The ‘Great Meme Reset’ Is Coming
www.wired.com
From Jack Dorsey to Gen Alpha, everyone seemingly wants to go back to the internet of a decade ago. But is it possible to reverse AI slop and brain rot?

archive.is link

Memes are getting a reboot. Not like a Marvel-is-trying-to-make-Fantastic Four-happen-again reboot. More like a rewind. The Great Meme Reset of 2026, as it’s being called on TikTok, demands that on January 1 all memes revert to their 2010s glory days. Bland “brain rot” and AI-looking memes are out; Big Chungus is in.

As with anything on the internet, the origin of the Great Meme Reset is hard to place. Most sources point to a March post from TikTok user @joebro909 that called for a whole new generation of memes to save the platform from the “drought” that had engulfed it in the spring. The post said nothing of a January 1 launch date, or a return to the memes of the last decade, but the idea was planted. Now hundreds of posts are discussing the reboot—and a return to the internet’s “dank” era.

Which implies, of course, that memes lack dankness these days. If anything, Gen Z– and Gen Alpha–fueled internet culture has prided itself on somewhat meaningless content like “6 7” and absurdist, seemingly AI-generated “Italian brain rots,” but after nearly a year of memes with little humanity or depth, a backlash has begun.

  • Lvxferre [he/him]@mander.xyz
    12·
    19 hours ago

    Even if you’re in the camp that understands memes like “6 7” have more significance than they’re given credit for,

    I think 6-7 is a shibboleth. It doesn’t say much on its own, except which group you belong to.

    Substance, as ever, remains a relative notion. Nyan Cat perhaps didn’t have the substance of an Andy Warhol image

    I’d argue the Nyan cat is more substantial than what Andy Warhol came up with.

    If you want a great reset you’ll need a new internet that is outright hostile to corporate interests. No corposlop being produced there, no derailing old memes to sell you junk.

      • HappyHappyJoyJoy@beehaw.org
        4·
        6 hours ago

        The website is confusing me, can you try to explain this to me?

        Nostr is an apolitical communication commons. A simple standard that defines a scalable architecture of clients and servers that can be used to spread information freely.

        So it’s like ActivityPub?

        anyone can build on Nostr and anyone can use it.

        How is it accessed, do you need to connect to IP addresses, is there a url analogy or is it all on the ‘clearweb’ and another layer on top.

        • whoever loves Digit@piefed.socialEnglish
          1·
          2 hours ago

          It is a protocol like ActivityPub is

          Currently there are relay servers and web clients with DNS addresses, onion addresses, and I think some reachable with meshtastic somehow, but idk much about meshtastic. DNS and onion address servers also work with native client apps for Android and Apple