We used to value creativity on the internet. Images we had never seen before, words we've never read, jokes we've never heard.

But then memes templates took off like a cancer. The same handful of jokes over and over and over, words overwritten to be about a different topic. Why make something new when you can just copy like a middle schooler substituting their own wit for South Park quotes?

And we ate it up. Now it's not just people trying to be funny, it's people trying to get followers. It's people hoarding folders of every edit of the same movie screenshot to pick from when they want to seem funny but have nothing to say.

AI memes are only a small step down from the usual slop that floods the Internet. Do we still find the joke we've heard a thousand times funny or are we dogs hearing the dinner bell?