From the dawn of the internet, various memes have plagued our devices. Beginning as humble images containing a funny line of text that could inspire one to grin, or even chuckle, perchance. Some have even utilized this harmless photo format to educate, as demonstrated by the students of each AP Seminar class, in which they are tasked with crafting memes to caution incoming students about what not to do.
Yes, the meme. The oh-so-lovable, innocent, cringey meme! What an incredible invention! How could anybody ever be mad at a simple picture? Such relatable illustrations were once gazed upon by crowds of children, gathering around a screen to enjoy at their leisure, sometimes competing against one another to see who could withhold their laughter the longest. However, this simple age had died. Indeed, times are changing, evolving even. Those who have spent any amount of time on Instagram have had the displeasure of experiencing the horror that we know as “Instagram Reels.”
The phenomena that spawns from reels, drastically incompatible with the charming “meme,” seems to change every week, if not every few days. The newer generation of internet users has largely become desensitized to modern meme culture, however as of late I have been able to come to my senses and realize what a cesspool of content I was succumbing to.
Firstly, “brain rot” is a term that I first recall being associated with the Quandale Dingle meme, but it has since moved to represent the skibidi toilet era (both completely irrelevant information when attempting to understand the term) and now encompasses a larger genre of content essentially consists of nonsensical information being conjoined into one video or image. While there are hundreds of different brain rot memes on Instagram, there is one that I would like to analyze as an example of the horrific content that reels enjoyers have to endure each and every day they are alive. This example, of course, is the growing “tralalero tralala” video.
I am unable to understand what is being said in the video as I do not speak Italian. However, I can explain what the overarching theme, purpose, and message of the video is. Nothing. There is quite literally nothing of importance in this video. It is literally just an AI-generated picture of a three-legged shark standing on a beach with sneakers while a text-to-speech voice speaks Italian. Yet, intriguingly, it made me laugh. Perhaps it was the randomness of the video, paired with the practically unintelligible nonsense being spewed into my ears, but it was indeed funny. Clearly this trend is a complete shift from what memes began as, and may seem pointless and stupid, but does this really matter? Even though memes, particularly the “brain-rotted” ones, are almost completely niche and unsensible, retaining zero purpose after a few weeks, is there any value in attempting to shift away from this format?
Contrary to what some people would believe, I think that the new meme trends are actually perfectly acceptable despite their abnormal appearance. This can be seen through various new marketing techniques being employed on Instagram by large companies such as TCL, Duolingo, and even KFC. Over the past few years, I have observed a wonderful increase in Gen-Z social media admins, especially when they work for large companies. It truly is a breath of fresh air to get a TCL advertisement that immediately starts off with: “How it feels being a gooner with a TCL” or “POV: You and your friends lock in and decide to buy a TCL TV,” BOTH OF WHICH ARE ACTUAL VIDEO TITLES ON THEIR INSTAGRAM PAGE. Sometimes, however, videos are posted that have absolutely no correlation with the company, such as this one below, which purely just comments on a recent meme trend.
However, most of them are just company advertisements blended with modern humor, such as this one:
Although this tactic of marketing seems funny at face value, is it truly effective? An important part of marketing is communicating a message and establishing a reputation for the company, however when I talked to my mom regarding this advertisement below, she had the following to say.
“I didn’t like it at all. It’s too busy. I don’t understand their ads.” Wow. Now I thought that when I watched this advertisement next to my brother and my mom, I was viewing a masterfully crafted work of art, however clearly there was a gap between our humor and also our digital literacy. This is clear when contrasting my mom’s reaction with my brother’s, who immediately erupted with laughter only 3 seconds into the video. This is important information, as targeted audiences are important for companies in order to market efficiently. Although it seems that this type of ad completely misrepresents every individual over the age of 20, I actually think that it doesn’t matter when taking into account the platform these ads are made on. In this case, Instagram is largely populated by the younger generation, so marketing to the younger generation is actually pretty sensible, especially when the marketing is BY the younger generation, as well as in a format that they are familiar with and relate to. I also think that it’s incredibly smart for a company like TCL, a company that sells physical TVs, to market to the younger generation, as it seems like a product that wouldn’t be of much interest to that age group. In this sense, utilizing modern humor in advertisements online is a no-brainer, as it not only vastly increases publicity—some reels generating around 300k views as opposed to 10k for a regular ad—but it also creates a fun and familiar rapport with a generation of people who would most likely not be interested in that product in that stage of their life.
While TCL is a great example of younger social media admins utilizing modern humor to appeal to a new audience, other companies that already target the youth employ this technique almost ubiquitously. One company I would like to speak on that is notorious for using modern trends and humor in their advertisements is Duolingo. Revolutionary language learning app Duolingo has created an esteemed online presence by fully embracing modern humor and expressing such through their app’s mascot, the Duo owl. Duolingo has made a clear effort to make language learning as entertaining as possible, and when it comes to drawing people to their app, they certainly know how to entertain. Let’s look at a reel posted on Instagram on Duolingo’s German account.
Here, Duolingo uses the popular brain rot trend of giving AI-generated animals silly Italian names by formatting them in their app as if one were completing a Duolingo lesson. The account creates a silly parody that seems to be mostly well received in their comments, with users stating, “Add brain rot language [please],” and “Oh Duolingo, that is what I wanted.” Through appealing to the ever-changing online culture of social media apps, Duolingo creates a hilarious online presence that may not appear to boost downloads of their app, but instead the popularity of their name, which is itself a key factor in marketing a business. All in all, it seems like internet culture, though sometimes unintelligible nonsense to the untrained eye, may actually prove to be an effective and also entertaining method for promoting companies online. I, for one, don’t mind the niche references to delusional brainrotted memes in the slightest.
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