Area 51, I Guess

Like all memes and internet trends, the Area 51 meme was funny for about five minutes. What started as a popular joke on Facebook, blew up in weeks. 

To live through 15 minutes of internet fame, a man on Facebook started a public event to raid Area-51 in attempts to reveal the aliens allegedly locked up inside the government base. It blew up, and over 500,000 people signed up for the raid. 

Starting near the end of July, my Instagram feed starting blowing up with jokes about “Storming Area-51, They Can’t Stop All.” I will shamelessly admit, some of the Tik Toks about bringing home a pet alien were pretty funny, but it got old real quick. Personally, people who play off of stale memes just get on my nerves, and some took the memes too seriously. Even some of my friends got way too into it, and it got annoying receiving streams of funny videos all related to the same event.

I did not expect the memes to get so out of hand, and it was hard to tell whether or not the people posting the memes were going to take the raid seriously or not. Not to mention, it was hard to believe that people were actually planning to raid a government base for the sake of the internet. 

I was honestly expecting more out of the event on September 20th. I was glued to my phone in between classes trying to read through different articles to get the scoop. The reality of the raid was sad. What started off as a joke, was literally a joke on the day of the raid. Only 75 people actually showed up to Area-51 when thousands were estimated to be present. 

Things like this are why people think that teenagers and young adults are a joke. Half of us are trying to save the world from climate change, and the other half of us absorbed in revealing government secrets about creatures from beyond this earth. Who in their right mind would trudge miles across the desert for 15 minutes of fame? My generation, apparently.