The Enduring Allure of Internet Absurdism: Exploring the Role of Mulch

I am perpetually haunted by the thought of mulch posts. Once, I stumbled upon a particularly concerning video in the midst of a restless night of scrolling through social media. It was an edited video of a small dog surrounded by a frame of dazzling hearts, narrating, “Today, I soilmaxxed to the highest potential. I am full of loam, asbestos, and red 40.” These mulch posts have been plaguing me during my restless nights for several months now. In the wee hours of the morning, when I should be sleeping, I am confronted with absurd content featuring tiny dogs proclaiming that they’re soilpilled, mulchmaxxing, or enjoying a meal of mulch with fellow members of the loam. These mulch posts have an almost religious reverence for a bountiful harvest. They celebrate a body nourished by microplastics and synthetic food dye. Before people descend into moral panic when this trend gains enough mainstream attention: Mulch posts are not trying to encourage anyone, especially children, to ingest dirt. These mulch memes are meant to be silly posts that can be compared to the absurd, post-ironic internet humor that has been popular for years. The trend’s earnestness provides a brief reprieve from the fatalist cynicism that often drives meme culture. It all began with Instagram Reels and showed how the platform still influences internet culture despite its rocky start. It’s rare for any original Reels content to go viral, let alone beyond Instagram. Mulchposting started with a post in May from Instagram meme account sme11a__. It featured the word “mulch” superimposed on a low-resolution image of a white dog. The post was not particularly viral; it has only gained about 10,000 likes in the last six months. The meme became viral when sme11a__ posted a Reel referencing the meme a month later, as reported by Know Your Meme, which got over 103,000 likes. Other meme accounts started posting similar content, crediting sme11a__ for starting the trend. Sme11a__ continued posting mulch Reels throughout the summer, which typically featured montages of fluffy white dogs set to audio about mulch. As the meme joked about eating mulch, it began to take form, again picking up speed, and the platforms have continued to fuel it. TikTok user bisouchuu left a comment on a video about struggling to explain the mulch meme to people who are not online 24/7, saying “I am mulchmaxxing on microplastic 24/7 but I keep mentioning it to my non soilpilled friends.” It open doors for discussions about the meme and has fueled its popularity. Despite being internet humor, there are those who question if mulch posts could be dog whistles for hate groups. It is natural that people would be suspicious of coded language in memes, blessed with over 20 million views. Wilting from all the attention, sme11a__ ensured a follower on Instagram that mulch gang isn’t a “n*z1” or “NFT cult,” but simply “funny dogs eat dirt.” Mulchposting has all the markers of meme humor mischaracterized as “Gen Z culture,” which is really just Very Online humor. Internet culture is constantly subverting itself, and the “Gen Z humor” shaping memes today, like mulch posts, is an evolution of “millennial humor” of the 2010s. With its motivational undertones and earnest nature, the version of internet humor that exists today is decidedly less bleak than its millennial predecessor, which the Guardian described as “disorientating, dark and strange” in 2019. Internet absurdism is cyclical in nature, and mulch posts have been preceded by years of shitposting. The joke with absurdist philosophy permeates on the internet. Instagram is not what it once was. It’s longed been the joke that people who spent time on Instagram were not up-to-date with pop culture. HOwever, with several making their own profiles, Instagram has gone from a place for edited photos to funny memes. It experienced turbulent growth, given its longlasting popularity in the world of memes. There has been an immense neoflux with many recreate posted content. As the lines between the two platforms blur, mulch posts are one of the first original Instagram memes to make it to other platforms. It seems pretty normal that such unconventional humor would be the first to break through to the mainstream other than the usual original music or trending dances. It’s one of the first memes taking off from Instagram to TikTok. In this age, Instagram is trying to claw its way as a provider to quality original content. It must prove to be some heavy feat of survival given the influx of meme and other recycled content on both platforms. It is still to be seen if Instagram will re-emerge as the leader in original curation and content.