Was 2024 the year memes made us stupid?

After more than 15 years since the birth of the internet, as we know it, everyone now knows how to make memes (or at least think they do). Maybe it was the simplification of visual communication driven by branding – where images and quick jokes became the essence – or the fact that even boomers now spend their days scrolling TikTok, but in 2024, irony has established itself as a universal language. Even heads of state, who struggled with stiff photos and institutional messages until a few years ago, now ride the wave of humor to reach voters and gain approval. The brat campaign of Kamala Harris built a pop and ironic narrative, showing that memes and politics are no longer distant worlds. The same can be said for the Italian Democratic Party, which chose puns, viral references, and highly shareable clips to win over Gen Z. And if even Saturday Night Live, after years of obscurity, has become relevant again, the credit lies in this new obsession with satirical content consumed on a loop on social media. Memes are no longer a subculture but the beating heart of mainstream communication. They are the most effective way to speak to everyone and do so in just a few seconds. But this revolution also has its dark side. As highlighted by American artist Ethel Cain in an essay regarding the U.S. elections, 2024 has given rise to an “irony epidemic”, a phenomenon that increasingly leads the internet population to take everything too lightly.

The “irony epidemic” has now become a global phenomenon, to the point that the Oxford Dictionary chose “brain-rot” as the word of the year. This term perfectly describes the cognitive stagnation caused by simple, fast, low-quality content, created to provide an immediate dopamine rush. With the internet transformed into a continuous stream of memes and jokes, critical thinking risks being replaced by easy laughs and instant content. It's as if irony, once a tool to understand the world, has become a mask to avoid confronting it. Platforms like Letterboxd, once a haven for authentic discussions, reflect this drift perfectly. Ironic reviews and jokes that reduce complex films to viral memes have become the norm, completely overturning the app's original purpose. It’s no longer about talking about cinema; it’s about chasing likes. This shift is not isolated: it reflects how the web rewards virality and instant content at the expense of reflection.

The link between memes and politics is perhaps the clearest example of how irony has been consumed by contemporary populism. The use of political irony has undoubtedly brought younger generations closer to public debate, but at what cost? The obsession with virality risks turning every political message into a competition for the most shared content, not necessarily the most meaningful. This dynamic ties into a dangerous trend: the simpler the messages become, the more extreme the positions get. Irony and sarcasm work brilliantly to reinforce a viewpoint but rarely create a space for dialogue. The result is an increasingly polarized social dialogue, where people choose to laugh at those who think differently rather than trying to understand them—just spend a couple of minutes on Elon Musk’s X. Behind the lightness, however, lies a risk: losing the ability to engage in serious discussions and analyze problems for what they are. The term “brain-rot” is not just a linguistic trend but a symbol of how online communication is changing our thinking. If the internet, as shown in the case of Luigi Mangione, has even turned an alleged murderer into an incomparable viral phenomenon, and every day of Wicked's press day felt like Christmas for netizens, perhaps screen time is indeed altering the natural course of critical thinking. Can we return to a balance where irony doesn’t suffocate complexity and laughter doesn’t become the only possible response?