The case of the missing meme
I’ve got a sordid reputation. Nothing too naughty. My friends and acquaintances have gotten in the habit of sending me funny GIFs and slightly inappropriate memes. I get a lot of misspelled messages on birthday cakes and easily misconstrued church signs.
I feel it’s necessary to explain what memes and GIFs are – in case Jedediah or Rebecca from Amish country picks up a copy of this newspaper and uses it to insulate their barn or buggy.
Memes are images, videos, or texts that are typically humorous in nature and are copied and spread rapidly by internet users. GIFs are short video images: Many times it’s a grumpy cat filing his claws, Homer Simpson fading into the bushes, or George Takei saying, “Oh, my!”
I turn to Star Trek’s Sulu for a multitude of responses. Sometimes, like love, an “Oh, my!” GIF is all you need.
Side note: There is a debate on the pronunciation of GIF. Some say it’s like the brand of peanut butter, with a J sound instead of a G. Others pronounce it like gift – without the T. Personally, I treat it like the name of a forgotten acquaintance. I don’t say it out loud. At a party, I would ask the GIFs to introduce themselves.
But I digress, like I do. I have been inundated with raunchy NSFW (Not Safe For Work, another new term for the Amish amongst you) memes. Here’s the problem. Sometimes I get a particularly funny one and I can’t find it again. Suddenly, I’m Sherlock Holmes searching for clues with a magnifying glass, or, in my case, reading glasses. My dad called them “cheaters.”
The first problem is I have to locate my source. I have to discern who set me the funny picture or saying. The second problem is, “How did they send it?” I have to go through a mental litany of questions: Was it an Instagram message? Was it a Facebook message? Did someone text it to me? Was it TikTok or Twitter? Or did I just simply scroll past it, searching for something else?
In the words of William Wadsworth, “The World is too much with us.” There are plethora of pathways, indiscriminate rabbit holes to scamper down in search of some phrase or photo that made my lip slightly curl upward.
I take every ramp on the internet superhighway searching for the “memeing” of life.
Sometimes I get distracted while I’m distracted, or as I call it, “The good ole, double rabbit hole scenario.” I set off down one serpentine pathway looking for the GIF of a corgi playing a miniature piano with his little front paws like Schroeder from “The Peanut’s Gang,” then I’m off to Wikipedia searching for a variety of dog breeds. From there, I’m looking up the name of this year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show winner.
In case you were wondering, the answer is Trumpet, a very jowly bloodhound. Maybe I can get Trumpet to help me crack the case of the missing meme.