i'm inclined to side with the initial tweet because I'm not a big fan of memes. I don't have any data (because I don't hold this opinion strongly) but it feels like so much more communication today is just references to other things. And I don't think I believe that memes in academic papers are an "evolution" of the language - I think they're doing it to get attention.

I'm not saying original statements are inherently better than repeated ones but "meme culture" is just posting the same thing over and over and it feels so....lazy and boring. I really struggle to understand how people enjoy seeing the same joke for the 100th time. As an example, any time a video game or movie introduced a cute animal, you're guaranteed to see someone oh-so-cleverly add it to the "If anything happens to [name].." template. Is there really no better way to express that you think an animal is cute? Did you really even want to express it or did you make it for Internet points?

I dunno. I guess I just don't like the repetition of everything nowadays. It reminds me of a kid I went to school with who could not have a conversation without dropping in several Simpsons quotes...yeah man, I saw the episode and it was funny when Homer said that. It's not very funny when you say it.