In this screen walk, Aidan Walker guided the audience across the internet and across history, following three memes: Distracted Boyfriend, Patrick Chained, and Dark Brandon. Tracing the web of reposts, remixes, and "reply guys" that enables meme spread, he led a tour of the social internet as it existed between 2017 and 2023. When a scientist puts a GPS monitor on the foot of a migrating bird, they gain insight not just into that individual animal but into its flock, its species, and its entire ecosystem. Memes are like those birds. Through following memes and their evolutions, we can gain insight not just into them but into the broader forces and systems that steer their movement—and, increasingly, our lives.

Aidan Walker is a writer and editor at Know Your Meme, the most thorough public meme research site and archive on the Internet. Walker has BA in English from Reed College, and has just finished an MA in History-Literature from Columbia University in Paris. He has published multiple reports and articles on various topics related to internet culture and digital art for a variety of outlets.