Are Ohio memes racist to Ohians?
What’s up with all those Ohio memes? Do people hate Ohio? Is it genuinely a deeply strange place where you‘re simply not allowed to do a bunch of stuff, or does the internet just love dunking on places with funny names?
Ohio memes are weird. Nobody seems exactly to have a handle on where they came from – although local rivals Michigan often get the blame – and nobody quite seems to grasp whether or not they’re ironic, or come from a place of authentic hateful mockery.
Still, they’re a persistent feature of online discourse right now, so let’s dive in.
ONLY IN OHIO MEMES
TikTok would have you believe Ohio is full of weird supernatural creatures, frustrating local people’s simple midwestern desires to, like, go to Walmart and watch the game afterwards.
Is Ohio full of terrifying creatures with rows of terrifying teeth? Not whenever I’ve driven through, but then the world is full of bizarre things isn’t it.
Hey, did you know a river caught fire in Ohio once?
The Cuyahoga River, which flows through Cleveland, gained national attention in 1969 when it caught fire due to pollution and industrial waste. This event became a catalyst for the environmental movement and led to significant improvements in water quality regulations. Kinda weird either way.
OHIO MEME STATE
Of course, Ohio is by no means the first or only state to have been singled out by wags for an attack of memes.
For years New Jersey was the butt of a million online jokes, eager to poke fun at its army of greasy gym-bodded gino types and their questionable taste in EDM. Guess the fact nobody can afford to live in NYC anymore made those forced to be ‘bridge and tunnellers’ shut the hell up pronto.
And who can forget Florida, that irrepressible fount of memes. Florida Man is its own bottomless repository of memery, with huge reserves of memes that are pretty much just local news headlines repeated verbatim.
So why is Ohio the whipping boy of states all of a sudden?
In fairness, people have been teasing the buckeye state since forever, long before the internet. Why? Because it has a singular lack of character.
Think about it. Even fellow midwestern states have ‘a thing’. Idaho has potatoes, Nebraska the Cornhuskers. Michigan the motor industry.
Ohio has a particularly large university, and quite a big population – seventh overall in the US – so there’s plenty of Ohio folks floating around making it front of mind.
OHIO JOKES
There’s an old joke that goes a little something like this.
“Why are more astronauts from Ohio than any other state?
“Because it’s so bad that they want to leave earth entirely!”
Even the south has a strong identify, with creole food and a cinematic climate. The coastal states have too many peccadillos to list. Ohio is the quintessential flyover state.
There must be something exciting.
Well, Ohio is home to Cedar Point, an amusement park located in Sandusky. Cedar Point is often referred to as the “Roller Coaster Capital of the World” due to its impressive collection of roller coasters. The park has been thrilling visitors with its rides since 1870.
Also, The Pro Football Hall of Fame is located in Canton, Ohio. It is a museum dedicated to preserving the history and honoring the greatest players, coaches, and contributors to professional American football. The Hall of Fame induction ceremony is held annually in Canton.
Ohio is known as the “Birthplace of Aviation” because the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, who invented and built the world’s first successful airplane, were born in Dayton, Ohio. The Wright brothers conducted their famous first powered flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, but their roots were in Ohio.
Make your own quasi-offensive memes about states you don’t like with a little help from the custom GIF meme-maker at Memix.com
Hey, IS STEALING MEMES ILLEGAL?
While we’re here, does anybody know IS IT PRONOUNCED GIF OR JIF?