Katabasis Central: WedMEMEsday the first

One of the basic ways the loml and I would communicate when words weren't an option was via memes. I have always loved meme culture, but she definitely took it to another level for me altogether. I began to realize the bizarre ways that memes use the subtle concept of the inside joke to make nearly infinite variation possible. How memes rely on a concept of genre that is entirely new, and layered. For example, there's a whole slew of Porn Not-Porn memes where stills from pornography are captioned in various ways related to everyday life. There's even the subgenre of Hentai, not Hentai memes also. Or the "slaps roof of and says this bad boy can hold x number of whatevers," a really interesting set of variations on what was originally a used car salesman joke. Some of the genres are simply the same photo set background, like the guys from American Chopper arguing. Most memes are politically and socially subversive. A great many memes rely on the cringey, laughing against your will, incredibly poor taste response.

I've noticed that older friends of mine are often offended by memes and younger friends never are. Something in very poor taste is just part of meme culture and if it is unacceptable, one just keeps scrolling and that's that.

There's an excellent site for people not versed in the meme scene, where one can go and get a lot of background on a particular type of meme or image, called "Know Your Meme."

There's even entire genres of memes that exist only to satirize meme culture itself. It can get very meta.

In the spirit of this cultural comedic and political gold mine, and in light of not being able to share in the revelry with the loml anymore, I think I'll post the week's best every Wednesday, since I have to teach for six hours and it might be a lighter way to start the day.

pretty much in the genre of memes mocking woo, as well as memes mocking WikiHow images

The "revered sage saying something absurd" genre

Cartoons aren't memes, strictly speaking, but they often have a "meme"-y feel

The mocking white people genre, one of my favorites

another WikiHow image meme, combined with the whole genre of "Karen" memes. It's hard to even explain the entire Karen phenomenon.

A few genres combined here-- political satire, the "when you" kind of caption, and the mocking white people genre. And the re-purposing of a stock photo genre.

another meme-y cartoon

Meme culture also intersects with geek culture, so a lot of memes use images or themes from geek classics, such as The Princess Bride. This one also is in the "satirizing American professional work culture and language" genre, which is huge

Of course, politically subversive, but mostly just the genre of re-purposing a photo that's corny as hell and making especially the nice old man say something outrageous and awful. Memes absolutely don't pull punches when it comes to cornball visual culture.

I'm a big fan of feminist memes in general, but especially the ones that skewer dumb men

This may or may not be a Porn Not-Porn meme, but

Not really a meme, but almost

This one is a brilliant combination of a niche theme (mommy meme sort of , combined with SJW lingo/communist satire) with a classic meme template of the increasing "mind blown" or "enlightened" person