Memes are getting a reboot. Not like a Marvel-is-trying-to-make-Fantastic Four-happen-again reboot. More like a rewind. The Great Meme Reset of 2026, as it’s being called on TikTok, demands that on January 1 all memes revert to their 2010s glory days. Bland “brain rot” and AI-looking memes are out; Big Chungus is in.
As with anything on the internet, the origin of the Great Meme Reset is hard to place. Most sources point to a March post from TikTok user @joebro909 that called for a whole new generation of memes to save the platform from the “drought” that had engulfed it in the spring. The post said nothing of a January 1 launch date, or a return to the memes of the last decade, but the idea was planted. Now hundreds of posts are discussing the reboot—and a return to the internet’s “dank” era.
Which implies, of course, that memes lack dankness these days. If anything, Gen Z– and Gen Alpha–fueled internet culture has prided itself on somewhat meaningless content like “6 7” and absurdist, seemingly AI-generated “Italian brain rots,” but after nearly a year of memes with little humanity or depth, a backlash has begun.
Why not revert to the Internet of the 1990s, before it was commercialized and before Internet became synonymous with Web Services?
Of course, the truth is, even back then, there were a lot of dark memes on Usenet.
RIP Kevin Mitnick! Ghost in the Wires was a fun audiobook, and I really enjoyed the 2600 documentary Freedom Downtime when it was released.
Because the idea is pushed on commercial platforms that would suppress the idea otherwise. There are probably more people spanning several generations wanting that internet back. After all that’s a comment you can read dozens of times a day. But you won’t see that message spread on the usual platforms and neither see other media pick up the story.