As it turns out, quite a few people are massive fans of utterly unhinged internet content. At the time of writing, the ‘Iconic Post’ (aka @origins_audio) X account (formerly Twitter, thanks, Elon) had a following of nearly 890k internet users.
It just goes to show that weirdness will always have an audience. Even when the chaos is turned all the way up to 11.
Memes, at their core, are ideas, bits of content, and glimpses into people’s identities. They get shared (and hopefully reshared), whether that’s on the internet or in real life. So a meme, by definition, is only as successful as it is viral.
Memes that barely get any attention are simply failed attempts to lodge an idea in people’s minds. On the flip side, something that spreads everywhere is an example of success, even if it might be slightly controversial, bizarre, or not up everyone’s alley.
However, a meme’s lack of context (as evidenced on ‘Iconic Post’) is very much a double-edged sword. It can work in favor of the meme itself just as much as against it. For one, when an image is chaotic and doesn’t have a caption, it leaves the audience baffled by what they’re seeing.
While some might find humor here, others are turned off because what they’re looking at is completely random.
This lack of context, however, shows memes at their purest and rawest. When you have just an image, without any verbal explanation whatsoever, you’re relying on the visual to carry the entire message. If the image goes viral, it can become iconic and entrench itself in internet history.
Besides that, there are plenty of people who love the whole mystery aspect. They enjoy doing some detective work and guessing what the images are all about and what exactly happened.
There is another layer to all the unhinged weirdness that you’ll find in these memes, though. It’s exactly because memes live and die based on their virality that they need to be relatable. To put it bluntly, if an image resonates with you on some level, you’re likely to pass it on.
On the other hand, if you feel no connection whatsoever, you’re likely to ignore it. So memes, whatever form they might take, need to be relatable. At least to some extent!
Something that also helps memes spread is adding some humor into the mix. Though it’s definitely not required, comedy can help content go viral. After all, if you’re laughing and enjoying yourself, you’re likely to want to loop your friends into the whole thing, too. However, people have very different senses of humor.
It’s essential to recognize this because you’re going to attract different audiences based on the jokes you share.
