Putting On Galaxy Clown Brain: Memes, Myths And Everything In Between

In paleolithic times, ancient humans would gather around a campfire after a successful hunt and tell stories about gods and heroes by the flickering light of dancing flames. These stories tended to follow familiar formats like the hero's journey, the flood or the fall from grace. As scholars like Joseph Campbell explain, these narrative structures can be found around the world and across history, with different names and events slotted into different places in the narratives.

In modern times, many humans sit alone in their beds after a day’s work and stare into the bright void of social media apps, consuming memes. Memes, like mythology, follow familiar formats that structure what we expect from them and what we get out of them.

Like myths, many meme formats tell a story, repeating the same structure over and over again but with different characters, themes, and objects involved. Two prominent storytelling meme formats are Galaxy Brain and Putting on Clown Makeup.

Both meme formats center around a human head undergoing a transformation. Both are (usually) four panels long with each panel divided evenly between text and image. Both unfurl from top-to-bottom, created to fit the direction of your average smartphone scroll. Both meme formats usually narrate an intensification of something, a series of decisions becoming increasingly pitiful (for the clown) or ironically powerful (for the brain). In both, the human head can be an "I" or it can be another person.

According to our database, Galaxy Brain came about in 2017 from Reddit. Seen below, the earliest example of the format was about being a grammar snob.

Putting on Clown Makeup, which is composed of images taken from a 2015 YouTube makeup tutorial, emerged in 2019 on Twitter. Here, the earliest example was about leftists arguing themselves into a corner.

What is remarkable about the two meme formats is that they essentially tell the same story: In four steps, a concept is expanded to the point of ridicule. Both memes point a finger at people who embrace an escalating illogic by supporting things that are stupid.

Additionally, both memes rely on the same premise — mocking the person who believes a ridiculous thing more than they are mocking the ridiculous thing, and if you don't agree with them, you are the "clown" or the "brain."

Both structures target the speaker of a ridiculous point of view, centering an argument around who is speaking rather than what is being spoken about. If you look at the way political systems and media work nowadays, this largely seems to track, as we often speak more about politicians than we do about policy or more about types of people than we do about types of action. Clown Makeup and Galaxy Brain are formats for reenacting the kinds of arguments and attacks we see in the media every day.

But why do humans make and repeat structures and forms? Logically, wouldn't it make more sense and be more impressive for memers and neolithic storytellers to produce something new and creative every time?

While originality gets a lot of attention, repeating a structure allows for a kind of audience relationship that original work does not. If your audience knows what you're doing – if they've seen the meme format (or something like it) that you're using a million times already – then they can laugh with you.

The purpose of narrative has never been just to have fun or make something beautiful but to produce community. Both Galaxy Brain and Clown Makeup are about picking the right side and staying on it, and so was the neolithic campfire: Its primary purpose wasn't just light or heat, but to keep animals away from where the humans slept.

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