
It’s honestly hard for me to believe that a computer artificially generated this, not a frustrated kid stuck at home with their well-meaning but stifling mother for much longer than nature would normally allow: Honestly, it’s okay to want a change of company. ImgflipĪnd take this iteration of the Distracted Boyfriend meme. Some of the other memes being generated seem eerily appropriate for the current moment we’re in: A computer, not a person living through a pandemic, made this. For instance, here’s the first thing the AI generated when I asked it to show me an example of the “ Is This a Pigeon?” meme: So meta it hurts. The results are often hilarious, and they certainly feel like real memes. Neural networks have made great strides in recent years, giving us everything from fake movies to fake articles and, of course, fake porn.īasically, Imgflip’s neural network processed a lot of memes and then tried to predict what memes should look like. The computer gorges itself on a lot of data and then teaches itself, through lots of repetition, how to predict what that data should look like. If you’re not familiar with a neural network, it’s basically a computer that uses an algorithmic technique known as deep learning. No, this generator uses its data about memes that do exist to conjure up memes that don’t exist. The tool is not to be confused with other meme generators, which merely curate existing popular memes. You can let the network generate a random meme for you, or you can preselect your meme from one of many popular templates, from Mocking SpongeBob to the Gatsby toast. But these memes aren’t actually “real.” They’re being created on the spot by a neural network, an artificial intelligence (AI) that predicts what it thinks a meme might look like.

For proof, look no further than “ This Meme Does Not Exist,” a meme-creation tool created by meme-template website Imgflip.Īt a glance, it looks like your average random assortment of meme templates. It’s official: The coronavirus quarantine may have well and truly made the concept of a “meme” obsolete.
