One of the reasons that the Internet Meme Demolition Derby is an irregular feature here at Grounded Parents rather than say a weekly or biweekly installment is that it depends on finding it’s source material out there in the wild. Now sometimes I get some help from readers or my fellow GP’s finding these nuggets of Internet Fool’s Gold, but in general it’s my own Facebook feed or Twitter account that provides our unwilling candidates for demolition. And lately I haven’t seen as many worthy candidates pop up. I can think of three reasons for this drought and I will rank them in order of implausibility.
- My crusade against bad parenting advice on the internet is having a visible effect of the flow of bad parenting advice on the internet? As nice as that would be to my fragile and insecure ego, I’m fairly certain we can discount this theory out of hand. My little comic relief sideshow here is fun and far from pointless, but I doubt I’ve changed the culture overnight.
- Facebook’s algorithm is hiding the worst offenders from my sight? There is certainly some plausibility to this hypothesis. I live on Facebook, providing plenty of clicks for the magic number djinn locked in Mark Zuckerburg’s basement to turn into pageviews for their directed advertising. Since most of my interactions are with like minded people it is possible that the bad stuff is being filtered out for me. I’m however loathe to jump on the “blame Facebook algorithm” bandwagon since to tell the truth I’m not completely sure what an algorithm actually is. I might as well blame pixies.
- I have ruthlessly curated my online experience to avoid dealing with the kind of people who post bad parenting advice? Here I think we have a winner. The fact of the matter is that I live on the Internet. I’m always checking news, blogs, Facebook and Twitter. I’m usually involved in a half dozen online conversations per day. And there is a limit to how much I can afford to allow those conversations to infuriate me. So if you are the kind of person I’ve noticed to have a tendency to say…encourage corporal punishment or rail fruitlessly at the advance of technology or go into ageist, ablist, racist rants online, then I’ve probably blocked or unfriended you. At the very least I’ve hidden your posts from my timeline for my own piece of mind. Now this makes my Facebook feed and Twitter stream friendlier for sure. But it also leaves me bereft of candidates for the Derby.
Or should I say NEW candidates, the old ones are always with us. Unfortunately, bad internet memes by their very nature are like cockroaches, hard to kill and darn sneaky. You never know when one will come scurrying out from under 4chan to bother you again. So I’ve decided to make a continually updated chronological list of the IMDD so that I can quickly append a link in the comments or mentions the next time I see that stupid “Rules for Dating my Daughter” t-shirt shared again. And so can you!
- Ten Rules For Dating My Daughter. The very first edition, and still one of my favorites.
- An Application To Date My Son(s). The equal opportunity follow up to the Ten Rules. By Zod this still creeps me out.
- Dear Mom On The iPhone. This is our first but not last encounter with people unnaturally averse to modern technology.
- Quoting Horrible People. Where we meet the late scumbag Joseph Sobran and examine his views on education.
- Congratulation On Being Born In The XX’s. Here we take our first really deep dive into harmful nostalgia.
- My Parents Spanked Me As A Child. Should you smack your kids to help them grow up with respect for others? Or should you avoid being awful?
- Childhood Is Not A Disease. As someone whose ADHD, anxiety and dyslexia went undiagnosed as a child I took this one personally.
- About That George Carlin Meme. In which we (with the help of the Daily Kos) clear up some misconceptions about my favorite comedians views on education.
- Happy Meme. A good meme that people should share more. Stop the glorification of busy.
- New Rules For Dating My Daughter. A follow up to the debut edition of the Derby, an excellent feminist Dad T-shirt.
- Don’t Try This At Home. I am not ready to be nostalgic for the fucking 90’s.
- Kids These Days Part Infinity. Where we question the creativity of a meme creator who is questioning the creativity of today’s iAddicted youth.
I’ll add to this page as new memes enter the ring of destruction. To help us add to the carnage, send me links to more annoying internet memes about parenting. You can use the Grounded Parents contact form, or tweet at us @GroundedParents or @blotzphoto. Or use smoke signals, although I’m not sure how that would work.
Featured Image Credit: Flickr User BKL
