CAN I MEME THIS?

Is it a meme in and of itself to talk about the current day AI sloppification of memes? To long for when actual human beings would apply finishing touches to the thinking man’s meme? This is one of the questions behind the Great Meme Reset, a call to action that snowballed on TikTok for memes to harken back to our shared humanity, come 1 January 2026. Memes used to serve more as ciphers, with layers of meaning, allusion and backstory to be unpacked. Nowadays, meme-craft can be turned over to AI meme generators that go heavy on throwaway, meaningless imagery to elicit quick bursts of emotion that are then forgotten.

The backlash against pump-and-dump content comes and goes, but it’s clear that people want to feel something again – as well as see the actual human-made qualities of what’s being consumed. This is paramount for story-telling in the entertainment industry, but also for brands that don’t want their customer outreach to get lost in noise. Brand-building is akin to story-telling, and customers want more than just the reductive and sensational.

OUR TAKE

There have never been more ways for brands to engage with customers, but it still feels like everyone is competing for tiny slices of attention pie. Each customer touchpoint becomes a permutation of screens – someone is watching a program on streaming while playing a mobile game and also browsing through TikTok, Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. There are industry murmurs that streaming executives wonder if content needs to be dumbed down, to outslop the slop. Does this spell the end of prestige TV? Is this why people are nostalgic for prestige memes?

Microdramas can get the short end of the stick, especially when compared to the “serious business” of prestige TV and auteurs. The dramatic plot twists and AI enthusiasm in the visual effects are easy to dismiss. It would be myopic though to forget about why people are drawn to this content  – the emotional beats of the characters and storylines coupled with accessible formats equal a thriving fandom. We’ve covered this before in a previous edition of CultureWire! Microdramas speak to consumers and the love for stories, and shouldn’t all be painted with the same brush.

At the end of the day, people will always be drawn to impactful story-telling. This especially pertains to the reviled advertisement format. Brands are experimenting with cinematic story-telling and movie-making tools to create ads that are short films. Watching ads in theaters before the actual movie starts used to be fun, until the ads got too long. But what if it were a 33-minute story with Hollywood talent and an idiosyncratic director? It no longer feels like just product placement, but a story that feels purposeful and makes it fun to engage with the brand. Thus the ad playbook continues to evolve, as these formats aren’t a magic bullet and won’t guarantee audience engagement. Who knows, movie-rating service Rotten Tomatoes may end up passing judgement on these ads.

Consumers might be as distracted as ever, but the yearning to feel something and feel spoken to remains. Brands have a plethora of tools (this includes AI!) at their disposal – what are you going to say next about your brand?

For those of you born before 1997, ‘fax, no printer‘ is Gen Z speak for ‘undeniable facts I agree with’

Scroll to the end of the newsletter for the correct answer!