“Damn Daniel! Back at it again with the white vans!” Damn Daniel is a meme that has swept the web in just a matter of days. The word “Meme” has been around since the 1970’s, created by famed Atheist Richard Dawkins, it is a joke a that is passed through people and society, becoming popular through imitation. As a result, what started has a simple video has turned into a well-known joke which will probably burn out in a matter of days.  A meme like Damn Daniel is called an internet meme, which came about in the early 2000’s.These are jokes like “doge”, “What are those?”, and the aforementioned “Damn Daniel.” What can be of debate is whether or not these jokes are actually funny and why people find them funny in the first place.

Many would say that society finds memes funny because people are “idiots” due to the simple humor behind them. For example, Damn Daniel was really funny just because of the way the boy who is recording says “Damn Daniel, back at it again with the white vans.” It was just someone complimenting his friend, there is no real complexity behind that. This does not mean it is not funny, though. It almost even makes it better because more people can understand the joke, causing it to be spread far across the web.

Most memes are like this anyway, such as the “doge” meme. This is just a picture of a Shiba Inu dog making a funny face with photoshopped words in Comic Sans saying phrases like “Very wow,” and “Such doge.” The meme is not really complex, it is just funny for the sarcasm and irony behind it, making it very simple. That is what makes it funny, everybody understands the joke and can be apart of it, therefore nobody is left out. This makes it appealing to everyone, or at least most people.

Besides how simple the jokes can be, they are also funny because they can be applied to many different situations and still be funny. To use the doge meme as an example again, there is a specific picture of the dog edited onto a twinkie saying “much cake,” “do want,” and “good filled.” Another example is the “What are those” meme. Basically, if one sees someone else wearing ugly shoes, they point at them and say “What are thooooose?” The entire joke is simply to apply it to one’s current situation. The plainness of the memes lead directly to the ability to change them around and make them even funnier, which is probably why it can take so long for a meme to die out. For example, the Bernie V.S Hillary meme is also very flexible, just like What are those. Bernie V.S Hillary is a poster with a picture of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton that shows their hypothetical sides of an issue that is of current concern. To further explain, there is one version of the meme where the issue topic is “Shoes” and under Bernie is a pair of Air Jordans but under Hillary is a pair of Crocs, implying that Air Jordans are better than Crocs. This meme has been running for over a month and will probably take a while to die out just because it can be used in so many different situations.

There are people who are annoyed with the internet meme, due to the rapid rate at which a joke can spread nowadays.  These people would say that the joke is old before it even has a chance to be new. Really though, memes are funny despite how short or how long their lifespans may be and those who are bitter about them should just stop paying attention to it and ignore the people spreading it. Memes are just a way for people to have fun and share jokes with their friends that most people will be able to understand.