>:(

[yvannairie]

The other side of the meme equation is that memes as "vulgar" art? Is actually genuinely a thing I find spectacular and beautiful, much for the same reasons I find a lot of conceptual art spectacular and beautiful.

The proliferation of meme humour and the whole subclass of reaction/"relatable" images feels dramatically equalising between different groups of people, and the way people all seem to pick on the same and sort out which ones truly reflect their own feelings is always pretty awe-inspiring. The way people use existing memes and combine or reinvent them has produced some of my favourite art works in the past ten years.

And it suuuuuuucks that all that creative potential seems to go nowhere with most people. Like, can you use art wrong? Because that definitely feels like a misuse of art, and when it's a primarily internet-based and maker-controlled form of artwork, it being used "wrong" is all the more depressing.