Too Far

Behold, the death of memes at the hand of the fracking lobby

By Cody Permenteron Aug 2, 2016 7:02 amShare

As any denizen of the internet will tell you: There are dank memes and then there are bad memes.

Dank memes: Arthur’s fist, Crying Michael Jordan, and Sandra Lee’s extra-special two-shot vodka pour

Bad memes: Anything on frackfeed.com

Frackfeed is a budget bin Buzzfeed created by North Texans for Natural Gas, a natural gas lobbying group that aims to “give a voice to those who support natural gas.” As they say: When a disenfranchised group needs a voice, let them have memes.

In addition to memes, Frackfeed offers #millennialfriendly content like listicles and quizzes. Want to know which Friends character you are? Frackfeed has got you covered, even though — as far as we know — Central Perk has nothing to do with natural gas extraction. Frackfeed also want you to vote for a candidate in the 2016 election named, yes, Fracking — perhaps the dark horse third-party candidate the nation has been waiting for!

At first glance, a website using celebrities, fuzzy animals, and MS Paint to praise natural gas might seem like some fairly high-effort pandering by a lobbying group. Upon closer inspection, however, you will find the still-warm corpse of internet comedy.

But, hey — if you can’t pay BuzzFeed to make listicles for you, as Shell did this week, you might as well create your own.

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Behold, the death of memes at the hand of the fracking lobby