Do you have social media? Do you go on it relatively frequently? Do you watch YouTube videos? Do you know what a meme is? Congrats, dear reader–I am branding you as a Modern Internet User. Chances are, though, that you’ve been on the Internet for a while now…you probably remember the days of VIRAL VIDEOS and cheezburger cats and rage comics galore. The Internet was a vastly different place 10 years ago. The culture has changed so much since then, and we find ourselves in a totally new arena. Nowadays, all “memes” (if they can even be referred to as such anymore) stem from Twitter and TikTok (maybe Reddit, but not really), “virality” as a concept is not the same as it used to be, rage comics are used in a post-post-ironic sense (almost full circle, but we haven’t quite reached that level yet), and everyone seems to be arguing about something or other at any given time!
I think TikTok really changed the game in terms of meme-popularity. Memes used to last for months, even YEARS sometimes. Things like YouTube rewind were actually funny and cool because memes didn’t lose comedic value after a couple of days like they do now. I swear, something starts to trend, everyone posts it constantly, it’s seen as the funniest thing ever, then suddenly, everyone switches up and decides it is no longer funny, and that posting anything related to it is now “cringe”. Short-form media, like TikTok, have also contributed to a noticeable decline in attention span, and things are just so much more ephemeral because of it.
The topic du jour on Twitter and TikTok right now seems to be posting clips of an ABC show called The Good Doctor. The show’s been out for a while, but for some reason people are only really getting into it now. I predict, though, that this will all blow over within the next week or so. Even though it seems to be all the rage now, it won’t last long, because that’s just how things work these days.
As someone who basically grew up on the internet, it’s really wild to see how much the culture has morphed and changed into something so different. I am often nostalgic for how things used to be, but I know that living stuck in the past is not always that productive.
If you’re coming from the same background as me, how do you feel about the current state of the internet?