The Internet is quite possibly the greatest invention that’s ever graced the world of man.

It contains the sum of almost all human knowledge ever recorded. It has brought about an unprecedented level of globalization by allowing communication around the world virtually instantly.

However, the Internet has posed one question that has left many perplexed: “Why are memes?”

Internet memes — for those of you who have decided to live under a rock since the Internet began to become  widely accessible — are pictures or videos with descriptive text that have an overlying theme. Animals like Grumpy Cat and Doge swept the Internet by storm, before they, like all other memes, went to the meme cemetery, relegated to lame Facebook pages and Lifetime movie specials.

The word meme is generally defined as an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.

On the Internet, this means that memes represent the purest distillation of Internet culture. From racism to a love of cats, memes teach us about the generally accepted online culture.

The most popular of these truffles of online culture provide us with a humorous insight into our own lives, either on or offline. They make many people laugh, become extremely popular and, like a bad firework, fizzle out into obscurity without anyone really noticing.

That doesn’t mean that all memes are good. Some memes are created by people so depraved of any creativity or understanding of how humor works. These people produce what the Internet refers to as “dank memes,” a generally positive comment repurposed to be negative, because the Internet is nothing if not sarcastic.

Dank memes are the embodiment of the slums of creativity that happen when you let anyone create whatever that they want. That being said, even the dankest of memes help to explain the culture of the Internet. Because of the freedom on the Internet, anyone can make anything — even when they suck at it.

The dankest memes show us just how free the Internet is. Whether they are just telling how totally amazing all of those saxaphone players in the River View High School band are, or how women need to stop being such feminazis, these dank memes remind us that the Internet’s freedom even encompasses those who are not capable of creating anything even slightly worth the amount of combined human energy it took for it to exist.

Memes are love, memes are life. Memes are the bouillon cubes of Internet culture, embodying all of the collective thoughts on the Internet into a mostly useless triviality.

Alex Bertsch is the opinion editor for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].