The Problems With "Catching Up"

When I was scrolling through my news app a few days ago (I used to use Flipboard but switched to Apple News for no real reason other than the feel), I came across a Washington Post article titled, 'Teens are daring each other to eat Tide Pods. We don't need to tell you that's a bad idea.' After scrolling through the first paragraph or two, I realized that whoever was writing this article didn't truly understand what was happening with this whole Tide Pod Challenge or how it even originated. The author of the article was relating this to other challenges throughout the past few years, like the cinnamon and banana/milk challenges, but failed to even mention the meme or meme culture that allowed for the creation of the epidemic.

I began seeing a new meme popping up on Reddit, Twitter, and my Instagram feed that had to do with Tide Pods just a little over a year ago. Tide Pods are colorful in nature and truly do look like some delicious snack created by Nestle. It's better if I just upload one instead of trying to explain it.

These memes about laundry detergent were probably spawned from the whole Fabuloso debacle back in 2015. Fabuloso is a laundry detergent that looks exactly like grape juice and for a short while, twitter blew up over the 'bad tasting Mexican drink' or that 'dank purple drank'.

I guess, over time, the move to Tide Pods had a bigger impact throughout the internet community and soon caused people to legitimately start eating the poppers, creating a new challenge. The reaction from news outlets, to me, seemed extremely out of touch with what they were seeing. Why is that? What is the difference between a thirty year old journalist and a college age kid? The age gap is just about a decade but to be a successful journalist today, you have to be active on Twitter, which is a hot spot for the comedy culture my peers thrive on.

My theory about the stark difference between the people that report and the teens being reported revolves around the culture that technology has created. A thirty year old journalist was born in 1988. Assuming this journalist received their bachelors degree from a four year university, they graduated college in 2009 or 2010. Apple launched their App store in 2008, Uncharted 2 was released for PS3, and the top Google search was Michael Jackson (because he died). At this time, I was in eighth grade getting picked on because I was the second shortest kid in my class. I had a flip phone with the T9 keyboard WHICH also had snake so that was great. By my sophomore year of high school, I had the iPhone 4 with a cracked back glass playing doodle jump. By my senior year of high school, in 2014, I was a heavy Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and 9gag user. In 2014, the soon to be thirty year old journalist was a twenty six year old focusing on the part of social media platforms that would help their stories, not worrying about the (excuse my language) fucking ridiculous meme trends that truly don't matter to a career (unless you're reporting on them when your thirty).

The type of comedy that was created and honed over the past decade on the internet and social media is dark, existential, and adoptive. Yes, adoptive. When you look at a timeline of a meme, from the white Impact font overlaying the Philosoraptor to the 'Is that WEED?!?' vine, the idea surrounding the meme stays the same but the growth and adaptation is vast. The Philosoraptor meme is an image of a velociraptor with a talon hand held under its' chin, as if questioning an idea. An example would be that image with "If the robot does the robot, is it still the doing the robot? Or just dancing?" or "Is it crazy how saying sentences backwards - creates backwards sentences saying how crazy it is?". These non-sensical sentences with an image that came from seemingly no-where with no relation to whats being said was a major meme back in the early 2010's. But, this stoner, eye raising meme has touched future internet jokes like the 'Is that WEED?!? vine. Please, just watch it, but basically it's an entire 6 second video based on second meanings, double entendres, and visual mis-interpretations that all fit incredibly well. It even uses the X-Files intro song to add to the confusion.

Showing this type of comedy to any adult above a certain age does not cause laughter. It causes confusion. It's like the Eric Andre show. The Eric Andre show is one of the only television shows out today that takes internet comedy culture and uses it to create some insane skits. These skits are interlaced with past jokes from the show and the utilization of the youtube prank phenomenon that sometimes make no sense but cause people to freak the fuck out. This type of humor is awkward, grotesque, and sometimes just plain dark with conversations about our imminent death and the insignificance of our existence. This sort of frankness with our size in comparison to the entirety of the universe is extremely common with the people my age. I think this sort of thinking was spawned from the understanding of our place in the ever expanding universe, the perceived problems with religion, and daily reminders of the horrors people choose to do to each other as seen through social media. It is true that there have been record numbers of college age kids demanding counseling for depression and anxiety and this generation coming up is the least religious in U.S. history, at 26% with no religious affiliation. This is a 13% gap from the baby-boomer generation.

There are many differences between this generation and the previous. From cultural and religious ideals to what kids do in their free time, the world has changed and this change is ever increasing. How the lack of religious ideas and increase of existential ideas impact the type of comedy we see on the internet has yet to be determined, from what I have experienced, I feel that these two subjects are a common theme in what Millenials and Gen Z see in internet comedy today.

That is why the problems with 'catching up' may not be mendable. If an entire generations ideas about their place in the world is different than the previous generations, how could a thirty year old journalist understand that eating Tide Pods is a joke five years in the making. Obviously, eating detergent is dangerous and no one should ever ingest those chemical products under any circumstances but in the end...does it even matter? Does anything matter?