getting memes A reboot. Not like the miracle that’s trying to be made-fantastic four-Reboot again. Like a rewind. The Great Meme Reset of 2026, as it’s being called on TikTok, demands that on January 1, all memes return to their 2010 glory days. The dull “brain rot” and AI-looking memes are here; Big Chungus is inside.
Like anything on the Internet, the origins of the Great Meme Reset are hard to trace. Most sources point to a March post by TikTok user @joebro909, which called for a whole new generation of memes to save the platform from the “drought” that occurred in the spring. The post didn’t say anything about a January 1 launch date or the return of memes from the last decade, but the idea was planted. There are now hundreds of posts discussing the reboot and the return of the “Dunk” era of the Internet.
Of course, what this means is that memes are lacking in cuteness these days. If anything, Gen Z- and Gen Alpha-fueled internet culture has taken pride in some meaningless content like “6 7” and the absurd, seemingly AI-generated “Italian brain rots,” but after nearly a year of memes with little humanity or depth, a backlash has begun.
“Because of how unfamiliar memes have become, everyone has agreed that on January 1, 2026, we will completely reset all memes and go back to the original,” TikTok creator Noah Glenn Carter (@noahglenncarter) said in a recent video.
When I reach out to Carter via email, the creator seems quite confident that the reset idea can move forward, and he plans to make more videos to promote it. “The memes we have now are called ‘brain rot’ for a reason,” says Carter. “Those 10+ [years older]Most of the time, there was a story behind them. Or at least they understood. “Now it seems that the more random and incongruous something is, the more likely it is to become a meme.”
Even if you’re in the camp that understands that memes like “6 7” have more significance than they’re given credit for, there’s a perception among the Great Reset crowd that today’s memes are “oversaturated and unfounded,” says Don Caldwell, editor-in-chief of Know Your Meme. “In this context, brain rot memes are low-effort and redundant,” says Caldwell, “and there is a desire to return to memes of the past that had a little more substance.”
Substance, as always, remains a relative notion. Nyan Cat may not have had the substance of Andy Warhol’s image, but both tried to comment on cultural moments – and both got people talking in a way that the floodgates of 2025’s AI slope never could. Taken at face value, the call for a mass meme reset is also a call for an organic internet culture, no matter how silly.