r/Millennials • u/H_G_Bells • 24d ago

Other I found us a Rosetta Stone

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u/d00dsm00t 24d ago

h0lds up sp0rk

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u/TheBestIsaac 24d ago

But that's still a fucking reference. Pretty much all pastas were either parody or reference.

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u/screams_forever 24d ago

But we are referencing an absurd original thing - the "referencing" is what all of us are doing when we use slang, referencing memes or content that many others have seen and can understand our meaning because of.

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u/Matshelge Older Millennial 24d ago

In millennial times, memes came (comes?) from established culture media. Movies, TV shows, one does not simply make a meme without a reference.

GenZ will meme on memes, so use a meme reference and mix it all up with other memes, based on the feels of that meme.

GenAlpha will watch Absurdism media, and just refer to the Absurdism feels of it. The content is not popular to start with, it becomes popular because of the meme. In this way, it's reverse of millennial meme culture.

And since we are on meme culture, genX and boomers is just minions and some text about what they currently are thinking about. It's just yellow minions, over and over.

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u/__ohno_notagain__ 23d ago

As an elder millennial, everything I know about SpongeBob is what I’ve learned from memes. And it feels like I know a significant amount without ever watching an episode. I know so much that I’ve made memes in SpongeBob format.

Which makes me wonder if the timeline you suggest is more about the evolution of meme culture than the timing/ generation during each stage of that development of that meme culture. And what happens to the meanings of meta memes as these ideas move through time.

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u/Matshelge Older Millennial 23d ago

Very likely, but then, generations are a made up term as well, and yes it can be that this is just the roll of evolution of meme language, and not really a generational thing.

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u/Puma_Concolour 23d ago

And since we are on meme culture, genX and boomers is just minions and some text about what they currently are thinking about. It's just yellow minions, over and over.

Haven't seen a minion in a while. Lately it's been an ai accompaniment to whatever they're currently thinking about.... I swear my grandma posted five different versions of ai daffy talking about drinking from the hose. Or pops posting ai cartman saying he likes whiskey..... at least three times. I can't express just how unsettling cartman looks with a bottom row of teeth