This is honestly a great case for the “memes are modern hieroglyphics” argument.
Imagine archeologists unearthing this meme in 10000 years and trying to decipher it. They’d never be able to, because it requires a LOT of external knowledge (which can only realistically be obtained by living through the present times) to make any sense.
Hieroglyphs were relatively easy in comparison. They just needed enough translated material as a reference to be almost universally understood.
Memes are shifting on a year to year basis and are sensitive to news events. There are people that are going to spend their entire lives looking for a specific meme or event that will allow them to understand another meme. And with the occasional “vintage” meme references there’s even lots of opportunity for dramatic eureka moments when an expert on 2000s memes finally provides the missing clue for a 2030s meme.
Edit: and for their sake I hope someone is backing up the Urban Dictionary and Know Your Meme in several nuclear bunkers.
I can’t wait to explain “all your base” to my grandkids.
Your base, your base
Are belong to
Your base, your base
OK folks, let’s break this one down.
Miles on average: run down (from Chief O’Brien at Work)
Smith/Rock: hit it
Capn: gotcha
Turkish olympics guy: everything cool?
Raygun: everything is not fucking cool
billionaire sub: wreck that shit
Spongebob: X minutes later
DiCaprio: cheers bro
Dune bucket: go get yer dick wet
Excellent, thank you! I connected all references except the first one (I’m not a Trekkie so maybe that’s why)
You’re not a Trekkie yet
Eventually everyone on the fediverse will be a Trekkie running Linux
Oh no, I started watching Star Trek not that long ago, and I’ve been kinda thinking about going to Linux soon… I was a pawn of the fediverse the whole time!!
From what I understand the cute socks and cat ears arrive a few weeks after you install Arch
That’s why they are missing. I installed Arch once got annoyed in seconds and went back to SUSE. I extensively use the arch wiki though, so can I get one or the other?
TNG S5E2 is the legendary episode from this post. You have so many gems in your journey like S2E9 etc etc. You are in an envious position of experiencing the franchise for the first time, just make sure you start out with TNG, DS9(slow start but great), and Voy (a bit mid but with some great episodes) & I always thought enterprise was good.
Post that lot though… The newer films can be a fun cinematic experience I guess, but the series are mostly trash. SNW had some moments, Discovery had a few, but really MEH.
Oh also TNG S1 was fairly rough but improves so much as it ran. Still had its share of duds but the highs of the high points were some of the best TV of the genre at the time.
I like The Orville and enjoyed the J.J. films, but that’s as far as I’ll dive into the world of Trekkie-dom.
What in the fever dream is this comic? It’s so bizarre, I’m going to need a translation for your translation.
My edit of your initial insights:
Miles on average: Everything out of spec, how do I fix this?
Smith/Rock: hit it
(Shaka[…]: error) Capn: gotcha
Turkish olympics guy: Did you succeed without any specialist tools?
Raygun: No, it’s much worse
billionaire sub: Drive it into the sea.
Spongebob: X minutes later [Claim the insurance (implied from image)]
DiCaprio: Great thanks, new car works
Dune bucket: Enjoy it
Next…
I forgot about the Dune popcorn bucket reference until your explanation.
This is magical.
This is what happens when the mass of memes is so heavy it collapses upon itself.
How much internet brain rot do I have?
I understood that…the fact that i understand this makes me want to stop selling death sticks and go home and rethink my life
Lebowski. His grin strong, his eyes wide!
People, 30 years later, talking like predicted!
This is high art.
Where is Stamets?
This is a goddamn masterpiece
The metaphor language made me wonder how kids in that culture learned to speak it. To understand what “Shaka when the walls fell” you need some backstory - who was Shaka? What happened when the walls fell? How did it affect Shaka? To understand the jokes here you have to know the Olympic break dancer story, the DiCaprio “cheers” meme, etc. I would think the civilization must have had a rudimentary factual language for telling stories and explaining the metaphors, and the metaphor language was more advanced, used by people once they learned enough metaphors to understand it.
I just wanna know how you got me to read it in their voices
I think I’m out of touch. I’m ok with that. But wtf did I just read?
Can’t really explain it either but it is genius.
The guy to the right is a character from TNG season 5 episode 2.
Picard crashes on a planet with that alien guy. They don’t understand each other, not because the universal translator doesn’t work, but because the alien language consists of allegories that make no sense due to the different cultural backgrounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darmok
The meme is written in contemporary allegories. It’s not gibberish. It does make sense if you know the stories of each event that is referenced.
Wonderful work!
