The Five Degrees of Meme Admiration

Memes. Maymays. If you’ve come within fifty feet of the internet in the past ten years, you’re familiar with them, whether you know it or not. They saturate our news feeds with seemingly random images and videos that, when paired with a dash of cultural context, actually reveal a ton of things about our generation’s thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Here are The Five Degrees of Meme Admiration.

 

1st Degree: The Kermit the Frog

You like memes, but you’ve barely scratched the surface. You still laugh at the “Forever Alone” and “Doge” memes, and because of this, you show your age and lack of cultural relevance. You should probably shut down your Tumblr account now before anyone finds out that you still plan to do a Harlem Shake or dress up as Nyan Cat for Halloween.

 

2nd Degree: The Jake Pauler

Vape Nation, bro. You love getting LIT and throwing around buzzwords from memes that you don’t entirely understand. You might even say Come At Me Bro. You don’t use memes in an ironic way – you use them to be cool. Story, bro. Sorry, I can’t help myself.  You’re insufferable, and because of that, you’ve actually become a meme yourself.  

 

3rd Degree: The Bee Movie

You don’t know ALL the memes, but you do know your subcultures. Maybe you’ve seen every twisted remake of The Bee Movie, such as FreeMemesKids’ “THE ENTIRE BEE MOVIE IN 1 SECOND,” or PunPun’s inspirational rendition of Lazytown’s “We Are Number One,” called, “We Are Number One but they forgot how to speak and other minor changes.”

 

4th Degree:  The Elf on a Shelf

HE NEEDS SOME MILK! Your life is a relentless search for Earth’s spiciest, most pungent memes, and you need to share it before everyone else finds out. This means that the “You’ve Heard of Elf on a Shelf… Now Get Ready For” (insert image of Shrek on a patio) meme is on its way out already, and you’re about to go and buy yourself a Fidget Spinner because vintage is cool.

 

5th Degree: The Rick & Morty

You don’t need to prove your intelligence. You watch Rick & Morty. You understand every meme that there ever was, and you know every meme that is to come.  You know that memes are used to make timely comments about this world that we live in, sometimes horrifying, sometimes amazing. Great job, your memes are making Earth a moar tolerable place to live.

 

By: Allison O’Brien