If you want to know what a meme really is, don’t Google ‘memes’ and scroll through the images. Don’t look off that kid’s phone in the back of class, because chances are it’s terrible.

  If you want to know what a meme really is, hang out in the spots of the internet that produce memes. Hang out on 4chan, Reddit, and bizarre Facebook groups. See them being produced, see them catch on, learn the lore behind them, and try your hand at making a few.

  What I’ve found is that memes are Millenials’ and Gen Z’s own adventures into the realm of irony, satire and visual metaphor. A grainy image macro of a man in a banana suit tripping over someone laying on the ground feels more relevant and relatable to me than any lengthy piece of satire or any literary irony.

  We, these two sister generations, generated this. This is our child and it is original and fresh and beautiful. There’s more to memes than empty edginess, than top-text-bottom-text garbage. Memes are the largest subculture and most inclusive subculture I have witnessed in my lifetime, as an entire generation is almost completely involved with it.