Nihilism

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About

Nihilism is a philosophical belief which asserts that the universe lacks cosmic or objective meaning and that life has no intrinsic value. Online, philosophical axioms associated with existential nihilism have been paired with various pop culture references and Internet memes for comedic effect in the form of anti-jokes.

Online History

One of the oldest examples of nihilist humor that has been circulating online can be attributed to a story about a graffiti of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's famous statement, "God is dead," that was allegedly spotted on a wall during the Protests of May 1968 in Paris, France.^[12]^[13]

Nietzsche: God is Dead.

God: Nietzsche is dead.

On March 21st, 2005, Urban Dictionary^[9] user Johnnywang submitted an entry for nihilism with the description "it's pointless to define it." On October 6th, 2006, Xkcd^[8] published a comic titled "Nihilism," featuring a dialogue between two stick figure characters about the lack of cosmic meaning in the universe (shown below).

On November 21st, 2007, a page for nihilism was created on the Rational Wiki.^[5] On May 22nd, 2009, the /r/nihilism^[4] subreddit was launched for discussions about the philosophical position. On August 27th, 2010, a page was created for the "Straw Nihilist" on the website TV Tropes,^[7] describing it as a philosophical character often identified as a bleak scientific materialist:

"The basis for the Straw Nihilist is usually extreme scientific empirical materialism; we're all nothing but matter and energy and eventually the universe is going to die as if we never existed, so what's the point in trying to hope and fantasize in a world full of suffering and destruction where morality is dictated by force. Your consciousness is merely an electrochemical reaction inside a dying chemical reactor called the brain which, out of animalistic instincts to protect itself from pain, creates the illusion of meaning and significance in a reality that has none."

On March 30th, 2013, a page for nihilism-related quotes was launched on Wiki Quote.^[6] On Juen 19th, 2015, the Life Is Absurd Tumblr^[11] blog was created, featuring posts related to nihilist philosophy. On August 18th, YouTuber Veritasium uploaded a video titled "Our Greatest Delusion," which espoused the intellectual and spiritual benefits of embracing nihlism (shown below). Within five months, the video gained over 1.17 million views and 12,000 comments.

Facebook Pages

On May 26th, 2014, the Nihilist Memes Facebook^[1] page was launched, which features image macros, animated GIFs, comics and other web content containing nihilist themes or bleak philosophical messages. Within two years, the page gained over 281,000 likes. On April 17th, 2015, a similar Facebook^[3] page titled "Nihilist Memes 3.0" was created, receiving upwards of 22,500 likes in the following nine months. On November 15th, the page "Nihilist Memes II"^[2] was launched, which garnered more than 29,600 likes within two months.

Intelligent, Nihilistic and with a Wicked Sense of Humor

"Intelligent, Nihilistic and with a Wicked Sense of Humor" is a copypasta typically used as a tongue-in-cheek way of comparing oneself to a fictional character. The phrase was originally used in a 4chan thread describing the primary antagonist Kefka from the 1994 role-playing video game Final Fantasy VI.

Nihilist Pancakes

Nihilist Pancakes is an image macro series featuring a picture of a stack of pancakes in front of a space background with bleak philosophical captions expressing nihilist sentiments (shown below). The series was launched by the official blog^[10] for the late night talk show Conan in September 2012.

Nihilist Arby's

Nilihst Arby’s is a novelty Twitter account featuring bleak, pessimistic tweets about the meaninglessness of life and inevitability of death with unenthusiastic recommendations for the fast food restaurant chain Arby’s.