As much as I like to hide under a rock when it comes to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, I do like to visit YouTube and recently stumbled across the “Shorts” portion of the platform. The algorithm works its magic, giving me an endless feed of content — from sports and interesting facts to various internet personalities and clips from streamers.

If I like the clip, I watch. If I don’t like it, I scroll up on my iPad.

Every now and then, I run into memes like Uncle Roger’s “Emo-tion-al Da-mage!” or the Screaming Marmot.

If I’m by myself, I will echo the signature phrase created by Malaysian internet celebrity Nigel Ng Kin-ju. I still laugh whenever I see the modified video of a large rodent yelling like a human.

So, uh, memes. Let’s talk about them.

In the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a meme is defined as “an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online, especially through social media.”

According to Wikipedia (I know, I know — I’m so lame), a meme is “an idea, behavior or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.”

Whoa, calm down there on the big words, wiki.

The word originally came out in Richard Dawkins’ book “The Selfish Gene,” published back in 1976. However, its proper term — “internet meme” — spawned in 1993.

For example, does anyone remember the dancing baby? It was a 3D-rendered infant clad in nothing but a diaper, swaying to some form of cha-cha.

If I remember correctly, it was featured on “Ally McBeal.”

That aged me quite a bit, since the baby debuted in 1996. The episode in which the baby was hallucinated by McBeal was aired back in 1998.

It was back during the fledgling days of the internet, way before the likes of Google, MySpace, Keyboard Cat, and when Amazon used to just sell books.

Geocities was where it was at when it came to building and customizing websites. Also, Yahoo! was way better — as below the simple search bar, there were categories to browse through if you really wanted to “surf the web.”

This was back when I would hop on any computer (I’m looking at you, Dayton Public Library!) that I could find to look for (at the time) rare images from the later seasons of Dragon Ball Z or find information from Sailor Moon Sailor Stars — the final season of the original animated series from the early to mid 1990s.

At that time, DBZ’s classic Cell Saga was brand new on Cartoon Network’s “Toonami!” (the classic version and the best version) block.

Heck, it was like a badge of honor to know about characters like Broly or Majin Buu.

There is a coolness of searching for the unknown.

I’d also check out the earliest incarnations of NFL.com, and check out web pages from the original Arena Football League. You know, the one with Kurt Warner and the vintage Iowa Barnstormers?

If my memory serves right, the Barnstormers had a splash page with an animated biplane flying around Veterans Memorial Auditorium — lovingly dubbed “The Barn” by the majority of native Iowans.

Over time, I joined a ton of forums — which were replaced by Reddit, which I’m still not over — and other communities.

At one period of my life, I engaged in e-fedding (think of it like professional wrestling, but it was where writers fleshed out characters, storylines and matches with other writers). What you would do is create your character, build a world around them and be creative in trash talking other characters.

I also jumped into roleplaying my favorite superheroes and anime characters. In chat rooms, I was Goku. I mean, everyone else was either Vegeta or Trunks.

When it came to superheroes, I dabbled with The Flash and a supervillain named Prometheus. I also presided over a Proboards site named “End Wars,” which blended elements of the DC Universe (I wasn’t really a fan of Marvel at the time) with various anime properties.

It’s where I learned to develop characters through writing and interacting with others.

I’d like to think that, through e-feds and roleplaying, I became a better writer. The jury is out on that, in my personal opinion. I’ll leave that up to you.

Nowadays, there’s not a lot of that anymore. Everything is moving to a form of short video, such as the aforementioned YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels and — most notorious of the bunch — TikTok.

For now, I’m okay with YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, even if they’re owned by mega-tech companies such as Meta and Google. However, I still get leery of monster corporations — in historical terms, look no further than Standard Oil or U.S. Steel.

TikTok is the one where I’m most uneasy.

First, TikTok’s terms of agreement pry away at one’s privacy — from your viewing habits to your personal information. The app also collects usage information, the user’s phone carrier, keystroke patterns and location data. It’s scary stuff.

It’s also owned by Chinese company ByteDance, and anybody who’s anybody knows that the Chinese Communist Party owns a stake in every company from the mainland.

The constant hits of dopamine generated from videos can be harmful, as well. While the app has made moves to encourage breaks from the platform, it can still be hard to put down for some folks.

Back to memes, though.

At one point of my career, I did make mention of the “multiple Spider-Men” meme to a colleague at Iowa Starting Line. It’s still one of my favorite instances of using a meme to help illustrate my side of things.

There’s a lot of good ones out there, too. There’s the “Surprised Pikachu,” “Success Kid” and “Disaster Girl.” Years ago, I thoroughly enjoyed and often mimicked Danny — the Tourettes Guy.

Grumpy Cat is a classic, even though the feline is no longer with us. Believe it or not, the YouTube channel “wavywebsurf” is really good at documenting the people behind the memes.

He has a library of more than 200 videos, so there’s plenty of content. That’s a good starting point for all of your meme curiosity.

Perhaps memes are the final remnants of early internet nostalgia that I have every now and then. But, you know how I feel about nostalgia.

That’ll do it for this week. Sports should be back in session soon. Can’t wait.