I just figured out why 6-7 became a so-called meme, and now that I have, I'm honestly surprised that it took us until 2025 AD to get to this point.
First, it goes like this:
joke = setup →punchlineanti-joke = setup →non-punchlineSo a joke is exactly that in a conventional sense, so an example of an anti-joke is:
"Why did the chicken cross the road?"
"To get to the other side."
It's set up as if the answer to that question were a punchline, but the answer is instead completely literal.
Notice how if it's either a joke or an anti-joke, the setup and the punchline are both variable. So if the setup could be anything, and the punchline or lack thereof could also be anything, than we're either talking about a joke or an anti-joke.
So… a meme is an inversion of this. You see a meme using a template that practically anyone who will ever see it is already familiar with, hence why it's called a meme in the first place, and you already know exactly what the punchline is—instantaneously or at least faster than you can possibly read [EDIT: or the punchline is implied, or something that's still funny even if it's not a literal punchline in words, etc.]. The reason why you've already seen that same template before is, by definition, because it's a reference to something—literally no other way for that to be true.
So if memes' respective punchlines are already known ahead of time, then what is an anti-meme? Well, an anti-meme, based on all of the other definitions it took to get there, would have to be a punchline that is a known constant but with no setup whatsoever.
It's understood that 6-7 was never any kind of a reference to anything, ever, going all the way back… so there you go.
We have anti-memes now.
Yay.
#Meme #Memes #67Meme #Comedy #ShowerThoughts