Like a star in the sky that must travel hundreds of light years before it reaches a human eye, by the time you see a meme, it may already be dead. The lifespan of a meme – a jokey picture, video, or quote that spreads across the internet at lightning speed – is short and frail. The internet’s favourite meme may be cool for months, weeks, even just a day.
Teenagers, however, have got the hang of all this meme stuff. Because they grew up online, they know what’s cool and what isn’t. Beyond the jokes, some memes resonate deeply with teenage lives and experiences. A July Tesco Mobile survey of 1,000 children aged nine to 15 found that 63.5% of them use their phones to keep in touch with friends, making for a lot of meme sharing. So if you want to get to grips with what memes are all about, there’s only one group of people to ask.
Here, five teenagers recommend the memes that mean the most to them.
Failed panoramas, recommended by Tilly Gibson, 12
“I find this one funny because in real life when you take a panorama picture on your phone, if something moves in it, it can end up looking weird – and this meme shows a dog that moved in one and it looks hilarious.
“At first you don’t really see it, but then you look at the zoomed picture next to it and it shows the distorted dog in close-up. People in my generation – well, my friends – find it funny.”
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson puns, recommended by Molly Gibson, 14
“My favourite meme is a series of photos of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s face edited on to objects that rhyme with the word rock, for example a flock of birds and underneath would read the caption ‘Dwayne the Flock Johnson’.
“I find these images really funny as it is really strange to see The Rock’s face superimposed on random things. Lots of my friends like this meme, especially because they are fans of The Rock. It’s hard to describe why it’s amusing but it just is.”
Relationship memes, recommended by Bennette Ngoma, 16
“Relationship memes are funny purely because they’re so relatable and accurate. They turn annoying things about relationships into something you can laugh at. They also have the power to get you in your feelings, which is what some people seek when they scroll through relationship memes. They want to trigger an emotion.
“There are no limits to where you can take it. The scenarios and circumstances they mention touch me so deeply you actually connect with them. I tend to screenshot and repost these memes on social media as an indirect message to a particular person who I feel needs to understand what goes through my head without me actually saying what goes through my head.”
GCSE memes, recommended by Tyreese Davis, 16
“GSCE memes are something so simple that can mean so much. They make you less stressed when you come out of an exam and have something to joke about with pretty much every person your age in the country.
“My favourite ones are definitely inside jokes from the exam papers. There’d be times I would come out of a maths exam feeling bad … I would head on to Twitter and see everyone else was joking about the same question. It can be really degrading going into an exam with high hopes and seeing harder questions that make you feel stupid … memes help you feel you’re part of a community going through something tough together.”
Wholesome memes, recommended by Niamh Rutter, 17
“A wholesome meme is a manifestation of your adoration, love, and passion for something. You would usually use one after posting something you love, such as a singer, for example, to show how much you value them. They’re easy to make – just slap hearts on to anything.
“I like them so much as they’re super cute and match my vibe of sharing my deep passions for my idols and things I cherish. They make me feel really positive. They’ve definitely been created to lighten the mood and spread love on the internet when there are so many rude people on the internet with this bullying-centered culture.”
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