Starter pack memes are tongue-in-cheek ways of “sorting” the internet and our identities, according to Roisin Kiberd. She unpacked the meaning of the starter pack meme in her 2018 Vice article.

"Sociologists study material culture, exploring the meaning we invest in physical objects," she wrote back then. "The starter pack takes a similar, if less nuanced, approach, and repackages it as clickbait: each meme is a list of references the viewer ticks off, congratulating themselves if they recognise every item on the list."

Apparently, some memes never die. Even in 2023, starter pack memes are still here. Know Your Meme dates the first starter pack to September 2014, so it's getting close to its 10-year anniversary next year.

Bored Panda asked Roisin what's the secret to this meme's longevity. She names the qualities that make most things go viral on the internet. "Starter packs have a certain genius to them. They’re sharable, funny, extremely concise, easy to replicate. They often include details that are instantly familiar."

Relatability is a huge factor as well. "You are the person in the meme, or you know them, or you’ve at least seen them around,” Roisin explains. The starter pack meme therefore satisfies our tendency to categorize ourselves into certain groups.

Roisin likens the starter pack meme to high school cliques. "I find it comforting that starter pack memes imply that subcultures still exist. I grew up with goths and rockers and the Irish equivalent to jocks (rugby guys, mostly) and 'mean girls'. They had flat-ironed hair, and wore a lot of Abercrombie and Juicy Couture," Roisin reminisces.

Roisin points out that starter packs highlight new kinds of cultural groups. "It feels like the internet brought the era of subcultures to an end, but the starter pack meme says otherwise."

"So many of them are about micro-trends. Maybe not full subcultures, with any longevity, but something faster-moving and smaller. It's sometimes a whole lot stranger, responding to the internet age," the writer observes.

Roisin says there’s something sociological, almost academic about starter pack memes. She notes that there's an attempt "to pin down and study the way trends and identity and consumption all work and intersect".

That's evident by the meme going meta: starter pack memes about starter pack memes. It's almost as if the culture is observing and studying itself. Roisin recalls the words of her editor at Vice, Emanuel Maiberg. He said starter pack memes are what sociologist of subcultures Dick Hebdige would be if he was an algorithm.

But even starter pack memes can't avoid controversy. With stereotyping and generalizations, it's hard not to step over the line of being offensive. "It would definitely be possible to take starter packs in a mean, bullying direction," Roisin agrees.

"They could also be used to label people and insult them. Even to make someone else feel like they don’t belong if they don’t own the right clothes, or know the right references," the author points out.

Yet, Roisin also gives the internet credit where credit is due. "The fundamental idea that you can reduce someone’s entire existence down to a collection of stock imagery is ridiculous enough that I don’t think anyone is taking them too seriously."

"Also, so many of the memes are about weirdly particular things," she adds. She gives the 'you can beat me up but my dad will sue' starter pack as an example. Other examples are the 'franchises going through an edgy phase’ or the 'old computer science professor' starter packs.

"The joke is on the meme maker as much as their subject," Kiberd explains, "because who on earth would bother to create a guide to something like this? At its best, this meme really celebrates internet culture’s ability to find universal humor in the highly particular."

We also asked Roisin to share some of her favorite starter pack memes. As the creative writing teacher at the University of Galway, she says the Math Professor starter pack is the most relatable to her.

"This meme is completely demented. It includes pictures of Dr. Emmett from Back to the Future, and that guy from Dune with the overgrown eyebrows."

"This imaginary math professor drives a twenty-year-old Volvo and wears Birkenstocks to casual Friday," Roisin describes the meme. "My favorite detail is that he ‘skips several critical steps because you should know this by now’."

Roisin says she's far more friendly than the professor in the meme, "but can only aspire to his collection of tweed jackets, and the blind terror he strikes into his students' hearts."

If you want more insights from Roisin Kiberd, check her out on X. She writes about technology and the internet culture regularly. And for a longer read, don't forget to check out her book The Disconnect: A Personal Journey Through the Internet.