As I go about my day to day life in this day and age, I feel a certain deja vu. That deja vu harks back to the days of lore, 2016. That was a legendary period; the great meme war, the election of god emperor Trump, the golden age of youtube edginess. It was a microcosm in time, yet at the time I didn't know it would be so short lived. And when it ended the realization it was over slowly crept up. Trump was elected, the liberals had been shown to be an utter joke, the youtube drama was settled, all was good in the empire.... or was it?
Well, competent leadership is a plus. But in the absence of serious opposition (or the entry of overwhelming opposition), fervor seems to fade. As big tech and corporate greed sweeped the interwebs, new rules made the kind of content so characteristic in 2016 much harder to make. The left was whiny, as usual, but much of their hilarious tantrums were more subdued and less frequent.... their motivation crushed. And in the absence of things to meme, the meme well went dry. The 2016 glory days had ended abruptly.
I think another thing that contributed to this shift is that everybody had moved on. The types of memes and content that used to be funny became stale as the people who used to consume them matured and moved on in life. And then the normies came in with things like tik tok and co-opted the memes, further staling them. There exceptions of course; the doomer boomer zoomer meme was for instance, a good one. But memes such as the simp meme or Karen meme were played out and old, reawakened by the mainstream from its 2016 grave.
There was only one hope, another election season to rejuvenate energy and reignite the shitposting craze.... except we have the election and that never happened. Maybe it was COVID, but I think even without a pandemic locking us all indoors it couldn't have matched 2016. The primaries for instance, were much less interesting than that of 2016. Trump isn't as new and exciting. There is no Jeb to mock. Biden is moreso pathetic than entertaining. The elements are there to make it similar to 2016. Shit, even my old YouTubers are coming back a bit and it's heating up there, but not nearly to the extent it was then. Nevertheless the similarities to 2016 are here but is it the same? No. It's more like a poorly done sequel.
I guess this shows how enemies can actually be good, because life sure is more interesting when there's a good ol conflict to spice it up. You could even say the same for SC, especially in this context of 2016 ;)
Anyway, I'm sure the next big thing will show up to light the internet ablaze and make things more interesting for us all but until then, shit's boring and it's gonna stay that way until something gives. The election isn't gonna be that thing unless the debates are a wonderful mess, and I hope they will be. Anyway a bit of a tangent/rant. G'day folks.
