For about a month now, one thing has become clear: the Great Meme Reset failed. And by “failed,” I mean it barely lasted a single day. The goal of the Great Meme Reset (which I won’t go into much detail about because our graphic designer, John D., already covered it) was to bring memes back to their earlier days. Classics like “Wait a minute, who are you?” and “Do you know the way?” were supposed to make a comeback. That didn’t happen. Instead, it turns out that “Tung Tung Tung Sahur” is apparently indestructible. Unfortunately.
On top of the reset failing, it may have pushed us into an even worse era of memes, with AI-generated “slop” taking over, something I personally hate with a burning passion. Meanwhile, “Escape Tsunami” brainrot has exploded in popularity, and SAB has started gaining traction again, which can only mean one thing: more brainrot. And this might not even be the worst of what’s coming. With the rise of Sora AI, meme slop seems like it’s here to stay. You can see this clearly after just a 10-minute TikTok scroll. In fact, I counted 54 AI videos.
I wish I were exaggerating. But the greatest tragedy of the Great Meme Reset has to be the gap between expectations and reality. Everyone imagined the return of classic 2016-era memes. What we got instead was one day of retro memes that people quickly rejected. If you’re going to commit to something like this, you actually have to commit. The Great Meme Reset was flawed from the start, with lackluster execution and, frankly, boring meme choices. However, I believe the biggest reason the reset failed is that no one actually wants old memes back. I’ll be honest: apart from brainrot and AI slop, new-generation memes are often better than old-gen ones. This is just my opinion, but it’s one I stand by.
Old memes had their time, and they aren’t really needed anymore. Most modern memes don’t make me cringe the way some of the older ones did. Still, old memes are like a rock: boring, stale, and always there when you don’t want them. In the end, the Great Meme Reset was bound to do one thing: crash and burn. Let’s be honest: most people saw the trend and thought it would last a day at most, and they were right.
Here’s my final thought on the reset’s failure: I never expected it to succeed. What surprised me was that, for a brief moment, people actually believed in it. There was a little bit of hope, even if it didn’t last. As much as I expected the Great Meme Reset to fail, it still did something interesting: it showed that people were willing to hope for it, even temporarily. Honestly, I find that kind of adorable. But its failure also proves something bigger; the idea of returning to old memes isn’t exactly alive and thriving. And in my book, that’s one massive win.
