Masuk Free Press

In 2016, Gen Z full-heartedly believed that Vine was elite. There was also an app called Musical.ly that was similar and equally as big back then. It had the same components as Vine and was a big contributor of humor in the 2010s as well. Vine, a platform similar to social media platforms like TikTok, where users scroll for hours watching short videos, had millions of users worldwide. Creators like Lele Pons, King Bach, and Thomas Sanders helped shape the app into what it was by popularizing fast paced humor, which has been used for years now in social media. A clip that was a maximum of 15 seconds of a random person falling was practically revolutionary in 2015. 

“I remember watching Vine all day, every day. I would look up hour-long compilations on YouTube and just watch them,” said senior Lily Yerrington. “It was like TikTok back then.” Jokes like “What’s 9+10” and “Road work ahead? I sure hope it does.” were seen as peak comedy for the time, even though they are probably some of the stupidest jokes to come out of that time period.  They were all brought up, quoted, and worn out eventually, which, looking back at it, seems a little too similar to Gen Alpha’s idea of funny, which is apparently saying “67” over and over again. 

People often label new memes as “brainrot” because the jokes make little to no sense, leaving everyone else confused as they struggle to understand the strange humor behind it all. People really can’t stand these jokes, especially Gen Z. “I find it all so annoying, and none of it makes sense,” said senior Emily Poole. “It’s all overused, and it’s tiring hearing the same thing over and over again.” Looking back, the main difference between Gen Z’s jokes on Vine and Gen Alpha’s jokes on TikTok isn’t the actual jokes themselves. It’s more that the audience has changed.

Ever since they were first introduced, memes have been meant to last only a short period of time. There is a reason why Gen Z isn’t still quoting vines from 2015. They are temporary and disposable. Once a joke becomes slightly less niche, it is supposed to end. Somehow, brainrot is the complete opposite, sticking around despite being irrelevant. The absurdity of it all appeals to Gen Alpha. But again, how can Gen Z really complain when there was a lot of absurdity surrounding our jokes, too? 

It isn’t just jokes; there are also objects that are similar to those in the past. For instance, toys nowadays consist of Labubus, a rabbit with disturbing human features, and ten years ago, the craze was fidget spinners. Both objects took over children’s backpacks, and in 2018, you couldn’t find a child without a fidget spinner, just like it’s hard to find a child without a Labubu.

Teachers banned fidget spinners from classrooms because they took over lessons that were planned, and eventually the craze died down. Anyone older than a middle schooler tended to lean away from fidget spinners, similar to how teens lean away from Labubus. Spending $30 on something that hangs on a bag seems very unnecessary to a majority of teens. “I probably had four fidget spinners in elementary school,” said sophomore Natalia Fabryk. “I would never even think about buying a Labubu, though. It’s expensive for it to do nothing and just hang on a backpack. Fidget spinners were actually fun as a kid.”

The response is always the same. Older people often see the interests and trends that younger generations enjoy as irritating or pointless. It is a cycle that is currently happening to Gen Alpha, just as it once happened to every generation before. Vine stars were criticized for being bad influences, jokes were dismissed as pointless, and fidget spinners were annoying. Every era has its inevitable criticisms. “They’re all just dumb,” said senior Mary-Kate Boyle. “Every meme is just pointless, even ours, so I don’t judge Gen Alpha for theirs.”

  The truth is, Gen Z doesn’t have the right to take the moral high ground and act like they were any different as children. All of these jokes serve the same purpose: giving kids something meaningless to laugh at. What everyone once loved is embarrassing in hindsight, and Gen Alpha will eventually feel the same about today’s trends.

Jokes will fade, new ones will replace them, and every generation will be annoyed with it all over again. The cycle won’t stop, proving that the only thing that changes in the meme world is the consumers, not the actual jokes.