“Hello niche community” reads papyrus text over a rainbow background. This is the 28th “new niche meme alert” you have seen in the past week. Your best friend’s profile picture hovers in the bottom left with the repost icon attached. This time, “we” are all saying “Le Fruitcake!” and tuning in to the “Great Meme Reset” of 2026. 

In all honesty, this just sounds like a bunch of nonsense. In fact, it may be one of the least funny trends to come out of the short-form video era. It is forced, repetitive and obnoxious, but somehow many still find it entertaining. It’s so unfunny it’s laughable–and that’s the point. 

The term “niche community” refers to a group of people online, primarily on short-form video apps like TikTok and Instagram, who create and spread manufactured comedy. 

This doesn’t include industry plant stand-up or cash-grab comedy specials. The “niche community” is much more specific and direct when it comes to what they promote. For example, a couple of months ago, the newest “niche” was resurfaced movie clips. 

Every week, an otherwise irrelevant meme page would post a random clip from a popular movie such as “Despicable Me” or “Hotel Transylvania” with plain text over it, usually with an acronym matching what’s being said on screen and over-the-top editing with explosions and pitch-changes.

Even earlier in the school year, the creation of “new numbers” trended. With numbers like “61,” “41” and “89” trending not only on spam account repost pages, but comment sections, too, with GIFs of the original numbers spawning as some sort of niche offspring subspecies. 

Though these numbers obviously existed before, “new” referred to their introduction into the collective niche consciousness—these are meant to rival and parody the infamous “67” meme that dominated the internet in the first half of 2025.

(Rumor has it, teachers still cannot safely utter the two numbers in succession.)

Countless other niche memes, like “W Speed,” “Тотя” and “my mother ate fries” have spawned since then, including the most recent Tony Stark GIFToks (GIFs embedded into TikTok videos), which are the most popular niche in early 2026. (The irony of the juxtaposition of “popular” and “niche” is not lost on me, by the way.)

@trixi.clipz17 Top 15 best niche memes ranked🔥 #stevenhere #adrian #imjustababy #lowtaperfade #sixseven #meme #fyp #viralvideo ♬ original sound – trixi.clipz17

Though these seem like a collection of random clout-chasing attempts, the creation of the “niche meme community” is actually something of a social commentary.. All of these examples, though seemingly meaningless, are a response to a different facet of modern internet culture. 

For example, the movie clips poke fun at how fast trends change, and the pressure to stay on top of them by overexaggerating how “new” and “niche” these memes are. This trend also serves as a critique of superiority complexes, showing just how ridiculous it is to claim to be more “niche” than someone else. 

Meanwhile, the “new numbers” bring light to the ridiculousness of the popularity of the “67” meme, which is really just moving your hands and saying two numbers in succession, and “W Speed” makes fun of parasocialism and excessive idolatry towards online creators and streamers by overanalyzing and praising popular streamer iShowSpeed’s every move. 

One could even argue that the “niche community” is the meme itself. The funny part is that the whole thing is something of an inside joke. All “niche” memes all have two things in common: they are low quality and formulaic. So, to find not only humor but also community in something that seems like pointless brainrot on the outside makes all of the backlash from the employed community worth it. 

From the outside looking in, many people like to think that they wouldn’t laugh at something that stupid, low-quality or simple. That they are “free association thinkers” who would never even think about smiling upon hearing “turn to page 67” or laugh at something just because it is the “newest niche.”

However, they don’t realize that the people who are in on it are laughing at them just as hard. What looks like conforming to meaningless rules to fit into some elitist brainrot clan is actually a small act of resistance. 

This is not to say that reposting “‘Chicken Stars’ slowed and reverbed” is greatly changing the trajectory of the internet as we know it, but embracing something that’s generally looked down upon as a sign of low intelligence challenges the status quo. 

So when I hit the AI Baby emote after hearing anything remotely funny, and my table is split between “can you stop that” and “son, say you swear” I know exactly who I’m making a separate group chat with. 

There’s a certain kind of joy that comes from being recognized by someone from the same community, and yes, I will argue that me meeting my best friends in Ceramics through a debate of whether 41 or 67 was better is just as valid as any other way of making friends. 

My friends and I still quote niche memes from months ago because they remind us of simpler times, times when that’s all we knew about each other because we were randomly seated with a seating chart. 

So maybe the “niche meme community” is corny and repetitive. But that doesn’t mean that we have to pretend that Adrian describing his friend group is blatantly unfunny because it references “swag like Ohio” in the big 2026. It’s the satirical glorification of the corniness that makes it funny.

 Life is too short to pretend you’re better than someone else for “being less brainrotted,” because when the Sun explodes, you won’t be remembered anyway. So have fun.