The Internet is kind of a terrifying place. Sure, there’s near limitless information at your fingertips every time you open up a browser, but you’re also exposing yourself to potential viruses, porn of an infinite variety and trolls with flaming arrows.

It’s a crafty beast, the Internet. You’ll be lured into a false sense of productivity with all the research you can get done, but the next moment you’re on Facebook checking the various walls and covers and…furniture? (I assume. I’ve not been on Facebook in a while.)

But the social networks are the least of your worries. The Internet has many traps and temptations that will keep you from your hopes and dreams. Even without social media, there are still web comics and YouTube clips to rob you of your potential. But the Internet’s possible worst offender is its memes.

There’s no real point to the little guys, but if they get you, good luck trying to stop them. For those of you who don’t know, a meme is any idea that spreads from person to person. In the Internet’s case, this often means an image with text at the top and bottom.

See, immediately you should be afraid of these things. They are literally described in a way that makes them mental viruses.

At this point, there are a collection of images that have gotten so popular, they have become templates used to create most memes. These include such delightful characters as Forever Alone, “Y U NO” guy, Scumbag Steve, Good Guy Greg and Philosoraptor.

These things are like candy for your brain: They’re fun to take in, but they’re ultimately really bad for you and can be addicting. Though there’s not much to memes (usually just a few lines of text and an image), they actually get their abilities from an old and powerful literary trait: plot structure.

Basic plot structure consists of five basic parts: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and denouement or resolution. To put this a little more simply, a situation is introduced, it is exaggerated and then it is resolved.

This is how memes work: The first line introduces a concept, the image accelerates it and the second line provides a punch line and wraps things up. Each meme essentially becomes a mini-story capable of producing a narrative, though without a lot of real substance.

This makes them compelling, sort of. Humans seem to be naturally drawn to stories, and memes can offer them this type of entertainment in simple and easily digestible ways. There’s no arguing that they are fun, but they aren’t giving your brain a lot of exercise and you could probably find a lot of better things to do with your time.

Memes still pose further danger, though. They are coming up in our conversations and changing the way we talk.

I know society and language are always in flux, and technically there’s no wrong way they could change, but I’d rather this not be the direction our generation chooses to take the world.

There are plenty of folks older than us saying that we’re going to screw up and the whole world is going to crap, but it would be awesome if we managed not to do that.

We’ve got the potential to have a better handle on this whole World Wide Web thing than anybody else. Let’s find something productive to do.

Seth Schroeder is a sophomore journalism major.

He can be reached at 581-7942 or DENopinions@gmail.com.