The best memes are the ones that point out our human frailties and foibles. The reason that viral jokes and images go viral in the first place is that they’re so instantly and universally relatable. For example, almost everybody knows a “Good Guy Greg” — a nice person who only looks like a jerk. And we’ve all got a picture of ourselves or our friends from our awkward teenage years that very closely resembles that one of the “Ermahgerd”-shouting, Goosebumps -loving young lady.
The latest and maybe greatest meme of familiarity hitting Twitter takes the form of a joke format: Mustering the courage to speak an unpopular opinion into a live, hot microphone. The speaker is invariably greeted by a wave of boos, and then the speaker’s original, controversial statement is confirmed and agreed with by an authority figure. It’s open-ended but has innate comic timing, so the “say into the mic” fad is exploding. After all, don’t we all just want to say the silly things that pop into our heads and for the world to tell us we’re not wrong?
https://twitter.com/CobyDeCucumber/status/943861539647512577
“theres nothing wrong with human cloning," i say into the mic.
the crowd boos. i begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room.
"she’s right, you know". i look for the owner of the voice. there in the 5th row stands: me.
— cíochóg (@cailleach_rua) December 21, 2017
https://twitter.com/yourgetawaycar/status/943696883486257152
https://twitter.com/harleivy/status/943336220863721472
https://twitter.com/90schaneI/status/943687744743727104
https://twitter.com/fastjelIyfish/status/943241458680770560
https://twitter.com/loserichie/status/943582700438507520
https://twitter.com/fememist/status/943835484144386048
"hamlet and horatio were a couple" i say into the mic.
the crowd boos. i begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room.
"she’s right," they say. i look for the owner of the voice. there in the 5th row stands: shakespeare’s ghost himself
— gui d. stern ✺🎃 (@northamlet) December 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/harleivy/status/943859808452665346
https://twitter.com/MamoudouNDiaye/status/943878400393056257
https://twitter.com/heartwines/status/943706001231953920
“This meme died 5 minutes ago”, I say into the mic.
The crowd boos. I begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks & commands silence from the room.
"He's right," they say. I look for the owner of the voice. There in the 5th row stands: the creator of the meme, himself.
— DaiKaiju-Z (@KaijuZ) December 20, 2017