Worms. I love worms. Big worms, small worms, give me all the worms. They bring me joy, they bring me life. Honestly, without worms, I don’t know what I’d do.
Le rough cut, and surprise transition to the next paragraph. Surprise; it’s me, the author. Talking to you directly. You’re probably wondering why I’m suddenly breaking the fourth wall after such a beautiful opening about worms to talk to you. Let me explain. I’ll be honest, this is really a crack-article (similar to how people would call a crazy ship between two characters a ‘crack-ship’); specifically, a mentally deranged ranting formed from a delusional grief. You see, us staff here at Loco Mag come together at the start of every semester and choose our three themes. While this is a serious meeting, one which sets the mood for the rest of the class, it’s also a time of laughter and joy, where our wildest jokes and dreams become reality.
If you couldn’t tell already based on my terminally online understanding of shipping culture (an article for another time), I am a chronic resident of the internet. From the ripe school year of 5th grade, I have been an avid viewer of YouTube. Unlike most people of my generation though – especially girls in my grade at the time – I wasn’t a “normal viewer”, I was a little gamer nerd girl. I watched mostly gaming YouTubers, delved into GameTheory (if you’re reading this Mattpat, hi 🙂 ), and was overly obsessed with animation memes and anime. In short, I’m severely autistic, and I say that in the most self-loving way possible. While the other girls were watching Shane Dawson (ew) and James Charles (ew, except his makeup palettes are objectively amazing (sorry not sorry)), I was busy laughing hysterically at Markiplier failing miserably playing the many Five Nights at Freddy’s games.
All of this though, is really to say my sense of humor is beyond messed up. As the years have gone on, just exactly the things that would tickle my funny bone have evolved with the internet. Instant Regret Playlist-? Yes please, I’ll take ten more orders like that. Dark humor is my forte, my bread and butter you might say. I love to call myself an equal opportunity hater – if something exists, I’ll make jokes about it. Sure, the genre of ‘dark humor’ has existed since the internet’s inception – heck, it’s definitely existed long before it as well. I love the stuff; but as an avid consumer, sometimes it gets… ya know… boring. Don’t get me wrong, I can watch YouTubers who do dark comedy any day of the week – but like anything that’s good, too much of it can taste dull after a while.
That’s where my new favorite type of humor comes into play – brainrot. If you haven’t heard of what brainrot is, I think you genuinely might be living under a rock (if you are, please share your location with me, I want in on some good under-rock time). For those blissfully unaware of what the term means, brainrot is something I’d define as asinine humor. It’s essentially content that makes little to no sense, is as stupid and pointless as possible, and typically caters to audiences with short attention spans, typically young children (aka tablet kids). Brainrot typically has two enjoyers, and it’s sad to say but I’m one of them.
This now, is the moment you’ve been waiting for. It’s wormin’ time. And now, back to worms, and their introduction in Loco Mag. Flashback anime style (cue that imagery in your mind) to picking our themes and bam- the thought hits me. Worms. I giggle, then I snicker nearly-uncontrollably as I type onto our idea generative list. My dearest friend of the class looks over, asking me in a sarcastic yet intrigued voice what’s got me so giggly. She sees it, then looks away – amused yet so done with me and disturbed. One sentence is said-
“Why are you like this-?”
I laugh, and stare them down. I say little to nothing except..
“Mike Wormantraut.”
A joke of course I stole from a brainrot YouTuber I watch; conveniently the night before, where I’d watched an hour long session of theirs in which they only made worm jokes. She tells me not to offer up the theme idea, but I do. Ironically, another team also came up with a worm-themed name. When push came to shove, even though I fought (and voted) valiantly, she was cut down before me, my beloved worm idea. Worm, my dear worm, my littlest worm, wormship is magic, was now gone. My glorious, humorous brainrot joke was no more. And so here we are. Remember the grief I mentioned earlier-? Yeah baby, this is it.
Truly though I swear, it’s not just brainrot. Worms are funny; worms are so genuinely fucking funny. If my classmates won’t let me worm; then by God, I am going to worm here and now. Please, please let me explain-
Okay so one- for one, it’s a worm. What do you think about when I say worm-? Probably those brown little bastards wiggling around in the dirt, seething against the Earth. Not an abomination, but a testament to life itself. You better be thinking about those worms, cause if not there’s something wrong with you. But yeah, worms. They’re so genuinely mundane, so easy to look over. They’re so simple – and that’s what makes them perfect comedy material. Take all those horse, dog, cat, hamster, etc. memes for example. What makes them funny-? The allure is their simplicity. So let’s say I walk up to you. No words. I stare, and silently but oh so violently, I slap down a worm on the table in front of you. No words. I walk away, and you’re left with worm. Tell me; tell me that’s not hilarious.
That’s not all – though worms are simple creatures, they hide a dark secret that we as humans so often ignore – we are worm. Once again, let me indulge in my wormin’ cool pastime – useless facts on science. Worm. Worm is like literally one of the oldest forms of life on this planet. It’s one of the simplest forms of non-euclidean (definitely didn’t use that word right) on this planet, one of the oldest if you will. There’s a theory, a scientific theory – that most life on this planet descended from worms. If you think about it, everyone is still a worm. Sure we’ve got appendages, but we got what makes a worm worm – a tube. That’s right my faithful reader, we are just one long complex tube. Food goes in tube opening of mouth, food exits… well, you know. I might be crass but I ain’t sayin all that. You see the logic-? We, are worm.
I mean, think about it. The complexity yet simplicity of worms makes them so funny. Us inferior humans have recognized this before. Let’s see… a reference you’d understand even if you weren’t terminally online like I…
GASPETH-! Worm-on-a-string-! Remember those little guys from back in the day-?
Remember how funny they were-? Oh, not to mention that one little fella who’d do his “aaaAAHHhh-” scream (I’ll be so kind as to find him and put him below for ya’ll). They all laughed at me, they all disgraced me, but worm is funny. Worm, is pure, is true, is good humor. When you make fun of worm, when you laugh at worm, you spit in the face of all life itself. Worm is all life, and life is all joke. If life is all joke, then life is worm.
Feature Image made by Author
