Your Latest Gen Z Meme Culture Digest

Memes have continued to be a constant in the tumultuous lives of today’s young people, serving as a powerful way to cope with stress while also as a vehicle for community development. You may recognize the namesake Affirmations memes that became popular in the past year, which offer positive statements of self actualization in the form of comedic daily mantras. Repeat these phrases enough, and maybe you can manifest them into existence — i.e. “I am not my own worst enemy” or “I will not have a mental breakdown at my workplace.”

But a more recent development in these affirmation meme pages are popping up in the form of smaller, localized accounts. These accounts, bearing the names of colleges or small towns, promise not just sarcastic manifestation but true community recognition – the online version of meeting someone from your hometown at a bar hundreds of miles away. Although community might once have played out organically in physical places pre-pandemic, hyper-specific meme accounts now have a heightened role (and responsibility) in fostering that same sense of belonging, even if it’s around something typically considered insignificant or small. 

Take the “Little Miss” and “Mr Men” memes that have popped up on Instagram and TikTok in the past few weeks. Many are associating themselves with these literary characters commonly found on the bookshelves of millennials as children, using them to call out their own insecurities or niche personality traits. Whether it’s “Little Miss Scalding Hot Showers” or “Mx. Can’t Grocery Shop Without a Meltdown,” or “Mr. Banned From Uber,” these oddly shaped creatures from our collective childhoods are a way to self-identify and express in a nostalgic format – a nod to our Element of Culture Near Nostalgia.  

One commenter on @lyssavibe_’s “Little Miss” viral TikTok said, “Realizing me, you, and the comments got a lot in common.” While the commonality is  comforting, there’s a shared concern amongst certain meme aficionados – is it possible that we’ve never had an original thought in our lives? Maybe not – but perhaps what’s more valuable at this point in time is not distinctiveness, but belonging. After all, as isolation plagues our increasingly lonely society, there’s more solace found in shared ideology than solitary experiences.