Authenticity and Memes

April 26, 2025

I always had a certain disdain for those cookie-cutter, default memes that people sent around in non-niche communities. You know the kind of meme—where you think to yourself, “Haha, how relatable.”

I could never quite put my finger on what exactly annoyed me about them, but I think I’ve figured it out. It has to do with the Existentialist theme of authenticity. I disdain these unrelatable memes because they are produced in such a way as to be liked by the masses—designed so that everyone can relate to them and no one is offended.

By doing this, they become less human and more robotic: a non-authentic engagement with reality. It takes away from what makes us individuals, forfeiting our ability to call ourselves human. Instead, one becomes a Massenmensch—not an individual, but a clumped-together mass, a grotesque monstrosity of anonymity and soulless conformity.