Sep 11, 2026 · 29 min
How online irony turned 9/11 into recurring content
How 9/11 became a meme
The episode examines how memes and real-time social media recreations reshape public memory while testing the ethical limits of depicting trauma online.
- 1Online jokes use absurdity and irony to process disturbing events, but their meaning changes across communities and platforms.
- 2Manny Morota’s real-time recreation aims to bridge generations that remember 9/11 differently while risking its transformation into spectacle.
- 3The project’s graphic limits, manual posting, audience growth, and charitable monetization expose the responsibilities of digital remembrance.
Don't miss
Manny Morota explains how he will handle graphic images, photographs of victims, and the Falling Man in his real-time reconstruction.
The brief
Whitney Phillips explains why disturbing juxtapositions can produce laughter, tracing 9/11 jokes from the attacks’ aftermath through forums, GIFs, and meme culture.
The episode argues that 9/11 remains unusually available for online humor because it is culturally familiar, politically charged, and suited to instant, increasingly AI-assisted reactions.
Manny Morota’s “25 Years Ago Live” recreates the attacks as social-media posts, seeking to convey the uncertainty of that day to people too young to remember it.
Morota’s project confronts the ethics of graphic imagery, including photographs of victims and the Falling Man, while he weighs historical responsibility against online spectacle.
Its anticipated audience and possible revenue sharpen the tension: Morota describes the emotional labor of research and says related income will go to charity.
Featuring
Whitney Phillips
4chan
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