When we’re all using social media to stay connected - for instance, Twitter usage is currently at an all-time high - things can feel memetic before they’ve had time to take shape in a traditional meme format.
Maybe this is because social media spreads ideas, themes, and moods nearly instantaneously. So memes in the time of quarantine, to me at least, feel much more nebulous, fluid, and tougher to single out than memes of yore. When most of us have abruptly transferred most of our activities online, our shared thoughts, frustrations, and internet tools we use to connect to one another can also become memetic. But the “truth” is probably somewhere in between - or somewhere on a toilet - and that’s also meaningful in terms of telling us what a “meme” even is. thank you- Yannick LeJacq April 29, 2020Īs with all other attempts to virtually approximate reality, the result of this AI is often an uncanny valley between a real meme and a fake one.
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I feel like I'm constantly waiting for truth to come back from the toilet but I've never known how to describe this feeling until now. Over the last week, posts collecting some of the funniest AI-generated memes have made the rounds on social media:
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It’s hardly surprising, then, that between the novelty of a fake-meme generator, its eerie ability to capture our moods, and our current collective boredom, the meme generator itself has gone viral. So a meme like this one, generated by the neural network, still seems like a real meme: Who among us can’t relate? Imgflip
But hilariously, that also makes them feel memetic - because after all, many memes draw upon their nigh-nonsensical Dadaist leanings to gain new meaning from their new contexts. Other memes, however, wildly miss the mark and make little to no sense. In fact, some of the memes - which identify themselves as AI-generated with a tiny watermark at the bottom, in case you get confused - are jaw-droppingly on point: Okay, now the neural network is just mocking me. It’s honestly hard for me to believe that a computer artificially generated this, not a frustrated kid stuck at home with their well-meaning but stifling mother for much longer than nature would normally allow: Honestly, it’s okay to want a change of company. ImgflipĪnd take this iteration of the Distracted Boyfriend meme. Some of the other memes being generated seem eerily appropriate for the current moment we’re in: A computer, not a person living through a pandemic, made this. For instance, here’s the first thing the AI generated when I asked it to show me an example of the “ Is This a Pigeon?” meme: So meta it hurts. The results are often hilarious, and they certainly feel like real memes. Neural networks have made great strides in recent years, giving us everything from fake movies to fake articles and, of course, fake porn.īasically, Imgflip’s neural network processed a lot of memes and then tried to predict what memes should look like. The computer gorges itself on a lot of data and then teaches itself, through lots of repetition, how to predict what that data should look like.
If you’re not familiar with a neural network, it’s basically a computer that uses an algorithmic technique known as deep learning. No, this generator uses its data about memes that do exist to conjure up memes that don’t exist. The tool is not to be confused with other meme generators, which merely curate existing popular memes. You can let the network generate a random meme for you, or you can preselect your meme from one of many popular templates, from Mocking SpongeBob to the Gatsby toast. But these memes aren’t actually “real.” They’re being created on the spot by a neural network, an artificial intelligence (AI) that predicts what it thinks a meme might look like. For proof, look no further than “ This Meme Does Not Exist,” a meme-creation tool created by meme-template website Imgflip.Īt a glance, it looks like your average random assortment of meme templates. It’s official: The coronavirus quarantine may have well and truly made the concept of a “meme” obsolete.
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