I would add that what OP stated is built into the reason as well. It’s an okay episode, the main problem being that you had to accept the ridiculous premise of talking entirely in memes. Fast forward a decade and the joke very much is that it’s not as ridiculous as it first seemed.
Linguistically, idioms can take on a meaning separate from its constituent parts, in a way that people can forget about the constituent parts but still understand the word or phrase.
The word “goodbye” derives from “God be with ye” and eventually morphed into the word we know now. The definition of the word “odyssey” derives from a Green myth but has a standalone definition that is understood by people who aren’t familiar with the myth. A ton of other words come from horse racing (“from scratch,” “across the board,” “hands down,” “frontrunner”) and maritime stuff (“groggy,” “show someone the ropes,” “even keeled,”). We draw on shared stories (ancient myths, folklore, the Bible, even classic and modern literature) for much of our vocabulary.
We shouldn’t be surprised by language arising out of modern movies and television shows, or even shared internet memes enter the common lexicon.
It is amazing to me that the Internet has taken a shine to that particular episode of TNG it’s just so esoteric and yet generally people get the joke.
I mean don’t get me wrong it was a good episode but in terms of the the entire series it was very mid.
It basically predicted the socio-communicative function of memes, so it tracks that it became a meme itself.
I would add that what OP stated is built into the reason as well. It’s an okay episode, the main problem being that you had to accept the ridiculous premise of talking entirely in memes. Fast forward a decade and the joke very much is that it’s not as ridiculous as it first seemed.
Linguistically, idioms can take on a meaning separate from its constituent parts, in a way that people can forget about the constituent parts but still understand the word or phrase.
The word “goodbye” derives from “God be with ye” and eventually morphed into the word we know now. The definition of the word “odyssey” derives from a Green myth but has a standalone definition that is understood by people who aren’t familiar with the myth. A ton of other words come from horse racing (“from scratch,” “across the board,” “hands down,” “frontrunner”) and maritime stuff (“groggy,” “show someone the ropes,” “even keeled,”). We draw on shared stories (ancient myths, folklore, the Bible, even classic and modern literature) for much of our vocabulary.
We shouldn’t be surprised by language arising out of modern movies and television shows, or even shared internet memes enter the common lexicon.