As a Therapist, Here's How I Think Memes Have Changed the Way We Communicate

My Instagram inbox beckons me with its red notification, more messages to read. 

Some are actual messages, of course, but if your inbox is anything like mine, it’s also chock-full of memes sent by friends. A representative peek into my inbox right now shows memes ranging from representing life with ADHD to showing dogs as trash compactors. And as another popular meme conveys, you can be trading deep memes about mental health on one platform while talking about your lunch in the group chat. 

Memes get trivialized and disparaged, yet, they’re an important social currency and way of communicating online in this day and age. These small, often funny pieces of content are important for their ability to share ideas quickly and succinctly as well as foster a sense of connection and feeling seen.

As a millennial therapist, I found myself weirdly excited the first time a client sent me a meme. (You never forget your first.) It felt like an honor to me. As someone who considers humor and sarcasm her love language, I received the meme as a sign of trust.

Sharing a joke or having a similar sense of humor illustrates having a similar perspective, and this person was taking a gamble that I would think similarly to them about this being funny. I wrote back with an answer that showed that I also found the meme funny, and I could tell that it strengthened our connection.

Sometimes a meme from a friend will hit my inbox, and I’ll feel a bit of surprise. “Wait, you feel that way too?? I never would have guessed.” There are a few people in my life who have outwardly enviable lives, but the memes we exchange show me that their inner lives are not quite as desirable. 

Although memes are packaged in quippy sayings or observations, at their core, they are still an exchange of ideas, just in a very easy-to-digest format. Whether you love ‘em or hate ‘em, memes are an important part of modern discourse. As both a therapist and “regular” human, I’m glad that we have this way of communicating.

Memes Create Connection

In our increasingly digital and always-on world, many of us are feeling more alone and isolated than ever. While many of us refer to the offline world as IRL (“in real life”), our digital personas are a part of our “real lives,” too. 

Being a therapist can be more isolating than I ever wanted to believe it would be. I can’t talk much about what happened at work to people in my life, other than in incredibly broad strokes. I am tremendously lucky that people pay me their hard-earned money to share both their biggest fears and traumas—as well as their highs. 

I carry with me a lot of admiration for the resilience of the human soul as well as a deep sorrow of knowing how terrible humans have the capability of being to each other. While there are other therapy meme accounts, the OG one I’ve been following since at least 2020 is Psychotherapy Memes.

I really feel like I’ve found “my people” when I read the comments there. The therapy profession can be very old-fashioned in many ways, but this account attracts therapists who have more modern takes on what therapy is or “should” be. I so wholeheartedly trust the type of people attracted to this content that I am participating in a therapy group for therapists, run by the founder of this account. 

Memes Help You Say the Hard Things

I’m grateful that my friends and clients have used memes to communicate with me in order to say the hard things—to make jokes about their traumas or an element of dealing with chronic depression, for example. 

Typically one might think that sharing memes about depression might be…depressing? And, perhaps, to people not dealing with those melancholic feelings, they might be. 

But research supports that memes which address typically difficult-to-communicate themes like suicidality or isolation give people a safer—and even socially sanctioned—way to unload some of the burden of their heavy feelings. Also, finding the humor in tough situations can take some of the power away from these otherwise taboo feelings. 

Memes Help You Build Emotional Capital

If you were trying to save $100,000 but only focused on making big deposits, you’d miss out on the ability to build up your money over time. The same holds true in relationships—they’re not just built in the big moments, but it’s the smaller moments that help us build emotional capital.

For example, my best friend moved from living in the same apartment building as me to the opposite coast. I went from seeing her daily to now only seeing her every few months. Our lifestyles have also dramatically diverged, as she’s since become a mom to two tiny humans, while I’m still just dog momming out here. 

We do text most days, but I also know that I can depend on waking up in the morning, knowing there’s inevitably some kind of meme she shared with me. It’s a tiny reminder that she’s thinking of me and still feels connected. These moments help us keep building our emotional capital, rather than waiting until one of us has something important enough to pick up the phone about.

Memes Contribute to a "Shared Language"

Think of a time you felt excluded from a group, because it felt like they were speaking an entirely different language with references you didn't understand.

Or, on the contrary, think of a time where you were the one to clue in a group about a popular meme that they somehow didn’t know about. If you felt a small rush of power, you’re not petty. (Or at least no more petty than me.) 

Having more information is historically what kept us alive, so there’s an evolutionary reason for feeling that small amount of power. Knowing that a tiger was coming when someone else didn’t could have meant the difference between life and death.

Memes Help You Feel Seen

I also find memes a helpful tool for communication because they can provide validation. Sometimes, no matter how many ways I phrase something or ask something to a client, they still have a hard time wrapping their head around the fact that they’re not The Only Person Who Has Ever Felt That Way. (I’m guilty of this, too—of telling my own therapist why, no, it’s so much different or worse for me than for anyone else, ever.)

But while, yes, each person’s exact situation is different, feelings are largely universal. That is, while the exact grief of losing my specific mom, Carol, is not the carbon copy of your grief of losing your mom, we’ve probably had relatively similar feelings.

Memes feel particularly validating for the not-so-charitable feelings. Am I grateful for people’s well wishes after my mom died? Absolutely. Do I understand that people meant well when they said they were here for me, even if they didn’t follow up? Mostly? But also, does it sometimes really annoy me? Yes! And acknowledging that, and that I’m not alone in it, can help me move on.