Types of Memes

Yet another categorisation of a widely known subject? You betcha. Here are some types of memes.

1. The Classics: Back when memes were practically a mascot and not jokes you attached to pictures, these are the memes that will never, ever die out. "B**** please", "y u no", "y u do dis" and memes under this category will forever live on. Sorry mom, but it's not "just a phase".

2. The Trenders: This is what we get in our era. They go on for about a month, burn out really fast and then collapse into a blackhole, unlikely to ever be seen again.

3. The One-Hit Wonder: These memes only happen once, are absolutely beautiful, and you'll probably never see them again. Rest in peace that one picture of a deer with a pervy expression and equally bad caption. Thankfully, I have it saved.

4. The Social Media: *waves at the Best of Tumblr and similar pages and memes* You know what's terrifying though? That moment when you get a social media-ception by screenshotting a joke from Twitter, posting that on Tumblr, having THAT screenshotted, and reposted onto a Facebook page. Do you hear that? It's Christopher Nolan crying from sheer joy.

5. The Series: These memes tend to be either made or compiled into a collection. Pages like Postsize, Imgur and 9GAG have a tendency to do this a lot, and it's either really good or really bad. There's no inbetween. 

6. The Niche: These under-the-table memes are the ones that are somehow only available to a very specific audience. On New Year, I posted a joke status on my Facebook, saying that 2018 has no good new memes yet. A friend of mine then introduced me to the brand new 'Nut' memes and I kid you not, it's just pictures of nuts and bolts in various different settings and somehow, it's still somehow funny.

7. The Obscurity: This one isn't like the Niche in the sense that it's not under-the-table, but it's completely obscure and makes absolutely no sense. You'll either laugh, or go '…wat?' and THEN laugh because it seems so ridiculous. Think of Dat Boi.

8. The Slapstick Humour: This is when the Trender gets so tired of itself that it will do whatever it takes to make itself funny. For example: I have a meme of the "Dad, why am I named ____?" that just goes "'Dad, why am I dad', 'Because Dad', 'Thanks dad', 'You're welcome Dad'", with the Dad's face photoshopped onto the son's head. It's just so dumb that you can't help but laugh your socks off.

9. The Comics: Organically made, always fresh, you can't help but love these memes. They're like vegetables, but they don't taste bland. Examples include: the ever legendary Cyanide & Happiness, Sarah's Scribbles, Lunarbaboon, etc. Usually the texts are replaced in such memes.

10. The Nonsensical: This one isn't slapstick humour, but it usually comes in a form where the meme starts off perfectly normally before warping into something that's so out of place that you burst out laughing before you even wholly realise what you read. I'd give you an example, but to be honest, it doesn't seem that funny out of the picture. Think deep fried memes.

11. The Fanbase: You won't get any of these memes until you're a part of the fanbase. That's about it, really. Sorry if you expected a joke here, but you can't expect Muggles to understand.

12. The Wholesome: Here to tackle the depression memes trend is the wholesome memes trend. Statistics (that I just made up on the spot) say that depression rates went down by 300% after this trend showed up, the economy is booming, and now everyone is in love and feels like a doggo who's been told he's a good boy.

13. The Puntastic: These memes tend to be the combination of a global brand of fruit-flavored carbonated drinks, and a thin piece of wood that has fallen or been cut off a tree.

14. The Education: In the era where good education is hard to come by, you've got three choices: go to a coaching, learn to do everything by yourself, or follow meme pages like Elastic Economics Memes for Entrepreneurial Teens or Mathematical Memes for Logarithmically Scaled Teens.

15. The Locality: If there's one thing I came to realise, it's that there are giant reservoirs of local memes that are specific to countries. Hats off to the top local meme pages such as The DickTeyder, Rantages, Thakurma Jhuli Memes, etc. for making these special local memes for us.

Well, that's about it. Time to get back to procrastinating my responsibilities and expanding my meme stash.

Rasheed Khan is a hug monster, making good music but terrible puns and jokes where he's probably the only one laughing. Email him for examples of all these memes at aarcvard@gmail.com