Unpopular opinion: gifs and memes in conference talks are an antipattern.

No, I'm not saying *humor* is an antipattern. Humor is great, put more of it in talks. Gifs and memes *specifically* are an antipattern.

First of all, memes are industrial-scale injokes. They're only "funny" if you get the reference. Using memes makes your talk less accessible to people who belong to your cultural clique. They also date your talk. A talk with "ALL YOUR BASE" will seem horribly out-of-touch.

Second, memes really aren't that funny. They're "heh" at best. If you're trying to be funny, you're better off being original. It'll be much funnier. Don't settle for "heh".

Third, memes are distracting. They're intentionally eye-catching. Gifs are worse: they have motion. The audience will be distracted from what you're actually saying.

(And if there's text? Even worse. Now they're spending cognitive energy parsing the meme. It steals their focus.)

Fourth, memes are dissonant. They drag in their own style that clashes with your style. They break narrative flow and muddle your voice. It's harder to strike the right tone when you have to compensate for the memes in your slides.

Should memes be avoided at all costs? Course not. Like many antipatterns, there's a time and place. But it's important to be intentional about them. What are you trying to *do* with that slide, and does the meme help you do it? Or does it do something else? What else would work?

I often see memes used as a space filler. Audiences don't like it when you're on the same slide for too long, so people put in lots of memes to keep the deck moving. But they're too loud for that purpose; you want something more neutral.

Non-meme images, diagrams, quotes or pullquotes, all work just fine. If you're talking about someone's idea, throw in their portrait. Make drawings. People love drawings! Just don't include loud things unless you want the talk to be about the loud thing.

(I was planning on mentioning how James Mickens regularly memes in a contextually appropriate and hilarious way but... it turns out he doesn't? I skimmed all of his recent talks and he doesn't use memes basically ever. And when he does, they're incredibly muted.)

@csswizardry made a similar point last year but forgot to specify he *just* meant memes, not humor in general, and also he didn't go into much detail. Hoping that this will get a bit less ratio'd because it needs to be said dangit

This, too. Memes are only funny if you get the reference *and also* haven't gotten sick of it yet https://twitter.com/willsommers/status/1316179317571940352

I agree. Do whatever you want in your talk. If you want to include memes, do so. But be aware that the audience isn't going to enjoy it nearly as much as you do. And that your talk will (probably) be stronger if you remove the memes. https://twitter.com/fharper/status/1316386869605695489

I find it telling that most of the people disagreeing with me are doing it from the POV of a speaker, while many of the people agreeing with me are doing it from the POV of the audience.

This is honestly the thing I worried most about. Memes are *easy*, so they make things easier for beginning speakers. But I also think the structures we have to getting people started speaking are all screwed up, too, and we could be much better. https://twitter.com/bltroutwine/status/1316418612853309440

This is an interesting one. He provided an example of using a meme to underline a point. It works okay there, but what are some non-meme alternatives? I quickly mocked up a few ideas in Powerpoint. https://twitter.com/simkoelsch/status/1316441968931729408

If you really want to underscore the point, you can have a series of escalating slides, where each is more emphatic about the point. It works esp well if the audience doesn't know how far you're going to go.

If you want something a little quieter, something that's funny but can be background to what you're saying, you can include your own drawing or diagram. Or you can replicate the core joke of the meme without the meme part of it.

There's also nothing wrong with not putting a joke here and just using a pull quote.