Memology

Joe’s weak limbs are clumsily resting on the hands of the chair, with his eyes glued to the small TV screen attached to his rocking chair. He has been slouching under the sun, with his artificial heart pumping out the life giving blood. Beads of sweat accumulated around his wrinkled temples, which a hydraulic arm from the chair raised a handkerchief to, while the relentlessly hardworking solar panels constantly absorbed the scorching heat of the furious heavenly body, and turned it into the force to which the whole modern era was centered; electricity. The old man’s meaningless stupor was interrupted by the newly deepened voice of a pubescent boy exasperatedly demanding, “Grandpa Joe , could you please explain to me this chapter?” Timmy, frowning and frustrated by now, has been struggling to get through this chapter on his tablet. Grandpa Joe scrambled onto his grandchild, gently caressing the back of his head and asking “What’s bothering you, dear Timmy?”

“I have been trying for hours, but I don’t understand a single thing from this chapter of surreal memes from my memology textbook”

Grandpa looked at the examples of the meme displayed in the chapter and chuckled.

“I don’t get it, gramps . What’s so funny about a poor quality image with a strangely proportioned, bipedal derpy frog with a pot belly standing over a bowl of soup with the letters ‘ suop time ‘ in the bottom ?” said Timmy, scratching his head.

Grandpa stifled a laugh and started at an explanation- “Well, you see son, it’s funny because it’s unexpected. One expects to see a usual meme with a particular format about a specific theme, but instead they get a random, absurd image with a misspelled catchphrase. We can also draw its parallel with modern art, signifying nothing yet amusing to sight. Similarly, these memes have an air of surrealism in them, which mesmerizes the viewer, meaning absolutely nothing. The meaninglessness leads to ridiculousness which leads to humor. If you dig at it's inherent meaning, it reveals human’s frivolity and stupidity too. It’s not that difficult son, you’ll understand this real quick”

Timmy scratched his head and groaned, “Argghhh, I can’t do more with it. It's ridiculous and it's boggling my head. It’s so difficult.” He slammed the book angrily and stormed away.

Preoccupied with nothing but the useless and dreadful possibilities of death that haunted him in his very old age, he decided to revisit his youthful obsession of memes, now encapsulated in the new monotonous academic system with e-books and tablets. He flashbacked upon the times when everybody pestered him “Who is Joe?” And when he along with his friends dabbed continuously until this fad died and when everybody was in a competition to find the rarest pepe. When he and the boys tried to mimic the surprised Pikachu face, and when he used to post memes on the internet, satisfied by the fact that he had made some people exhale laughter out of the nose and that he received virtual attention.

Consumed with curiosity, Joe swiped through the pages of Timothy’s memology e-book. Nostalgia filled happiness rummaged his heart, and his eyes twinkled with elation as he looked upon the contents page. The title of the book read- “History of memology and its Types”

Sl. No. Title

1 An introduction to Memology: Definition and Origin

2 The different Eras of Memes

i) First Era (1986-2007)

ii) Second Era (2007-2016)

iii) Third Era ( 2016- 2030)

3 Types of memes

i) Dank memes

ii) Surreal memes

iii) Wholesome memes

iv) Satirical memes

v) Boomer memes

4 The Uses of memes

5 How memes shaped culture

6 Analyzing memes

7 Decline of the meme culture

His eyes filled with remembrance and intrigue, Joe swiped through the pages and halted at the page explaining “Dank memes”. His eyes flashed upon a picture, bearing with it a definition and analysis, which brought a flurry of memories. A completely hairless and eerily smooth, artificial and metallic textured face of a poorly rendered 3D image with a blank yet slight sneer in the suit of a businessman , proudly proclaiming, ‘ stonks ‘ . There are subsequent photos of the same face , with various , intentionally misspelled captions , such as ‘ kemist ‘, and , ‘ pylot ‘ –famously revered as the meme man, the vivid recollection of which nearly brought him to tears. Below each meme, its purpose, and detailed analysis was given. The next page was of a group of dancing black men carrying a coffin on the shoulders. Joe noticed that the image had a play button on it. Instinctively he tapped it and saw the dancing men in motion with Astronomia playing as the background music. He broke out in laughter. And then, swiping over a few parts of the chapter, his eyes laid upon the despicable and terribly bad boomer memes. Annoying , yellow little fuckwads with denim overalls and comically magnified spectacled eyes grinned stupidly from every corner of the page. Even the captions were cringeworthy , such as , “Exercise? I thought you said extra fries”, “I am in a very intimate relationship with my couch”, indicating at the incomprehensibility of memes to narrow minded boomers.

Joe skipped over these chapters, and landed on “How memes shaped culture”. The chapter said that memes served many purposes, and there was a time when a meme culture flourished vividly. Everything from entertainment to the passing and coming of trends to coping methods of depressed people to satirizing world events, politics and history in a non offensive manner. Memes served it all. Joe sighed and nodded at its truth.

Finally, after rummaging through the pages with nostalgia wrecking his heart, he lands on the last chapter- “Decline of meme culture”. This popped the happy nostalgic bubble and brought his mind to a flashback. Years back, a few days after his marriage, an overjoyed Joe posted a wedding meme on social media. He was snapped by many of his friends as he rudely commented- “Dude, who posts memes these days?”. Without him even realizing , the obsession of his youth , the inseparable part of his culture , had died. Swept by the new wave of entertainment by virtual reality , memes were nothing but an old relic of the past , not to be revived , but studied about in monotonous and humorless textbooks.

Suddenly , with a violent shake , his grandson brought him back to reality. “ Grandpa Joe , time for your meds! “.

Joe never thought that memes would come this far.