Over Thanksgiving, a family friend who happens to be in middle school showed me some memes from her debate-club group chat, including something she found particularly funny: an image of the Grinch, but blue, saying, "That feeling when knee surgery is tomorrow."
I didn't exactly "get it," apart from the vague awareness that sometimes memes are funny only because they're "random" — and this type of humor hits particularly hard before you get your driver's license.
I was curious, so I searched Instagram and found dozens and dozens of accounts dedicated to the meme (or at least that had set their profile photos and names to the image). Some of them were generic meme pages; others seemed to be real people.
I wasn't sure what to make of this.
Thankfully, the internet-culture reporter Taylor Lorenz did a deep dive in her newsletter, User Mag.
Though the meme started a few years ago, it picked up steam recently. She explains:
The Grinch knee surgery meme is kind of a meta joke. It's the spiritual successor to the Instagram meme culture of 2018 that birthed The World Record Egg and same post every day accounts. Posting the blue Grinch knee surgery meme is a low pressure way to build community online, make connections with other young people who like absurdist humor, and potentially go viral if your meme account pops off. Sometimes people use the meme to allude to a dreaded event, but it's mostly used ironically. Since taking off, the meme has become ubiquitous in Gen Z and Gen Alpha online spaces. It has made it into classrooms, Discord servers, a dedicated Subreddit, the Liberal party of Australia has used the meme to advocate for economic policy, and the official Dr Seuss Instagram account even acknowledged the meme by posting an image of the blue Grinch with the caption "that feeling when knee surgery is tomorrow, IYKYK."
What Lorenz also found that was startling to me is that there is now a crypto coin about the meme: knee coin.
(An important disclaimer: I don't endorse any meme-based crypto coins, and, in fact, I'd strongly urge you to call a friend or your mom or anyone who cares about you if you are considering buying into crypto coins based on memes for middle schoolers.)
Another meme coin might have helped spark the idea.
The improbable success of dogecoin, boosted by Elon Musk, has created a world where people are making crypto coins out of any new meme that pops up.
Wan Shanchao/VCG via Getty Images
I joined a Telegram channel linked from the coin's website, where about 240 people were discussing it. I wasn't able to get in touch with the coin's creator, and people in the Telegram didn't seem to know who it was. In the channel, they coordinated plans to post the meme all over social media. (This could explain why there were so many Instagram accounts dedicated to it.)
Lorenz contended there's a reason for that.
"Memes have always had value — they spread ideas, build communities, shape culture — but that value is no longer measured in cultural impact or virality, it's measured in cryptocurrency," Lorenz wrote.
The staying power of the knee surgery/Grinch meme is unclear. The 2018 animated Grinch has always had a place in meme culture, but there's certainly some seasonality at play. (Right now the movie is a top recommendation on the Peacock app.)
And as with almost every meme, its relevancy has an expiration date. There are already some signs that its trend cycle is peaking.
Teachers are getting wise to it. The official TikTok account for the Liberal Party of Australia posted a meme of it recently. (Remember Kamala Is Brat?) And even worse? Business Insider is writing about the meme.
If none of this makes sense to you, don't worry — it will all probably pass by Christmas break.
