Here at Nori, we take climate change very seriously. But we don’t want to take ourselves too seriously.
So, we developed the Memelab as a way to engage with other carbon removal enthusiasts and introduce a new audience the idea of removing CO2 from the atmosphere—with humor.
Asa Kamer is Producer of the Carbon Removal Newsroom podcast. Siobhan Montoya Lavendar is Cofounder at Thanks a Ton. And they are both part of the writing team for Carbon Removal Memes for Climate Restorative Teens.
On this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Asa and Siobhan join Ross to share the origin of Nori’s Carbon Removal Memelab and explain why it’s so challenging to identify what makes a successful meme.
Asa, Siobhan, and Ross describe the important role comedy can play in reversing climate change, discussing why self-deprecating humor works better than being mean, and how they iterate on a joke to be funny without being offensive.
Listen in for insight around why it's fun to riff on common objections to carbon removal and learn how to engage with our memes on your social media platform of choice.
More from the show
Ad-free episodes and other benefits come with a paid subscription.
Carbon Removal Newsroom, the news show that ran alongside this one, is over. Its episodes are still up, on the feed Climate Workers Anonymous now uses.
Carbon Removal Memes is still going.
Resources
Carbon Removal Memes on Instagram
Jewish Comedy: A Serious History by Jeremy Dauber
Dr. Julio Friedmann on Reversing Climate Change EP016
Jane Flegal on Reversing Climate Change EP005
The Office BFFs by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey
Full Transcript
Alexsandra Guerra: You’re listening to the Reversing Climate Change podcast by the team at Nori, the carbon removal marketplace. This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs developing solutions to climate change.
Ross Kenyon: Hello and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change podcast with Nori. I’m Ross Kenyon. I’m the creative editor at Nori. Today I have with me meme people. Nori does memes. Somehow this is part of my job and how thankful I am for that. And I have the core of Nori’s meme lab, as we call it. I’ll start with you, Asa. Asa Kamer, meme author and producer of Carbon Removal Newsroom. Hey, Asa.
Asa Kamer: Hey, Ross. Thanks for having me.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I’m happy to have you back. We were on together talking about Carbon Removal Newsroom not too long ago. And we also have our colleague, Siobhan Montoya-Lavender, co-founder at Thanks a Ton and a meme author as well. Hey, Siobhan.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Hey, what’s up? Thanks for having me.
Ross Kenyon: Hey, I feel like I’m trying to class up memes by calling people who create them meme authors. What nomenclature do you prefer?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I like memeologist.
Ross Kenyon: Memeologist. That sounds like mixologist is one of those terms where everyone is just like, can’t you just be a bartender? Do you have to be a mixologist? Is memes like that too? What do you think, Asa?
Asa Kamer: Oh, man. That’s a good question. I guess memer doesn’t really have the gravitas of memeologist.
Ross Kenyon: The maitre d’ at Mimi’s Cafe. What about that? That might be the stupidest joke I’ve ever attempted.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: If you were trying to put that on a meme right now, I would shut you down.
Ross Kenyon: I’ve been trying to think of the Mimi’s Cafe connection there recently. If you’re listening to this and you heard that joke, I can’t believe I talked myself into keeping it in, but it’s probably gone.
Asa Kamer: We can release that later on our Patreon.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, yeah. If you chip in an extra $60 a month, you can get access to little snippets like that gem. I guess I could start off by talking about why I decided to start doing this and bring you guys in. And then I was thinking we could just review some of the memes and the thinking and just riff on why we do what we do. And I’m sure it will go some wild places from there. Is that cool?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I like it.
Ross Kenyon: Let’s do it. I feel like people who consume content nowadays, they either want like four hours with Joe Rogan or Duncan Trussell or like one of those shows, or they want it to be like instantly metabolizable for lack of a better term, like a meme. You look at it for a fraction of a second and get it. And we do a lot of this podcasting that ends up being close to an hour or so. And I love memes. More than I thought I did, I’ll start referencing forms of the meme and I’ll feel like an archaeologist or like I spend way too much time on the internet.
That’s probably what it is. I’ve just spent way too long on the internet for decades at this point. Carbon removal didn’t really have that. There’s a lot of climate meme accounts, but like everything else, carbon removal is still pretty small. So starting carbon removal newsroom, as far as I know, that was the first carbon removal podcast specifically, like exclusively. As far as I know, carbon removal memes for climate restorative teams, which we just copied the naming convention. That was popular probably several years ago. Is anyone still doing that? I don’t know.
But I just kind of went from there. We had some like rocky starts where a lot of second guessing. I was like, is this the right meme? Is this going to be good? And now we’re at the point where we’re like, cool, I thought about this for 30 seconds and it made me laugh. So that’s good enough, right?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, ship it.
Ross Kenyon: That’s I think the prehistory of setting the context decently well. Is there anything you two might add?
Asa Kamer: Well, in case anyone doesn’t know, we have a meme Twitter account. Do we say that or are we just assuming people know?
Ross Kenyon: I think maybe stating the obvious is good. And links to these things are in the show notes.
Asa Kamer: Sorry, gross. Go ahead.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. On Twitter, it’s at CO2 with the number removal memes. Link is in the show notes. You can also look up carbon removal memes. Surely that must be one of the first things to pick up on Google because I don’t think there’s that much competition for those search terms. But carbon removal memes for climate restorative teens, you can find it. We’re pretty active. So at least every weekday we try to put out a meme or pretty close to that. Sometimes there’s more.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Hats off to Asa for kind of getting the ball rolling, I feel like, because the reason I started making carbon removal memes was because Asa suggested to the head of Air Miners that there should be a carbon removal meme channel. When I saw that, I was like, my brain just lit up because I had already been, I don’t know, thinking about like humor and getting people... Interested in carbon removal. And this was just such a fun, creative way to kind of talk about carbon removal that nobody was doing really. And so hats off to Asa for that.
And then he posted a few memes. And then I was brave enough to be like, okay, I can do this. This is fun. And then so I started posting some memes. And I feel like that’s kind of where it took off from.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I’m sorry. My retelling of the prehistory was very self-absorbed and focused solely on my contributions. Now I’m realizing. Yeah. So I’m like trying to now think in my head, I’m like, how did I choose Asa and Siobhan to start doing this with me? It’s like, oh yeah, because thanks a ton was doing amazing meme work. I was like, okay, Siobhan, we’re going to try and do something that’s like bigger than just a company specific thing, trying to make like an industry thing. Do you want to come play around with us?
Asa, you were doing carbon removal newsroom stuff, but I thought you were also a bit of a meme scholar. Did I see you in the Airminers meme channel? And I was like, oh, I think Asa can do this. Is that what happened?
Asa Kamer: Yeah, yeah, basically. Just to add even more depth to this important history, because this might get looked back on by scholars. Oh, definitely. But I think Tito and Jason from Air Miners actually asked, it was their idea to do the meme channel. It was not my idea. And I said, sure. They asked me if I’d be the quote moderator. And I said, sure. And I haven’t actually done anything to moderate it in the last like year since it’s existed. But I do want to retain that title because being the moderator of the Air Miners meme channel is pretty...
That’s pretty cool.
Ross Kenyon: It’s prestigious.
Asa Kamer: The way I remember it is just myself and a few other people like John Sanchez were just posting a few memes in Air Miners about carbon removal and some different methods that we liked. It pretty quickly started to feel like shitposting in the general channel where there’s people trying to talk about science and business and have real conversations and help their businesses and So we wanted to have fun with it, but it maybe lacked that, you know, the right time and place. And there was a lot of talk at the time about like, oh, we should like put it out on social media.
And like, this is such a great idea. So I think there was an idea his time has come. So I’m glad Ross, you know, actually took the initiative and did it. And now we’re here.
Ross Kenyon: Now we’re here. I’m glad multiple people were thinking about it and making some great memes. Yeah, some of Jason’s memes cracked me up. John’s too. I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this. I’ll check with you before I publish this. But John took an internship at Lower Carbon this summer rather than making memes with us. You’re lost, John.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: You’re lost. How dare he?
Ross Kenyon: What’s going to happen to your career now?
Asa Kamer: You know, those career defining moments. He’s going to look back on it with regret. No, I’m just kidding.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, you could have been on this podcast rather than working with Chris Saka, you idiot.
Asa Kamer: This is a podcast of kingmakers, just so you know. I’m sure he’ll be able to do whatever he wants in the world of carbon removal.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: We should make a meme about it.
Ross Kenyon: I was joking about it recently. John, you’re like a first-round draft pick. I’m like, how do I get in there? How do I sponsor this guy? Sign you up for a 10-year contract? Is this too personal for you, John? The whole podcast is now pointed at you.
Asa Kamer: Well, he helped me learn a lot because he put together that curriculum not long after I first learned about the Airminer Slack channel. And he put together his Carbon Removal Academy curriculum. It’s so good. And that was pretty seminal for me to just be like, oh, this is what this is. Like to even just kind of put boundaries around what the field is. And I don’t know to what degree that resource is still getting pushed out there, but it was super helpful for me. So people should check that out. If you want to learn more about carbon removal is just, I think just Google Carbon Removal Academy.
It’s set up like a little course and it’s very, very informative.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. And you can also find it if you just go through air miners too, but I’ll have links to all these things in the show notes. They’re definitely amazing resources. If you do want to learn more about carbon removal, and I think you have to know something about carbon removal to get these memes. I was trying to think, we have lots of discussions internally about how focused these memes should be on carbon removal. And the default is niche is better than not.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I think that’s your default.
Ross Kenyon: It’s my default.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I think Ross really likes the niche memes.
Ross Kenyon: The ones that expect a lot out of people, I think they want to rise to the challenge and be a part of the in-group and get it. For some of the memes, I think we made a meme about solar panels or whatever that was so broad that someone that is not working... Yeah, it didn’t land. Yeah, I feel like... Oh, wait, are you talking about a specific one of the...
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: No, I think the broad ones sometimes don’t land. I think there’s a level of... There’s a sweet spot, I think, between having a joke so niche that only five PhDs can get it Although I love making those two and then having the ones that, yeah, make people feel like they’re part of the in crowd or they’re in on the joke and they can still get it.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. You say like there’s a sweet spot as if we know what makes a successful meme or not, which we do not.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: We do not. I should say that I believe there’s a sweet spot. We have not yet found that sweet spot, but I believe it exists.
Ross Kenyon: What happened here? Do you have any idea?
Asa Kamer: I don’t. I don’t. I’ve been wallowing in it.
Ross Kenyon: You’ve been wallowing in it? But we love them. And really, the only way you know that they’re going to be good is if you like them, right? Like, if you don’t like them, they’re probably definitely not good.
Asa Kamer: Yeah. Yeah. They all made me laugh when I was making them. So I like to think, well, they make me laugh. And that’s, you know, an indicator that they’ll be popular. And that has not panned out so far.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: It’s a good litmus test, though. Like, you know, we want to at least make ourselves laugh. Yeah.
Asa Kamer: Yeah, so maybe it’s like a consolation prize where I’m like, well, at least I thought it was funny. Maybe the world rejected it, but I liked it.
Ross Kenyon: It’s a sad thing for someone in comedy or in humor to say, but yeah, the most successful one I think is still the Trailer Park Boys meme of the, I’ll pay you $100 to fuck off of Randy to Mr. Leahy. I had no idea because that’s who, how many people watch Trailer Park Boys? A decent number. Some people responded and were goofing around on Trailer Park Boys, but it’s not like The Office where most Americans, it runs in their bloodstream so thick that how could you ever escape it as a gravity well on culture?
Why did that one do well?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: No idea. Maybe it’s because it was referencing, you know, the frontier climate purchases and was kind of referencing a very of the moment thing that a lot of people were talking about. That’s just a wild guess. I don’t know.
Asa Kamer: Maybe it’s just because humor with swear words in it is more broad and people just like that. People like that there is an F word in it.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: We should A-B test that, yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Some of the ones too that puzzle me, the ones that we try to apply that are deep in internet culture. And by the way, links to these things are in the show notes mostly. Not all of them are going to fit. But if you scroll through our Twitter, Instagram, you’ll find these without having to try very hard. But even like the Bugs Bunny, I wish all blank a very pleasant evening. One that we did. I wish all carbon a very pleasant removal. Did pretty well.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah. Why? I’m not sure.
Ross Kenyon: That’s like something that came deep from the internet that is just like a weird meme template. And it did well. Other meme templates deep from the internet did not. You just keep throwing them out there. And if they make you laugh, that’s a good sign. And then hopefully it works. Right?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah. Or maybe somebody from the audience is going to be like, guys, it’s this. It’s this formula that you have no knowledge of.
Asa Kamer: Probably. I mean... Carbon removal is a very interdisciplinary type of topic where you have science and government and people from different sciences and social sciences and climate advocacy. So by putting boundaries around it, we’re kind of bringing together people from a lot of different backgrounds and probably different cultural reference points. So maybe it’s just a harder lift to come up with references that group is going to get. There’s no existing sort of Pieces of culture that we know that our group identity is based around. There’s nothing like that. There isn’t really a group identity at all, of course.
So there is an element of experimentation. We’re like, what do all these people share knowledge of? And maybe we’re still finding that out.
Ross Kenyon: I mean, I come from a life of loving comedy, like obsessively. And if you listen to the show long enough, you know that there’s plenty of references to... Peep Show and Monty Python and all sorts of things that I grew up. I feel like I grew up watching, like staying up late and watching SNL and then those SNL best of tapes. I feel like I just had on repeat for many years and some of those classics, just like Mike Myers and Dana Carvey and some of those people, just Adam Sandler.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Well, they’re joyful and they stick in your brain. Would you say that like if you see a meme... That has like new information, but it’s funny that you’re more likely to remember that information because it’s in like a humorous format.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think so. But I also don’t want it to be too instrumental either. Like I think humor is not valued that highly in science or entrepreneurship or policy. I think all those things have this veneer of suitsmanship, right? That’s a term I just coined to denote seriousness. Oh, we are very serious scientists. And of course, it’s deadly serious in so many ways. But I feel like you had a good line about this recently, Siobhan. What were you saying that you guys had? Thanks a ton. You have like a guiding catchphrase.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Oh, yeah. That we like take climate change really seriously, but try not to take ourselves too seriously. There you go.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah.
Asa Kamer: That’s words to live by right there.
Ross Kenyon: I think it’s I think it’s really powerful. I was listening to Mel Brooks put out a memoir at the tail end of last year I was listening to, which is I also grew up watching Mel Brooks movies.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: So I didn’t know about this. Yeah, I’ve got to go read Mel Brooks’s memoir.
Ross Kenyon: It’s good. I like it. There’s a lot of stories where it’s fun to learn how all these things happen, learn more about the Sid Caesar show and some of those things that didn’t quite... People who came out of that show, I’m downstream of that. So I’m like, okay, learning some of this comedy history. It’s good. But he was saying that even getting the producers going, he had to lie in order to... Because if you guys both seen the producers...
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. All right. So Springtime for Hitler. For people who don’t know, it’s about a shady producer and his new accountant who are trying to... They can make more money from a flop than they can from a success. And so they’re committing this fraudulent act with an intentionally bad play. So they go out and they try to find what’s the worst play that’s ever been written and let’s make it. And it’s called Springtime for Hitler. And it’s just like pro-Nazi... Play this musical with a very silly song. Of course, it backfires and it turns out to be a huge hit because people laugh at it.
But people aren’t ready to laugh about Hitler or the Nazis. And Mel said, the most important thing I can do and the best way to rob them of their power is to laugh at them and to successfully mock them. So I think there is a really... Important role for comedy potentially in climate change as opposed to something where it’s like optimism and just like being buoyant or doom scrolling. I think there’s a way to productively laugh while doing neither of those things that is maybe useful. This is what I tell myself.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I think you’re hitting on something there. I think there is. There’s like the doom scrolling and then there’s like the sunflower optimism. And I think that memes maybe walk a line somewhere in there and there’s a role for them for humor and comedy and CDR.
Asa Kamer: Well, Ross, you’re definitely touching on the way that the Jewish community, which I’m a part of, uses humor to be resilient to calamity and death and genocide. And I love that. That’s a great topic. And it’s something that’s near and dear to me and as part of who I am. So I think it’s cool that you also have Gleaned that from the history of Mel Brooks and all these people who, I mean, they were, he was an adult when the Holocaust happened in America, but still witnessing it and witnessing how America didn’t, you know, at times do as much as they could have to help European Jews and, you know, anti-Semitism in the US and Europe after the Holocaust and to just witness all that and then be like, let’s go, let’s like fucking make a musical about it.
On Broadway in New York City. I mean, that’s just amazing. That’s there’s just something that’s so cool about that. And I think you’re right. I think we should take some lessons of that from climate change, because we all know what the like the main, I guess, like activist climate narratives are just humorless. I mean, like, yeah, they’re pretty serious. And it’s apocalyptic. And it’s, you know, We either have to be better or we’ll all die. I think that can be hard to process for people. Maybe giving an outlet some community voice, some narrative that’s not that.
There’s the whole thing about doomers and doomerism versus optimism in the climate world. It’s even like maybe even different than that of just like, yeah, taking our we’re going to take ourselves seriously and take our fear seriously or, you know, take our worries about it like as the only feeling or are there going to be other feelings too? And do we use that humor as a way to connect with people, which actually does, I think, can be productive. So I love that. I love what you’re what you’re talking about. And we’re definitely yeah, if we can if we can take any lessons from Mel Brooks, I think we’ll be on the right track.
Ross Kenyon: You’re basically saying that we need to be more Jewish is what you’re saying. I don’t have the levels of Judaism here. There’s a great book too. I don’t know if you’ve read it, but have you read it? I think it’s called Jewish Comedy, A Serious History. Have you?
Asa Kamer: No, I haven’t.
Ross Kenyon: I read it not long ago and it’s very good. Many of the jokes in there too. I’m just like, oh, this is sublime. You might enjoy that. And if you like what we just said, that’s probably a great book to check out as well.
Asa Kamer: All right, I will.
Ross Kenyon: Why don’t we keep going through these? And let’s just talk our way through some of them here. I’ll share my screen so you can. We’re all on the same page. We’re starting at the top of the feed on Twitter. So right now, today, it’s July 8th. So you have Tony Soprano in the pool with the ducks. Three likes. Asa breaks my heart in two.
Asa Kamer: So wrong.
Ross Kenyon: It’s so wrong. How dare you? How dare you?
Asa Kamer: That’s such an important moment in the series. And I feel like just as respect to the cultural importance of The Sopranos, people should be liking it. And it should be wildly popular.
Ross Kenyon: Press F to pay respects. Oh, see, we haven’t done that. That’s deep in internet culture. We haven’t done that one yet either. Are you a big gamer, Siobhan? Does that mean anything to you?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I’m not, nor do I watch The Sopranos.
Ross Kenyon: I like it though, because you oftentimes bring a nice wholesomeness to it, which I find refreshing because Ace and I are definitely deep in that pop culture referential thing. And I feel like you oftentimes help elevate us out of those stupid depths.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Oh, thanks. The wholesome, the wholesome cred.
Ross Kenyon: The wholesome, I don’t know. Do you agree with that? Or do you have like a deep edgy side that I’m waiting to see soon?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: No, I don’t. I think I do make wholesome memes. I also think I probably make the most The ones that criticize carbon removal the most. Would you agree with that? I like the memes I’ve made. I’ve made some harsh ones on carbon removal with love. I make them with love. I feel like it’s almost my own way of disarming my own fears or insecurities about carbon removal or problems within it is to make a meme and just acknowledge the flaws.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think that’s definitely true. I’m trying to think of examples of this. I guess you had a pitch the other day about people were saying that carbon removal is still so small. That’s something I can think of off the top of my head though.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Well, yeah, I think the one that I think caught your eye and the reason you probably reached out to me to begin with was the Mean Girls.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, yes. This is one of the best of all time for sure.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Which was, yeah, just like basically, I don’t know. I was hearing a lot of debate around like the different flaws and kind of almost this Light infighting about what method is best or something. And so I came up with this idea of a meme that basically calls out all the flaws of carbon removal. But they all have flaws. So it’s not hating on one over the other. And I don’t know. I always feel like those memes are the ones that I personally laugh at the most. Maybe it’s because it’s releasing my own criticism or fears about carbon removal.
Ross Kenyon: I like that too. And it’s also been a tricky line to... To do this channel and also to not editorialize in an improper way or in an... Well, first of all, it has to be funny. There’s nothing funnier than a good example is political comedy. If it’s not funny, it doesn’t matter how right you are. It’s just bad comedy. I remember how disappointing it was after, like when Bush was in office, I had like, you know, David Cross and Patton Oswalt. I was like, oh yeah, this is like edgy, edgy, like left-wing comedy.
And then Obama got elected and I was like, where’d everybody go? Where’s the comedy? I felt like they were pulling their punches at that point. I was like, it took a while for it to kind of come back. But yeah, I think you absolutely have to keep that in mind. And we don’t really have like that strong of a point of view. Are we trying to convince anyone of anything?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I don’t think so. I certainly don’t think we overvalue any one solution or anything. I think we’re pretty agnostic, I would say. I don’t know. Would you guys agree? I think we’re pretty agnostic. And then I think... When I think about making humorous content around carbon removal, I don’t think I’m trying to convince somebody of the joke necessarily or the niche, whatever I’m talking about. But if somebody sees it and is now more interested in carbon removal than they were before... I call that a win.
Asa Kamer: Oh, yeah. Big time. Yeah. I think the point of view or the thing we’re trying to convince people of is that carbon removal is real important and worth thinking about. And other people are thinking about it and there’s things to reference. So I wouldn’t say we’re not trying to convince people of anything. I would say we’re trying to be like, this exists. Think about it. You know what I mean? Yeah. Culture here. If like, there’s some joke about it and a lot of people are like paying attention to it, which hasn’t been happening in the last few days, but hopefully we’ll bounce back.
Ross Kenyon: I’m sure. I’m sure it will. It’s only a matter of time, but it isn’t like we came out with the, all right, this week, we got to convince people that the permanence concerns are overblown for such and such methodology. Like I’ve never.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: No, we’re not saying that in the writer’s room.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, no, I feel like the goal, we’re trying to serve the professionals who are working in the carbon removal space. Like, okay, one of our bigger fans, this is public, because I don’t think he’d matter me saying it, it would bother him in any way. But Julio Friedman, Julio, alumnus of the podcast from way back when, one of our first guests, you’re all over this meme channel. The fact that I am, in some ways, as a carbon removal Illuminatus, as Christoph used to say, Making your job more fun or making it feel like we have a community in some way.
I find that to be a rewarding thing. And I also hope that people see this and say like carbon removal could be a fun industry or sector that has a sense of humor. It has a culture, as you said, Asa. I hope it helps grow the space too. To what degree it actually does that, I’m not sure, but...
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I wish we had data on that, you know, because I also love it when like, you know, big names and carbon will like our tweets or follow us or something. And it’s like, cool, like, you know, That’s really exciting. But I wish we had data on like, well, how many people that had no clue about carbon removal, like found carbon removal through memes? That would be really, really interesting data to have.
Ross Kenyon: I think so too. And maybe like a downstream effect too. I don’t know. It’s hard to measure this one, Siobhan. I don’t think you can really, but I think being somewhat self-deprecating or admitting when you don’t know something or that all methodologies face certain kinds of trade-offs. And I think a space of having enough humility to grapple with that productively is useful. It probably makes it more tolerable, at least for me to swim in this space. I don’t know if you feel similarly, but.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Plus one, plus one.
Ross Kenyon: The Mean Girls one certainly set the bar high though and early.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I told you when you asked me about that, I was like, that’s my best one, man. I’m not gonna surpass that. But if you still want me to make content for you, I’m on board.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, single that one out, editor listening to the show right now. That’s one that deserves its own dedicated link in the show notes. Okay. Let’s scroll through. All right. We have junior telling Tony that he never had the makings of what? Like a pro ball or a college ball player or something like that?
Asa Kamer: A varsity athlete.
Ross Kenyon: Varsity athlete. That’s it. I remember the scene. Space elevator. Yeah, we love these jokes about, we have like hard time with Poe’s Law, where you need the joke to actually read as ridiculous enough to make, we want to do like bad carbon removal business ideas and methodology ideas. But basically, all of them are kind of weird to start with. So how do you make one that actually is weird enough for people to say, aha, this is clearly making fun of a bad idea that doesn’t exist. So we just landed giant tubes to space and space elevators.
Is there any other option for us?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Let us know in the comments.
Ross Kenyon: What’s the worst carbon removal idea you’ve ever had? Mine all involve giant tubes. And they have from the start. Actually, I think we had Jane Flagle on back in the day. And I asked her, which in hindsight is frankly ridiculous. Why can’t we just have a giant tube to space? Well, this poly one did better. CO2 stuck in the air versus CO2 vibing in a circular economy. Got some love here.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: There’s some circular economy fans probably, you know.
Ross Kenyon: I got a Paul Knoffs responding. I like that reply, yeah.
Asa Kamer: I don’t know if I understand it.
Ross Kenyon: I think it’s, is it Michael Douglas? Who is that?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I don’t know.
Ross Kenyon: Whoever it is, laying on a rock, sunbaking, saying CO2 going back into the lithosphere.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, I got that he was like the next layer of rock, you know?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I dig it. I dig it. This picture of James Gandolfini with SpongeBob. The first time I saw it, I think it was one of the funnier time capsule kind of photos. Like, wow, what a moment in history. Tony Soprano and SpongeBob. I worked at a summer camp years and years ago, and we had this kind of posh French kid who was sent over by his parents to be immersed in English. And he’s like, do you know Bob L’Eponge? I was like, what? Bob L’Eponge. I was like, oh, Bob the sponge, sponge gum, Bob L’Eponge.
I wonder where he is. Godspeed, you brilliant young man.
Asa Kamer: He has good taste.
Ross Kenyon: It was good taste. Yeah, I’m glad that one made it across the pond. Yeah, this one did pretty decently here of the air horn. Who’s this? DJ Collette? Is that who you said?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, he’s the one doing the air horn. I’m pretty sure, right?
Asa Kamer: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: This is like us making fun of ourselves too. Being like, haha, we’re mean people. We’re just somehow we’re involved in this space. Yeah.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, those are my favorite too. I guess I just like the self-deprecating ones in general, whether it’s us or carbon removal. Those are the ones that make me laugh out loud. I laughed out loud when I saw this.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, I think humor does a good job of disarming people and pointing it. I feel like a lot of times when we’ve been stuck on a joke, sometimes we’ve had to reconfigure them because they felt mean. You’re like, why is this pointed at like someone or some group in some improper way? It just doesn’t feel like it’s in the spirit of it. But sometimes if you turn that back on yourself, it becomes very funny.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, it clicks.
Ross Kenyon: Have we run a single meme that was critical or nailing someone in that way? I guess people who don’t believe in carbon removal are only on the decarbonization side, I guess, probably. But I don’t think we’ve been mean about it.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I certainly try not to be mean. I think you have a good pulse if it’s reading as mean or not.
Ross Kenyon: It’s okay to be pointed, but it’s gotta be over the curve. It has to be funny enough to compensate. Like if it makes the joke way funnier, maybe it’s okay. But oftentimes I don’t feel like it helps anything. I think it kind of just turns people off and we’re supposed to be like letting people release something, right?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I don’t know. I think there’s some dark ones, but I really like that. And I feel like you and Ace especially are like not afraid of darkness. And sometimes I’m like, I don’t know, is that going to be too dark? Is that going to hit with people? And then it resonates and people like it. So I like those ones too. Like the Titanic one.
Ross Kenyon: Dude, the Titanic one is also one of the greatest hits, but that’s dark, but not mean, right?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: No, exactly. It’s not like targeting any one person. It’s not mean, but it is like...
Ross Kenyon: Why don’t you tell our audience what is that?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: We’ll scroll down and find it so I can visualize it. It’s pretty far down. It’s Jack and Rose. Rose is on the door outside of the Titanic when they’re drowning, when he’s going to drown, freezing. It’s like, what is it? It’s Rose doing her part to add biomass to the deep ocean floor or something like that.
Ross Kenyon: Something like that, yeah. I mean, that was Asa. Asa, you pitched that. We’re like, is this too dark? Is this too weird? We’re like, no, Asa, it’s brilliant. This is terrific stuff.
Asa Kamer: Yeah, it’s an identifiable moment. It’s a touchpoint we all remember.
Ross Kenyon: Definitely. This Life of Brian one I have of the stoning, biochar is a running joke too in the meme lab, mostly because I hope anyone listening doesn’t take offense to this. Don’t send me an angry email. Hopefully you can laugh at yourself about this, but there’s something about biochar people that is intense and oftentimes it’s like, It’s funny. You’re a funny community. Of all the people who are interested in families of methodologies, the biochar people are the most intense, or it’s like it can be used for anything. You can use it as toothpaste if you want to.
There’s literally no cost to it. It helps literally everything. We could basically do everything with biochar. And the numbers of weird messages or pitches or interactions I’ve had with biochar people versus everyone else is high. It’s high. I love you. But it’s high. And so biochar has been a running joke. Like here, me when I accidentally criticized biochar online. And then of course, John Cleese getting obliterated by a stoning.
Asa Kamer: Also biochar, I feel like had a cult following even before like carbon removal was a thing. And it was like something people were looking at. Like it’s been, there have been people passionate about it for many years.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Passionate is one way to put it.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Biochar is rad. We love you, Biochar.
Ross Kenyon: We’re doing a show. It took us a couple tries to make some on our own, but I have a kiln and a fade Biochar. And so that show is coming soon as well. I’ve been able to temper my exuberance perhaps greater than some. One of our other running jokes we should probably talk about here too is I love these Ice Age jokes, which... Came about because I had a friend who, kind of a frenemy or an acquaintance. We used to be closer, but I feel like we aren’t anymore. And when he heard about Nori, it’s like, you’re just going to create a new ice age.
You’re going to remove too much carbon and then we’re going to have a different problem. I was like, okay, I’d much rather have that problem than this one. But okay. But I see it every once in a while as a criticism. And it’s always a gotcha criticism. It’s always like, gotcha. What are you going to say now? And so we have a number of Ice Age memes.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: We do. And it’s funny because we have to talk about this now that we lean into and we put post-apocalyptic Ice Age images and people still don’t necessarily get that we’re kidding.
Ross Kenyon: There’s a joke that only works if you spell it out, but I’ve wanted to, it’s like something like the problem with satire is that people don’t realize it’s an ancient Greek demigod. I’m like, it’s a joke about satyrs, right? Like S-A-T-Y-R. I’m like, it’s not that funny. It’s not that funny apparently, but I was like, that’s a, okay, okay. We’re fine guys. Thanks. That’s what happens when I fail a pitch live. Yeah. When it dies in the room, I don’t know.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: It’s okay, they’re getting like a real life experience of the meme lab.
Ross Kenyon: It’s one of those jokes I thought of like 10 years ago. I’m like, oh, this is delicious wordplay. Oh, this is so good. And it’s like only funny to me, whatever.
Asa Kamer: They’ll love it on Greek mythology Twitter, Ross.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, they will. I mean, that’s a real, we should have a crossover post. Oh, Anish. Anish, yeah. Here we, I’m looking at this one from the office of, this is another good exemplar because it’s Pam telling Michael to stop dating her mom. And stop removing carbon. You know what? I’m going to start removing it even harder. And the joke is that it’s a very, very long time ago, to put it lightly, alligators and palm trees existed in the Arctic Circle and then wanting to go back. I’m always pushing for these deep time jokes.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: They’re funny. That one took us a lot of work, though. For people listening, know that this went through like 11 drafts we got to this.
Ross Kenyon: Oh man, some of them. What’s your expression for this, Siobhan? I always think of it. It’s like first take, best take. What is it? Is that right?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, pretty much.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Oftentimes your first instinct is correct. But for this one, it took, we were like, is this too mean? We thought about maybe making it a geopolitical joke about farmers wanting to farm in the Arctic Circle.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we like overanalyze our, you know, like we’re maybe too risk averse and like offending anybody. I don’t know. But yeah, we went through like lots of variants of like, what’s funny, but not offensive, but also Niche enough that people will realize it’s a joke, but not so niche that other people won’t get it. And we landed on this one. So here it is, the fruits of our labor.
Ross Kenyon: I think we originally were pointed at environmental organizations who are categorically opposed to carbon removal.
Asa Kamer: This is a good example of one where we were like toying with being more direct or more like aggressive, maybe with like people who disagreed with us. We were kind of like, Is it worth it? Do we really want to go there? And like, I feel like we’ve had that conversation a lot of like, there’s so much divisiveness and sort of back and forth and anger on social media, especially in like the climate space. And part of it, hopefully with the memes, we can like rise above that a little bit and provide something other than that.
And so it’s like, we really want to go down that road, even though maybe if we did, maybe those would be more popular. I feel like that’s the kind of thing that like, One of the memes I wanted to make I think since the start has been I mean, I guess we could do this basically whenever because it doesn’t it isn’t reliant upon this person releasing anything.
Ross Kenyon: But yeah, Mark Jacobson, famous critic of carbon removal in total, doesn’t think it’s worth it at all. Doesn’t think the math works at all. I wanted to have it just be like it would be like text at the top that would just say like it would be like someone criticizing carbon removal in general. And it would just be the clip from Tommy Wiseau in the room saying, oh, hi, Mark. And but it expects a lot of people to make that link to be like, oh, this is about Mark Jacobson. So I know he’s like this person.
I’m like, what’s the right form of it? And I’m like, it’s not actually making fun of him or saying that he’s a jerk or something. It’s acknowledging that this exists, but would he take it in good stride?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: It’s a deep cut, but you should just make it. We can always veto it later in the writer’s room.
Ross Kenyon: True.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I’m a believer in just make it. If you have a sliver of an idea, just make it. It’s hard to come up with ideas. That’s the hardest part of me making is just like getting that first thought, that first idea. So go for it.
Ross Kenyon: Those ones that are like repeated gifts that have audio, though, we did one of early on, one of the first ones I was like, oh, this is kind of pointed. I was trying to make fun of conventional offsets. And I took the clip from Indiana Jones saying that belongs in a museum. And trying to say like it’s old and like you shouldn’t use it, maybe. But it’s very much like the you’re the man now dog loops, which did you guys grow up with that?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: No, question mark.
Asa Kamer: I don’t know. That sounds familiar.
Ross Kenyon: I’m really, really diving in here. It was just a website that you would click on or go to and it would be, I think it’s from Finding Forster, I think is the movie. It’s just Sean Connery saying, you’re the man now, dog. Just like over and over and over again. So it doesn’t read that well on the contemporary internet to just have, you’re the man now, dog. But oh, hi, Mark. Oh, hi, Mark. Oh, hi, Mark. Like, is that funny? Does it even work? I don’t know.
Asa Kamer: That’s what TikTok is, isn’t it?
Ross Kenyon: Do TikTok do like super short, repeated sound, things like that? I guess I’ve heard something.
Asa Kamer: That’s slightly too short. Maybe that’s slightly too short for it.
Ross Kenyon: Slightly too short. I mean, here’s one that kind of bummed me out a little bit, which is the Lucille Bluth saying, I love all my children equally earlier that day. I don’t care for Job. And all I do, so how do I say the actual acronym, Siobhan?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Bikers. I asked Kara to confirm.
Ross Kenyon: Bikers. Not intending to criticize whatsoever. The joke here is that Lucille is a bad person and not nice. We even quoted Job in the caption of, come on! I was hoping that would stem any criticism, but then someone accused us of... The same person, I think that they’re talking about us, advocated a ton of tree planting as a way of criticizing us. But we inverted the form of the Lord of the Rings. One cannot simply walk into Mordor and we just made one can simply plant trees. We made a meta joke about change.
This is what I’m saying.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Or we tried to make a meta joke, I guess.
Ross Kenyon: It’s like the thing about irony, the thing about satire is people don’t realize blah, blah, blah. You’re just like, ah, I hurt my spirit for the irony not to be detected. Same with this one. Here’s to a zero PPM feature. And the caption is, this is the future carbon removers want. Obviously a zero PPM feature would mean the end of all life. It doesn’t even make sense. And someone says, is it really though? No, it is not. It’s not really though.
Asa Kamer: We can’t let them win. We shouldn’t give them too much time or attention on our podcast.
Ross Kenyon: Am I sounding like sour grapes over here? I don’t know.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Well, I think we all agreed that the best course of action was not to bother responding because the only way to respond is to explain the joke. And then you’re the idiot who explained your own joke, you know?
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. And that’s not funny. That’s not a cool thing to do. I feel like that’s also part of the in-group thing. It’s like, if you get it, you get it. But if you don’t, I can’t force you to get it. We can’t like...
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Comment away.
Ross Kenyon: Comment away. Yeah.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: That’s a great wholesome one that Asa did that Michael Scott. I love carbon negative economies. Love to be part of one someday.
Asa Kamer: We just get so much, make so much hay off of Steve Carell’s like hilarious faces.
Ross Kenyon: I’ve actually been listening to the Office BFF’s book, Angela Kinsey and...
Asa Kamer: Jenna Fisher.
Ross Kenyon: So I’ve been like reliving those backstories. Yeah, but this one, I feel like requires knowledge of the office to some extent. Because the joke here is I love inside jokes. I love to be a part of one someday. It was like the saddest.
Asa Kamer: It’s one of the funniest lines ever. It’s so good.
Ross Kenyon: It’s great, but it’s just like, what a lonely joke that is. So I’m amazed that one did well and read for, or maybe just everyone’s seen The Office and it’s fine.
Asa Kamer: That’s one of those lines where you can like, I can still hear exactly how he said it. You know what I mean? Like I can, his line to read is so perfect, but it’s like implanted in my, like he’s kind of like half whispering when he’s like, I’d love to be part of it.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, that’s pretty great.
Asa Kamer: So I can’t be alone. Other people have that great association with it.
Ross Kenyon: No, as soon as I saw the meme, I know exactly what he said and how he says it. And my sense memory of it is strong. It’s funny. This one, well, Richie, Richie’s not here. Richie sometimes chimes in with memes because he’s a very funny guy. Works at Nori, longtime employee at this point. Carbon leaving my body when someone reminds me that we are made of carbon. That happened on one of these... We’ve had jokes about removing all the carbon, some of that zero PPM one, and someone was like, you’re made of carbon too.
Gotcha. And we’re like, yeah, we know.
Asa Kamer: Yeah, whatever.
Ross Kenyon: So I feel like being pointed about that or like common objections can be kind of fun or good grist for the mill.
Asa Kamer: What about like CO2 as plant food? That’s another one of those like climate denial online memes that people respond with. Have you guys seen that? It’s like, all the plants will die. So maybe we need to do some memes about that one.
Ross Kenyon: That kind of pointedness doesn’t rub me the wrong way at all. Because almost it does feel like if you can’t, if you’re not on side on that one, then like, I don’t know that we can do anything together. Like at all.
Asa Kamer: It’s also just like silly. Like, you know, we don’t want to be too mean, but like you really don’t understand if that’s if that’s the point you’re making. You’re you’re really missing the you’ve lost the plot of it. So it’s kind of funny.
Ross Kenyon: That’s funny. So you should go go forth and make that one.
Asa Kamer: All right. I will. I’ll do my best.
Ross Kenyon: Give it a shot. There’s something there. Here we have this King of the Hill one.
Asa Kamer: I love this one.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Are you all with the cult? It’s not a cult. It’s an organization that promotes the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere and oceans. Yeah, this is it. This is good. It’s also self-deprecating. I feel like it is making fun of carbon removers and people enjoyed that.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah. I mean, I think we’re all a little bit on the biochar spectrum, you know, like we’re all, we all do this and spend our lives and time doing this because we, we think this is something exciting and special. And, you know, there’s a, there’s a level of, of cultishness to anything that’s so, so early stage and niche, right? You gotta be a pretty big fan to be in carbon removal right now.
Asa Kamer: That’s a good point.
Ross Kenyon: I think that’s true. Although it’s less and less true seemingly as every day passes, right?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, I know what you mean. But I think, you know, you see all these big purchases or these big investments and announcements, and it’s fantastic. But then I kind of remind myself that like 99% of people don’t even know what carbon mobile is.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, that’s definitely true. This guy, Jack Andreessen, I’m gonna assume that’s how I say your name properly. You’re a meme lord, confirmed. You’re just all over this page. I’m glad you like goofing around with us. It’s fun that also, Jack, you like to talk trailer park boys. So that was fun that you got so excited about that one.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, come engage with us people. We like when people meme us back.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. I’ve been trying to, whenever I see carbon removal companies or organizations or just individuals posting memes, especially if their original content was just like, oh, cool. We should share this and try and amplify it because we’re like, the goal of this is not, I mean, like Nori sponsors this page and pays for it. And I work at Nori, but also the purpose of this is so much bigger than just a company. It’s like we’re trying to Make a space that’s inviting and fun and has a culture.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah, heck yeah. That’s why when you were like, do you want to come make memes for us? I know you’re already making memes for things a ton, but do you want to make them for us? And I was like, yeah, of course I do. I want to put more and more memes out there and workshop them with fun people and laugh about it. Yeah, there’s no downside to that. I don’t think there’s a lot of competition in the meme world.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Sometimes we’ll have people though that maybe are not wanting to be a part of Nori content because they’re suspicious maybe of the commercial interest that’s a part of it, which I’m always fine to disclaim if people are like, oh, I’ll be on the podcast. But I want to say at the start of it that I don’t really think market solutions or VCM matter. I don’t like agriculture as a climate solution. I’m always fine to let people say stuff like that or whatever. I feel like the content we’re trying to make is not as instrumental or as immediate as people think.
It’s not like this converts to units sold. Let’s just say that. I don’t think that’s the right way to understand content marketing or anything. But that concern is definitely out there. I want to talk about this one real quick because this is one that...
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: This is your personal best, Alex.
Ross Kenyon: Personal best. I think Ace and I were like a collab on this one of the guy with the dominoes where you watch a single carbon removal video with Elon Musk and it leads to YouTube thinking I want Joe Rogan episodes on alternative Egyptology. Which has definitely happened to me where I’ll be like, I’ll like watch one sus video on YouTube and then I’ll get an ad being like, the Ayunaki are after our gold and our women. And you’re just like, what the fuck?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: What? I love this meme because I think it’s so true. It’s just the truth shines through.
Asa Kamer: You really can’t get away with anything on YouTube. You can’t slip up at all.
Ross Kenyon: No, they’re like, oh, cool. You watch this for longer than six seconds. We know what’s in your heart.
Asa Kamer: Yeah, anything dumb and it will keep showing up on your homepage for years to come.
Ross Kenyon: Dude, I made the mistake one time on Instagram watching like a beautiful woman play the bass guitar and she was amazing at it. And now YouTube just thinks I want to watch beautiful woman play the bass guitar like nonstop. I’m like, I don’t need this content. Why are you constantly trying to get me to watch this? Flicks on it again.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Um, I’ve noticed that I’ve been getting more memes in my Twitter feed. Oh, that’s fun. So, I mean, to be fair, I do love memes and I like them and post them, but, um, I’m noticing that’s now I’m getting memes from like random things I don’t care about.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah. Like bad content marketing trying to get you to buy something or something.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Yeah.
Ross Kenyon: This one also kind of broke my heart because I thought it was funnier than the attention level it got of those blue carbon meme of Michael yelling, where are the turtles? That’s a deep cut though. You clearly must be a serious office fan, Asa, to pull this.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: It says five minutes after investing in a blue carbon project and it’s Michael screaming, where are the turtles?
Ross Kenyon: I’m like giving like a gift basket to a customer and they didn’t come back to them. Yeah. He wants it back. Yeah, he wants it back. This is...
Asa Kamer: We’ve done so many Office ones. It’s great. I love how that’s just sort of on its own become a theme for us without us trying to do it consciously.
Ross Kenyon: It’s almost certainly the most popular sitcom, at least of our generation, like millennials, right? Is there anything that even comes close? At least that came like at the same time as us. Not like, I mean, lots of people still watch Friends, but that was like the previous generation pretty much. Yeah. This next one was one of our greatest hits too, the me making a net zero pledge for 2030. And then Angela surprising Dwight.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: And his elbow.
Ross Kenyon: What other ones stand out to you here? I’ll just start scrolling and stop me when you want to talk about one. I really like this one. This is an example of a really good science meme I was proud of. This one also took a huge amount of work.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: That was another collab one. Yeah, like we all really dug into this one. And again, this is the fruits of our labor after trying 12 times.
Ross Kenyon: Man, so many revisions, but I was really happy when we cracked it. Who cracked it? Was it...
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I think it was Aifa. I think I came up with the original format and it just wasn’t as funny. And then he was like, ooh, let’s throw in like the whole concept of like ocean off-gassing.
Asa Kamer: It was a team effort. It was a fellowship, if you will.
Ross Kenyon: Well, thanks so much for being on the show. It’s so fun working with you on a regular basis and having a writer’s room and be pitching memes. I’m amazed that I slash we get paid for this. Pretty cool. Could you imagine a more fun job than that?
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: Honestly, no.
Ross Kenyon: Pretty good.
Siobhan Montoya-Lavender: I’ll make a meme about how lucky we all are.
Asa Kamer: Yeah, it’s true.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, it’s silly. But anyways, there’s links to all of our channels, the books and various things that we reference are in the show notes. Thanks so much for being here. Thanks for listening. And give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And thank you again for being a fan of the show. Thank you so much for listening. If you could please subscribe and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify, that’d be much appreciated. It helps us get our content out to more people.
You can sign up for our newsletter at nori.com. Follow us on social media. We will catch you next time.
