About

Aumm is a neologism referring to a type of image macro that combines a wide variety of images with dark, unfunny text that often refers to themes of pain, depression, mental illness, etc. The aesthetic of the images is similar to that of posts shared by several popular Weird Facebook pages. The difference is that Aumms created are not necessarily intended to be shared but to be an expression of the creator.

Origin

On March 7th, 2013, Facebook Jesse Eells-Adams created a closed Facebook group dedicated to Aumms called "People who aumm sometimes and are also….. ooohhhh….."^[1] On the same day, user Justin Valkan published the first image to the group (shown below). In a comment on that image, Eells-Adams explained the group thusly: "it's basically a free range internet farm focused lightly on the word aum and the feelings connected with aum word aum. i basically don't give a shit what gets posted here."

Spread

The group has grown to include over 18,000 members as of November 28th, 2016. Its description now explicitly states "post the things you've made here," which is limited to Aumms and excludes outside links to Youtube, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, and "your h0t vap0rwave beats. An offshoot group called "People that find Aumm-like images and also post them"^[2] launched where users were allowed to share Aumm-like images, explicitly stating "post the things you haven't made here. It has over 4,000 members. On October 18th, 2015, Arran James of Syntheticzero.net^[3] posted a critical reading of Aumm memes, concluding that:

The effect is one of a schizoid dissociation of text and image, word and representation, that effects a deflationary deconstruction of the pretence that language or art can covey any secure or effective meaning. It is heretical insofar as it is a mockery of art. It doesn’t pretend to be high-art. It doesn’t attempt to destroy high art. It doesn’t have such grand desires.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References