Speaking of oblique language communicating a variety of things, not all of them intended

[yvannairie]

From a using-language-for-communication perspective, I've always hated memes.

I'm not being hyperbolic; my first exposure to what is now a proper "meme culture" (blech) was just as another form of referential speech, used to build community between those in the know and those -- like me -- who weren't. Memes have always had the same effect as jokes (in that if you don't get the punch line, you're automatically excluded) except they also didn't have structural or vocabulary rules, so there was not even a way to make peace with them and understand that something was a meme from context like the way you can with jokes. They stress me out, and for the longest time I though there was zero legitimate reason to engage in memetic speech.

(And this is where the linguists who follow me are like "that's not how it works", and I feel your pain -- I'd use a better word for this whole fucking nonsense but "meme" is the one internet chose so now we all get to be mad about how that's so imprecise as to be useless.)

Internet memes are the ultimate example of the tendency of people to substitute common ground for real communication, and refusing to clarify whether they're speaking metaphorically or not. It's a nuance I'm not capable of picking up on my own in any instance, and it's also a nuance that is lost between groups -- a problem I solve by being as straightforward and as exact as I possibly can, which has historically opened me up to a lot of mockery. People say laughing brings us together, but what with how specific humour is to a group, jokes aren't integrative unless you're willing to explain them.

And, like, ngl, it made me feel like a freak even by ND standards, because almost every other ND I know loves the shit out of memery.

I don't get it. On an emotional level, I just don't get it.

However on a practical level, I've come to accept that a) for some people, the ability to signal themselves as a part of a group is important and b) memes are a super easy socially acceptable way to scratch the echolalia itch. Combine that with absurdism coming easily to ND folks whose brains are already wired for pattern-recognition, and it makes sense to me that so many ND love memes.

But I still really fucking hate them. I hate the way anything can be a meme, and that anything can become a meme.I hate the way language gets sloganeered, which makes discussing things harder, especially when it happens to generic concepts. I get so frustrated with peopple who rely on repeating memes and their emotional cache, without seemingly understanding that their reliance on this uncommon "common code" immediately makes them incomprehensible and offputting for people who do not speak in that code. It insulates them from people who don't already think like them, watch all the same media, hang out in the same ever-constricting social circles.

I feel like a lot of wank persists entirely because people keep repeating the language they picked up when they first saw it, creating a memetic association to the topic, and not once think that by changing the language, they change the discussion. Like, my latest rage about people entirely unthinkingly repeating anti rhetoric is a really nice nutshell about why this is a problem. Not to mention, for me someone speaking in meme-laden language is someone who's just sending out powerful signals of "I'm desperate to belong and will do anything to fit in" -- and at this point, I find that a pretty fucking unsafe feature in a person.

And even if a part of me accepts that using memes well is just like using allegory well -- it can condense complicated ideas, bypass literal understanding to speak directly to the unique experience someone may have -- I refuse to believe that "meme culture" (blech) is truly anything but another elaborate surface level of easy us-vs-them distinction, and I resent being forced to engage in it.

Comments

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

I get known as a meme hater when I'm in situations dominated by young people (teenagers) lol. I hate the fact that the way a lot of young people integrate into their communication, there's no real substance. They just say shit for the sake of saying it and it'll contribute nothing and won't even be punny or applicable or anything! Like the fucking meme that involves replacing the letter B with the blood type emoji? Literally pointless, not funny, literally just adds cred to something being said because it's a reference, and not even a reference that's relevant or important or good. *shakes head*

[yvannairie]

I keep falling for this with people because I do have a couple of really successful friendships with people who in natural operation are meme fountains (they switch to a less dense form of communication when they want to get their point across and their meme usage has more in common with, say, the way some people just really like making puns) so I don't, like. It doesn't parse as vacuous, for me, automatically, because I have so much experience with memes as just a stopgap so people won't think you're the r-word. So whenever I run into someone who really is just all repeated jabs and references for their own sake, I always end up burned.

And it's like... do these people think memes like "die by my sword"/"I will have your kneecaps" mean nothing? Like, do they think those words are essentially the same kind of random word salad as other memes they repeat? Because I thought it was commonly accepted that you can reinforce or create thought patterns where none exist when jokes about feeling suicidal resulted in the black pill movement and we all collectively realised that reinforcing a sense of hopelessness about the world isn't good.

I wouldn't be nearly as frustrated with memes if the majority of them were used with understanding that just because someone catches that you're making an oblique reference, that doesn't mean that the words used to make that reference don't still exist. Being incomprehensible is a problem but being blithedly unaware of the tone you're taking towards people not "in the know" is even worse, and is worse in evermore insidious ways because this way of using language is what's been wrong with conversations about sociological concepts online for a long time now.

Also as a minor nitpick -- after a while all these people just sound the same. They have no identity of their own, when I try to think what distinguishes them from each other (other than what I end up having beef with them over, lol) I can't think of anything that isn't a super personal detail. I should very fucking well hope that I have an actual personality that isn't just "I have seen this thing online so now I'm repeating it to create a false sense of community".

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

I've always hated getting to the point with somebody where literally interacting with them is just a series of saying memes and there's absolutely no other substance to conversations. It's just like a monotonous chain of "smoke weed every day" "blaze it" "420 69" "need me a weed gf" "oh worm, hashtag me too" "hashtag impeach trump" "jesus take the wheel."

Like a conversation like that is maybe nice as a signifier that you're on the same wavelength about some basic politics, but when those meme conversations just turn into super esoteric memes or "ironic" memes about Jews or whatever, it gets way more difficult to discern what--if anything--is being communicated.

Like people really just up and say "oh nooo, I dropped my magnum condom for my monster dong" just... out of the blue with zero context, zero relationship to anything else going on, zero actual thought about how... kind of inappropriate of a thing that is to just say randomly for no reason.

I personally hate "I'm gonna kermit," lmao. There are crafty way to make suicidal ideation jokes but the phrasing of that one is just so far from what I actually find funny or amusing or witty or novel that it just irritates me. I hate memes that are just saying things weird and being wildly hyperbolistic in a way that's not even supposed to be amusing. I straight-up do not understand what I'm supposed to get out of meme speak like that.

[yvannairie]

Ohh I also absolutely hate it when a description of some kind becomes a meme, like. The current ones fandom seems to be obsessed with are "feral" and "himbo", as if those mean fucking anything. It was done to "top/bottom" for a while, until people started rightfully pointing out that's kind of fucked.

And just like any other time it's done to just some random word, it's so infuriating if you actually wanna use that word. Uuuuurgh.

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

Oh noooooo, I absolutely can't stand "feral" and "tender." I have no idea what people are trying to articulate with those at this point. Those words just get applied to really esoteric stuff and somehow it's supposed to form an aesthetic and I do not have the intuitive understanding of this subculture to receive the information that is being conveyed.