The three accounts we're featuring today are Chortle Humor, McRandomest, and Mike Hard Images.
At the time of writing, the Chortle Humor account has 164k followers on Instagram and has shared nearly 2.2k posts. Considering that it was created fairly recently, in August 2024, that’s a fairly large following. Especially taking into account that the type of humor is mostly niche, focused on random images instead of more traditional comedy. The curator notes in the account’s bio that “laughter is free, take as much as you want!”
The McRandomest account, created in June 2023, has 38.5k followers and features some of the most random pics and clips that the curator found online. Meanwhile, Mike Hard Images, started in April 2021, has 70k followers.
Broadly speaking, memes are any ideas, attitudes, or pieces of information that are transmitted culturally. They are a core part of the human experience and can be found throughout history.
And while memes are much more easily spread via social media, an internet connection isn’t required by any means. Though, of course, in this day and age, memes are generally perceived as funny internet pics… even if they’re far more than that.
Know Your Meme notes that the term ‘meme’ was first coined by Richard Dawkins, a legendary evolutionary biologist. In his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, he looked at self-replication in evolution and argued that not only does biological information undergo natural selection, but this may apply to ideas and beliefs, too. He termed self-replicating cultural information ‘meme,’ based on the Greek word ‘mimema,’ which means ‘something imitated.’
Once the internet started becoming more easily accessible to the average consumer, memes began becoming more and more closely associated with internet memes, especially humorous ones.
For example, funny and relatable images, constantly evolving formats, amusing captions, and virality on social media. If you look at memes from even a few years ago, you can see how much people’s sense of humor has changed.
Of course, memes don’t have to be funny to go viral (though comedy is a good way to connect with your audience). What is non-negotiable, however, is relatability. You want to find a level to engage with the people looking at your meme that resonates with them.
You could, for instance, focus on making and sharing memes about a certain topic that they care about. Or you could hone in on a specific series of formats or a theme that they genuinely enjoy.
Seemingly random and chaotic memes, like the ones shared on the accounts we're featuring today, are a hit-or-miss kind of thing. While it’s impossible to win the entire internet over to your side with your content, randomness can be very polarizing.
Some social media users are going to love the bizarreness and unpredictability of the content. Others will be put off by the fact that they can’t always seem to ‘get’ the joke (if there even is one).
