If you have been around the school long enough, you probably have seen some odd backpacks. Kids walking around with Dora, Lightning McQueen, or Paw Patrol, on their backs. They aren’t doing this because they enjoy what the backpacks represent. They are doing it because anyone who is outside of the joke thinks they actually enjoy the backpacks. This is a form of alienation, one of two parts of ironic humor that makes it so interesting to study.

The definition of this humor was the hardest for me to pinpoint; it’s strange that something so simple on the surface turns into something so complex. I have developed a formula for why things are ironically funny, and it particularly applies to meme culture. It takes alienation, or mockery.

If someone who understands this sort of humor sees an image of say the famous youtuber Markiplier’s face on Lord Farquaad’s head, which is all on top of Mark Zuckerberg’s body in court (which became a big image passed around on the internet in early 2017) they might chuckle. Only because they know that someone else who doesn’t understand will see it as just that, Markiplier on Lord Farquaad on Mark Zuckerberg. This form of ironic humor is esoteric–specific to one mass. People find it funny because another group of people don’t.

The other half of the formula is mockery. One might find a meme that has a watermark on it but it’s not actually copyrighted, it’s deliberate mockery. It’s intention is to make fun of people that use watermarked images to make memes. Another example of mockery is attaching “omg this is me everyday” to a meme. It mocks instagram videos that have that beg for attention by trying to be relatable.

My siblings and I, over the years, have developed a set of sayings that we use ironically. Say, the family is having a conversation and someone suggests an idea that nobody hears. A few seconds later someone suggests the same idea, and if recognized for it, you’ll hear, “Good idea Batman.” It is in reference to a scene from *The Lego Movie* where the protagonists idea is overlooked and then stated by Batman, who is credited for it. The quip is funny to us because of alienation, one of the key factors of the formula. To someone outside of the family, it is just another quote from a movie.

The age gap acts as a barrier to understanding new ironic humor. This humor is birthed directly from the internet, and more specifically memes. Websites like Reddit help me to understand the structure of this type of humor. The jokes makes sense to me, because I know how they work. If every age group, even if every teen, understood it then it wouldn’t be entertaining. Alienation takes two sides, a group of people that don’t get the joke, and a group that does.

Ironic humor, in conclusion, is humor that is funny because it alienates or mocks other people. As Bill Nye put it, “Humor is everywhere, there’s irony in just about anything a human does,” but because of one subset of internet users, this unique form of irony is being brandished on backpacks across campuses everywhere.