Why Memes Are My Mental Junk Food

I like junk food.

This controversial viewpoint may astound you. What sort of monster would enjoy grabbing a handful of chips, a square of chocolate, a doughnut hole?

But just as I enjoy mini-bombs of sugar, salt, and/or fat, I know that filling up on them at the expense of my meals is probably going to make me sick. More importantly, snacking on junk food may feel great at the time, but it usually leaves me unsatisfied in the long run.

When I eat a couple cheezies, I don’t think, “Man, that was good! Just what I needed!” Instead, I feel compelled to chase down some elusive satisfaction by having some more. And more after that. And more after that.

Cheezies and other junk food are engineered to have this exactly this effect: the companies manufacturing them want consumers to find them addictive. The industry people in the linked New York Times Magazine article call it the “bliss” point, but it doesn’t feel blissful to me.

It feels more like the punishment of Eriysichthon. I want to eat more junk food for its own sake, not because I’m hungry or anticipate eventual satisfaction. Even as I’m eating, I don’t feel like I’m getting anything out of it. That’s why, in general, I try to avoid junk food. The pleasure it gives is a greedy, ephemeral kind that leaves me worse off than when I started.

I like Internet junk food.

When I’m bored or tired, I click through sites like I Waste So Much Time or FMyLife. (I used to browse social media like Facebook and Twitter, but I’ll explain below why that’s no longer the case.) If there’s not enough novelty to satisfy me, I keep on clicking through. No matter how many times I tell myself before I start that I’ll just look at the front page, I find myself clicking through until I get to memes, anecdotes, or jokes that I’ve already seen.

For me, memes and social media updates are the junk food of the Internet. I don’t say that to devalue their worth, just as I don’t think you’re a worse or better person for how you choose to interact with real-life junk food. What I mean is they share several characteristics with the junk foods I love but ultimately, for my own happiness, can’t make a part of my daily routine.

Like junk food, I feel different when I don’t indulge in them. (Actor/comedian Aziz Ansari has some interesting points to make on the subject on this episode of the Freakonomics podcast.) If I’m at the cottage, or busy, or just haven’t turned on my computer, I don’t crave my daily dose of Rage Comics or clickbait. I feel qualitatively better.

For example, a while back, I got into Twitter. It was cool to follow online intellectuals, publishing industry professionals, and/or friends and see what they had to say. But when I noticed this summer that I was checking Twitter every two seconds when I had a free alone-moment instead of reading, watching, or playing something more interesting — and when I recognized that it made me feel yucky and overwhelmed — I quit cold turkey. I uninstalled the Twitter app from my phone and blocked it during work hours on my PC. I check in to see my notifications and catch up every once in a while, just like I eat cake now and then.

There are things I miss about Twitter: I’m grateful that it kept me on-the-bleeding-edge up-to-date on controversies and great new books. It showed me viewpoints I wouldn’t otherwise have encountered and gave me a sense of professionals and personalities as real people.

But I feel a ton better since I stopped checking it obsessively. Likewise, when I do manage to stay away from memes and fails, I usually feel more productive and engaged with my life. Somehow, I find a way to fill the time that doesn’t involve Buzzfeed lists.

Just like junk food — and, I suppose, cowardly old-timey duelists — one-blast jokes, memes, and listicles promise satisfaction without ever delivering it. When I read Failblog, I’m never done when I reach the end of the page. Each entry gives me a brief jolt of humour, but the experience doesn’t give me the sustained emotional journey or conceptual insight of a hilarious movie or stand-up set. I scroll down to the bottom and want more, even though what I already had wasn’t pleasurable enough to engage me.

But just as I’ve noticed it’s better for my mental health to indulge in junk food once in a while, sometimes I need the mindless analgesic of a string of Buzzfeed gifs too. Some nights, I need let myself have a McChicken or a slice of pizza for dinner instead of stressing and winding up in tears as I try to juggle cooking and work and personal relationships. Some days, all my brain can process is yet another “comic” captioning the beats of a funny moment from a popular television show.

Just as beating myself up for having too many Timbits is worse than being sick from too much face-stuffing, I have to accept that sometimes I want silly, meaningless bites of novelty instead of more sustained experiences like reading books, playing games, or watching films.

Should I be mindful that too much of either is likely to make me feel not at my best? Of course.
Should I make an effort to consider the long-term consequences of indulging? Sure: I know that if I don’t summon my willpower and take care of future Sarah by eating lunch instead of a bag of chips, I’ll feel sick to my stomach or generally uneasy.

And what if I start on that daunting three-book series with a bunch of unfamiliar characters I need to learn to care about instead of yet another Paint-drawn observation that stepping on a Lego brick hurts? Well… I’ll probably feel more intellectually and emotionally refreshed.

Junk food comestibles and “junk food” pop culture both have their place and time. That place and time differs for each person, since we all have our own unique needs, but for me, cutting either out completely doesn’t work. Neither does relying on them for my physical or cultural nourishment. Instead, I have to take the third road: being mindful of my choices and balancing short-term gains in one part of my wellbeing with long-term results in others. If that means using the tools available to me, like deliberately not buying my favourite snack or installing a browser productivity manager, then that’s what works for me.