The Bleak Future of the Internet Meme
The Reddit community rejoiced. Users wrote phrases like “praise be Jesus,” “about friggin time,” and “feeling #blessed.” Why? Advice Animals—home to 4.2 million meme-obsessed subscribers—had been booted from Reddit’s front page.
While the news was buried in the excitement of the addition of 26 new default subreddits—a massive addition to Reddit’s front page—it symbolized of a great shift in content on the popular social news site.
As Reddit grows up—the site turns 9 years old in June—it only makes sense that cats and Impact text are losing ground to more meaningful content.
The image macro is perhaps the most well-known type of meme. You’ve seen it all over your Facebook wall: photos of cute felines saying dumb things (LOLcats), a socially awkward penguin (Socially Awkward Penguin), or an angry-looking kid wearing a fitted baseball cap (Scumbag Steve). They’ve been bled dry of all their novelty, and they’re just not funny or relevant anymore.
Today’s memes require more substance. They’re more open-ended, more adaptable to various social media; they don’t need places like r/AdviceAnimals to foster creativity. But Reddit is a battleground of Internet content, where only a small number of recurring jokes are embraced by the community; the rest are chewed up and retired quickly and downvoted to meme hell.
The bludgeoned losers are piling up. Here are a few.
I Can Has Cheezburger?
No other Internet property captures the rise and fall of the image macro than the Cheezburger network.
Hawaiian blogger Eric Nakagawa’s I Can Has Cheezburger? site, founded in 2007 after a photo of a fat gray feline spread on 4chan, hung its business model on Internet users’ obsession with cute cats. The gamble paid off....MUCH MORE
