The decay of news media is so visual. Mounted like a helmet to every article, opinion and court filing is a piece of media fan art of those they write about. At times we see stock photos, but all the same, they are selected to tell us memes.

The word “meme” has a longer history than you may know. Memes now are things we hold up when we want others to simulate a shared thought routine, for humor or faith. Its sameness for others is the explicit appeal behind its use, for humor or faith. Memes need explaining when they represent something not shared deeply enough yet but can be taught. Not only does a meme detect the like-minded, it testifies that there are those who can seed the knowledge in you too. Being left out is its own invitation to approach.

We taught ourselves Virality and realized it was the fine balance between recognizable and new-fashioned; Old faith meets new doctrine and the response shall be democratized, at least among those who are present to see or hear. We learned that Circlejerking was the word for the perpetual ricochets of doctrine in a closed room without attracting new adherents. No matter the local spectacle (sometimes it is great), information seems useful only when it is jumping into new minds.

The nature of information aligns with replicating nature. Circlejerking can be skilled, and Virality can be unskilled. The format does not imply value, the content does. An up-front prescription for an ideological destination, the meme begins by setting its tone.

News media believes it is their job to preface everything they say with a compulsory meme or visual design experiment. They’ll show you flash and contrast, bold colored drop shadows on a desaturated cutout of an impromptu photo of a smile. Feel This Way: Colorful and Bold, Willing To Wonder How To Smile Like This. Or maybe a slick professional defacement to express graffiti and nouveau rage.

Then, the headline about unchecked corruption debated as interesting, or at least plausible should reality buckle.

News media has bunkered with memes and chase more still on social media. They are learning to think in the smallest discrete packets of thought possible—all memes. They lost track of which memes they used to get there. Every article goes out the door with a picture, a new picture we haven’t seen before. The badness of it, the obligation fulfilled hollowly, is their own projection of lack of value in their work. Annoying, that we must see Hero Images of those we must suffer news from.

News media’s job has been to publish at digital-industrial scales and keep growing. There are real and practical limits to that obsession, but their job is to confidence scam their investors that it can be done, this time. They run to AI to help them make their poor quality memes and content. They only performed the facsimile of their job anyway, and now replace it with a photocopy of even that.

The fragmentation of news and media has allowed traditional journalists to repeat the same things everyone hears. There are no new memes to use as article helmets, so new ones are made. Photos of subjects are tolerable, but we push these as preview thumbnails and so they become an advertising space for the article itself.

Their journalistic medium is failed. Too many cannot find anything to write that is not already said, and their every behavior betrays the truth of it. When they summarize, they do it poorly and with no interest in the framing.

We read about fake cinematic universes of politicians with names that come up a lot. The entire project is a comic book about characters that never come through, But You Should Keep Watching because they might one day. Their most controversial articles are guest writers or which use weak contrarianism to hypothesize without claims.

Our claim is that news media does not know its job, despite their training. Our evidence is profuse, while yours is a dearth. It is no wonder that conservative voices have been vindicated for the claim that this many academics is a sign of rot, that academicism is its own Circlejerk that has written off new adherents as unworthy.

You can reach Autumn Ryan to be heard about this subject at [email protected]. Do not transmit sensitive or private information if it’s unsuitable for others to have.