Overview of How 9/11 became a meme
This Today Explained episode examines how 9/11—once an unthinkable national trauma—has become a widely circulated source of ironic internet humor. Reporter Sean Ramos talks with media scholar Whitney Phillips and with Manny Marotta, who runs “25 Years Ago Live,” to explore how technology, platform culture, and generational distance turned the attacks into one of the internet’s most recognizable meme formats. The episode balances dark humor with a serious question: what happens when a catastrophe becomes detached from its history and reduced to an editable, shareable image?
How 9/11 humor evolved online
The earliest jokes appeared immediately
- Contrary to the idea that humor only emerged long after the attacks, jokes were being made on September 11, 2001.
- Early examples were mostly:
- wordplay and text jokes
- simple image macros
- crude visual gags about rebuilding or reacting to the attacks
Each platform shaped the joke
- On forums like 4chan and Something Awful, humor became more extreme and body-horror-focused.
- GIF culture enabled more elaborate visual jokes.
- Short-form video and audio platforms made it easier to layer absurd sounds over 9/11 imagery.
- AI tools now make it possible for almost anyone to generate complex 9/11 jokes quickly and cheaply.
The internet’s “gateway” 9/11 meme
- One of the most widely shared mainstream examples is the image of George W. Bush being whispered to in a classroom, which can be remixed to fit almost any situation.
- Whitney Phillips describes this as a kind of “gateway” meme because it allows people to participate without confronting the reality of the attacks directly.
Why people laugh at something so serious
Humor can be bodily and involuntary
- Phillips says people sometimes laugh because the juxtaposition is so absurd that it triggers a physical reaction.
- That reaction can be:
- laughter
- discomfort
- disgust
- The humor often comes not from the tragedy itself, but from the collision of incompatible elements.
“Comedy equals tragedy plus time” is too simple
- The episode argues that the old rule about time and tragedy no longer fully explains meme culture.
- Social platforms reward:
- speed
- brevity
- remixing
- immediate reaction
- Because of this, users often joke before much reflective distance has formed.
The generational divide
People who lived through 9/11 vs. people who did not
- The episode draws a sharp distinction between:
- those who remember the day as a lived national trauma
- those who only know it as a historical event or meme template
- For older generations, 9/11 is a deeply shared memory.
- For many Gen Z users, it is more like a date in a textbook or a cultural reference point.
Why the same meme can mean different things
- Phillips argues that 9/11 is “intellectual furniture” in many people’s minds—familiar enough to use as a reference, but not always understood as lived horror.
- That gap helps explain why some people see the jokes as harmless or clever, while others see them as cruel or offensive.
Politics, platform culture, and the speed of reaction
The joking is not clearly partisan
- Phillips suggests that 9/11 joking appears to cut across politics.
- In her classroom experiences, students across the political spectrum engaged in similar forms of dark joking.
Instant reaction has become the norm
- The episode connects 9/11 meme culture to a broader social-media trend:
- if something happens, people feel pressure to react immediately
- delay can mean missing the engagement cycle
- This same pattern was also visible in reactions to other recent tragedies, where jokes appeared almost as soon as news broke.
Manny Marotta and “25 Years Ago Live”
Recreating history as a live feed
- Manny Marotta runs several accounts that post historical events in real time, including “25 Years Ago Live.”
- For September 11, he planned to manually post a step-by-step timeline of the attacks as though Twitter existed in 2001.
His stated goal
- Marotta says he wants younger people to understand what the day felt like in real time:
- confusion
- fear
- uncertainty
- unfolding horror
- He hopes the account will help bridge the gap between people who remember 9/11 and those who don’t.
Ethical tension and audience reaction
- Marotta acknowledges criticism from people who think the project is too graphic or exploitative.
- He says he will avoid showing the most graphic imagery, though he still plans to include historically significant visuals like the “Falling Man.”
- He also says any revenue tied to the account’s 9/11 content will be donated to charity, which he views as a moral necessity.
Main takeaways
- 9/11 memes did not begin decades later; joking started almost immediately.
- Meme culture evolved alongside platform technology, from text jokes to GIFs to AI-generated remixes.
- The George W. Bush classroom image is a prime example of a flexible, non-specific 9/11 meme that can be adapted to many contexts.
- The biggest divide is generational: for those who lived through it, 9/11 remains a trauma; for younger users, it can function more like meme material.
- The episode suggests that the transformation of 9/11 into meme culture is not just about cruelty—it is also about how internet platforms compress, strip context from, and remix historical events.
Notable insight
9/11 becomes less like a tragedy plus time and more like “tragedy plus a single pixel.”
That idea captures the episode’s central argument: online humor often works by shrinking an enormous, devastating event into a tiny, reusable visual token.