Memes can provoke a whole rainbow of different feelings. They can cause us to cringe, and they can annoy us with dumb messages or obvious typos. They can be knee-slappingly hilarious, or even give us pause for thought. Far and away the most important emotion they gift to us, though, is that they are comforting. Even when our whole lives are falling apart, we still have the warm embrace of looking at stupid pictures on our phone.
It’s a privilege that we must acknowledge. It’s not something that has even happened before in human history, and indeed there are plenty of people in the world today who don’t engage in it as well. Sure, looking at memes can be a fruitless exercise that wastes our time, but it has something to give in terms of amusement. That’s a quality that none of us can truly live without, even if we try.
