Yet another reason I don't understand the modern world. The phenomenon of 'trends' on social media. Someone far up the chain has an original idea for a joke, and then every Tom, Dick and Harriette is slapping out the same joke, now played 30,000 times on your feed already, but now with bad acting and maybe a minor word change.
We had a phrase for this when I was in school. Copycat. It was derogatory. You didn’t want to be caught doing it.
And now, it’s the default norm?
Is there no originality left in the world? Why do people want to see the same meme thrashed out a dozen different ways, each copy losing another level of accuracy and poignance?
Perhaps I'm missing something. Maybe the joy isn't in seeing a new joke. Maybe the joy is in seeing the same joke repeated by 50,000 different people until every last molecule of humour has been extracted from it.
Like a comedy version of strip mining.
By the time the trend finally dies, all that's left is a smoking crater where the original joke used to be.
Comments