The modern day movie watching experience goes as such: Movie. Meme. Repeat. You see a movie, and when you go home to check Instagram or Twitter, you see the thousands of memes created about said movie.

Recently, movies of all genres have been subjects of the meme world. For those who have not gotten to experience these memes first-hand, they typically highlight a snapshot of a moment in the film; however, there are also memes where captions of what characters have said are shown.

“I think movie memes have become such a big trend this year because people see that others find it humorous,” senior Paulina Garduño said. “People want to share it and then when others see it, they think it is funny and decide to try and recreate one themselves, so it becomes a never-ending cycle.”

The most recent movie-turned-meme is Sandra Bullock’s “Bird Box.” The premise of the new Netflix original is that everyone is blindfolded when they are outside or near a light source due to the harm that an outside creature can do. Sandra Bullock is pictured blindfolded throughout the movie, and the memes took off from there.

“A majority of the ‘Bird Box’ memes consist of blind jokes or not being able to see,” sophomore Alex Primmage said. “The ‘Bird Box’ challenge is basically when people try to recreate the movie and blindfold themselves, then they may do particular challenges or things while being blindfolded.”

Half the hype around the movie is caused by the memes about it. For some, seeing endless internet buzz about the new movie encouraged them to see the movie for themselves to understand where the memes were coming from.

“I watched ‘Bird Box’ because then I understood why people were getting blindfolded,” Garduño said. “You do not necessarily have to watch the movie. You could have someone else explain it to you, but if you just see a meme and have no background knowledge, then you will have a hard time understanding it.”

However, “Bird Box” is not the only movie subject to this trend. From “Get Out” to “Incredibles 2” to “The Sixth Sense,” movies of all different genres have been made into memes. The more unbelievable the movie, the easier it is for people to make these memes.

“I usually see memes for more dramatic movies,” Garduño said. “It is probably because people think it is funny how intense it gets sometimes.”

Movie meme culture has become such a big part of Twitter and Instagram that users are able to reference memes without even needing a picture and other people will most likely understand the meme.
“With some memes, it is extremely easy to reference because everyone is hip,” senior Brandon Bland said. “Most of my friends can reference the Supreme memes from ‘American Horror Story’ without even seeing the film.”

Many “challenges” have sprouted as a result of iconic movie scenes and memes, encouraging people to try to recreate scenes from movies and post them along, despite how dangerous or ridiculous they may be.

“Many of the ‘Bird Box’ memes include blindfolding people and pretending to be outside,” Garduño said. “It is funny because some will be in the bathtub pretending to be traveling along the river, like in the movie.”

Netflix has since put out warnings to not try this challenge after multiple people have taken videos of themselves trying it and getting hurt.

“I think that movie memes have become so relevant recently because with social media so accessible, it is easy to create and share them,” Primmage said.

The next time you watch a movie, remember the actual film is only half the enjoyment; the other half will follow soon behind.