone and given me a soapbox. I'm sorry for this, friends, I truly am, but you know that I cannot stop myself...
Rather than focus on specifics (besides, I've already given the bronies enough shit for like the next 2 years), let me just share my perspective as a person who spends 98% of his time on the sidelines with respect to memes. None of this is directed at a person; it's just what happens in my head when I see any meme that isn't actually pretty funny/relevant.
Shut. The fuck. Up.
I'm pretty DIY, pretty subversive. I like to keep people on their toes, and I don't like indulging cliches unless I'm mocking them or subverting them from within or lampooning them. I also have to remind myself to lighten up, as a lot of things that are popular are popular because they deserve to be. This includes slang and all cultural phenomenons. "Facepalm" still doesn't bother me one bit. Hell,
Friends references in moderation don't bother me. But encountering a person on the internet who speaks entirely in memes, in other words entirely in someone else's language, someone else's jokes, someone else's reactions/thoughts that were clever until they "went viral" (shoot me now), is exactly like meeting someone in real life who
only knows how to communicate in sitcom/reality TV references. And that, friends, is sad. It's not that I have an inherent aversion to meme usage; rather, it's relying on memes to communicate what another person apparently thinks they can't communicate better with their own words or, Hell, their own memes. Personally, when I can't come to an agreement with someone on the Escapist or when they just start telling me ad nauseum that I am stupid because I disagree with them, rather than flame with them I look up an image of Fez from
That 70's Show and tag it with "I said good day, sir!" (I was recently told that he doesn't say "sir." See, I don't even do it well, I'm not even any good at this, and it's
still more thoughtful and more funny than posting a picture of a mentally challenged stick figure that says "Derpy derp derp.") Apparently Morbo, the alien conquerer/newscaster from Futurama, is gaining traction (this I have
no problem with, as Morbo is objectively cool as shit). Someone started a batshit thread about future tech, and said that he envisioned flying windmills. A poster who is far more clever than I embedded the following in response:
...but when people started posting this on threads that did not discuss windmills, the meme lost all of its flare. ("Here's my flare!" Great, you've picked up on the worst joke in one of the best comedies ever. Good job.)
I guess I just don't understand how anyone thinks that posting a huge pic stating "not a single fuck was given that day" communicates anything other than desperation. Someone else's snarky comments and stupid owl photos does not make
you (yes, you, not the ubiqutous you) sound original. Keep on quoting George Carlin and Bill Hicks for relevant conversations, but for the love of the God in whom I do not believe, cut that U Mad Bro O RLY Derp Derp bullshit out.
...and that is the meme that I do not enjoy.
