Bored Panda contacted the creator of the "Things That Make You Go Hmmm" page, Chris Tweten, and he agreed to answer a couple of our questions.
"The story behind that page is actually quite interesting: I used to scale meme pages on FB and sell them. There was a time when I lived solely off of meme revenue!" Chris began.
"I ran that page solo, sourcing content from Reddit and Facebook groups. I'm a Canadian growth marketer that owns an agency called ‘SpacebarCollective,’ that also specialized in growth hacking from 2014 to 2018. Facebook was a channel that was largely written off as a pay-to-win platform, but I found massive algorithmic exploits that allowed me to grow pages by 10k to 50k likes per month. The strategy hinged on using predictive analytics to determine which posts would get 100k+ impressions based on their first 10 minutes of engagement."
BP also wondered what inspired the man to create the page, to which he replied: "Knowing exploits like this have a limited window of time when they actually work (before Facebook notices), I looked to Reddit to find communities with content that was available in high volume and where they were underserved on Facebook; r/hmmm was a great source of content and the largest pages of similar names on Facebook at the time only had 10k page likes. I knew I could outperform them within a week or two, so I started the page and started to scale it up. I repeated this same strategy for a few different niches, including a page for things that are funny and sad, Please Press F."
Lastly, we asked Tweten why he thinks memes play such an important role in modern society: "Memes are the largest art movement in human history and they're here to stay. The sheer volume of artists and total works of art outranks graffiti and the Renaissance by an absurdly large margin. Memes are easy to make, but have become a new medium of communication that's capable of displaying emotion in completely new ways."
Now, most will probably agree that social media is an extraordinary place. It offers a ton of content that is able to distract you from all the possible worries that abound our existence.
It's true that with the Web's introduction, our lives have become more manageable. We're now able to reach out to our friends and relatives without needing to leave our beds, find random information that we require for our studies, or surf for viral videos that help us get through a repetitive day. However, the internet also comes with a side of cons.
Encountering internet trolls and stumbling upon harmful material is inevitable, which is why social media can be such an unhappy place. There's no filter, and folks are allowed to voice triggering opinions that might harm other people's mental health.
Let's not forget about all the fake reality that is so easily altered and carefully curated by Instagram influencers, for instance. Over the years, we've become so out of touch with our world that we often misplace our values and worry about things that frankly don't really matter – and define our success by the number of likes we get under our mirror selfies.
That said, embracing the positive aspects of social media platforms and focusing on the things that make our society come together might be a good thing to consider. Following pages and creators who share entertaining yet safe content will not only spare you your mental health but will also get those endorphins flowing.
Memes play a vital role in our everyday lives, especially in a world dependent upon the internet. As human beings, we experience a ton of emotions – stress, guilt, tension, you name it – and we all like to feel we’re not alone; so when something unpleasant, a stressor of some sort, is converted into a funny meme, folks are able to cope with it better knowing that there are others who feel the exact same way.
In a nutshell, memes are one of the best perks of this global system of ours. They enhance our moods, make us feel less alone and most importantly, give us a chance to relax when our days get a little bit too hectic.
Bored Panda hopes that you've enjoyed this ensemble of intriguing images. Let us know which one has managed to impress you the most.
