Louis Wise on why a meme is worth 1000 words

Last Saturday I dined with my best friend at Kettner’s in Soho, where we ate delicious food and basked in an enjoyably flattering (low) light.

The highlight came at dessert, when we celebrated 20 years of friendship by not going over careers, relationship or the past, but each getting out our phones, and exchanging our favourite memes. There we were, two well-brought-up, well-educated thirty-somethings, and the only words we exchanged for about 25 minutes were ‘OMG — this one!’ Occasionally: ‘I can’t.’ Kettner’s has, in the past, welcomed Oscar Wilde, Agatha Christie and King Edward VII. I like to think we did them proud.

I do love my memes, but I’m beginning to worry about my consumption of them. For me, no day — no hour — is complete without sending or receiving some well-tailored visual gag. I like to think almost nothing can’t be said in a meme; they seize a deep human truth. Whether it’s Drake’s dancing, Nancy Pelosi’s clapback or a monkey in a coat in a shop window, the conclusion remains the same. And yet, I’ve noticed something recently. As my chats pile up across iMessage, Insta and WhatsApp, I’m getting disturbed by how little is actually ever said.

It’s all fine, a babbling brook of lolz, lmaos and yes, memes, but as soon as I try to turn it into something more, something that asks, ‘Hey, are you an actual human being, or just Siri in a North Face puffer?’, the chat tends to go cold. I’ll huff and puff, tut about people’s refusal to engage with intimacy, until I scroll back and realise I’m part of the problem, since about 72 per cent of my input has been sending gags about sex, partying — and the darkly comical impossibility of achieving intimacy. What I thought was shorthand for a shared sense of humour or affection looks like a way of avoiding saying anything at all. If you are what you put out into the world, perhaps I should go easy on the cheap gags about Céline Dion, or choking.

One hundred or so years ago, Edward VII would have smoked a fine cigar at Kettner’s after dinner. Is living out my Baby Yoda meme the same treat? Then again, Edward VII wasn’t operating in a world sent dizzy by climate change, coronavirus and Megxit, and a storm that someone decided to call Dennis. When the world gets more sane, I promise to become more so, too. Until then, memes feel like a perfectly logical response.