saving the internet through physical media

memes are forever thanks to nathalie vazquez

on the first rainy day of the season, i received a little package from one of my earliest online friends, nathalie vazquez. but you may know her as @rilakkumamemes, the meme creator/collector incorporating kawaii characters into her work.

inside was her latest art endeavor, a white hard cover book with “memes” embossed in an old-english reflective silver. the opening page read, “this book is a curated collection of memes that have been ingrained into my brain from years of having an embarrassingly high screen time. in this book’s pages, you will find just some of the memes that have helped shape the current state of online humor.” following is 120 of them from big miss steak to trench coat buttoned to the TOP to even lana how i hate those guys.

there’s a natural flow between them all as similar ones are placed closer together until reaching a chaotic end. it showcases the subtle evolution of memes. top and bottom text, facebook template, deep fried, create mode. there’s sprinkles of pop culture references too through fka twigs, brat, anime, bones and all, and chloë sevigny. she tells me over dms that her criteria was if something was still funny, “there’s a bunch of memes that are only funny for a while until they seem cringe. they had to be something i’d still send to friends if i saw it today.” and i actually did laugh out loud to myself as i flipped through the book, coming across some memes for the first time and remembering the ones i used to flirt with my now boyfriend.

back when the internet was first taking off, an abundance of fear mongering existed. parents, schools, and authority figures endorsed mindful posting, believing what you posted online would exist forever. we were told to think of our future employers and professors, to post ourselves modestly as to not get in the way of future opportunities. yet as time continues, we’re finding that the internet isn’t forever. websites close. platforms die. servers crash. hyperlinks fail. few archiving efforts exist - most likely due to ignorance of its necessity and/or of the directions to do so — and even then, as we saw with the internet archive attacks in october, it isn’t truly a protective practice.

the process also allows bias to occur as only some material is regarded as important enough to preserve. certain voices, point of views, experiences slip through the cracks becoming obsolete. an adversity as our culture — and personal lives — flourish more and more online. some of millennials’ and gen-zs’ largest contributions to society has been through their internet usage and developments — chat rooms, social media, influencers, etc, etc. meanwhile marginalized individuals are often the ones to find real communities on the web as it offers an escape from their harsh realities. we leave the existence of it all in the hands of those who own the internet, tech oligarchs who chase capital and control regardless of our safety and interests. as nathalie continues in her forward, “...we risk so much of the internet being completely lost. the most reliable way to preserve it is through physical media.”

so she made memes: the book, a small pushback against the inevitable end of the online world. nathalie turned some fleeting internet entertainment she holds dear to her heart into something physical and permanent, something to display in your house as a reflection of ourselves — both through the act of being someone who owns such memorabilia and through memes’ transformation as a legitimate art form that questions, critiques, and copes with living in the digital age. the book is a bit cynical and ironic, created for the chronically online who received internet access during their formative years and now find comfort in making a joke out of everything. #live #laugh #meme