AirPods

What is visible in the picture

A plain light gray background with no details. On the left, “AirPods” is written in large black letters, and on the right are two white earbuds with long stems pointing down. The right earbud is turned so that its metal speaker mesh is visible, and a small dark sensor dot can be made out on the left one. There are no people, hands or other text in the image.

This is a clean product ad, not a ready-made meme frame. The joke is added by the caption, while the picture serves as an anchor for the topic. That is why the text has to carry the whole meaning, and the image only reminds the viewer what the subject is.

The 2016 launch and the first jokes

Apple unveiled AirPods on September 7, 2016, together with the iPhone 7. They cost $159, had no wires, charged in a small case, and were controlled by touch. The launch came alongside the removal of the standard headphone jack, which made it one of the most debated decisions of the event.

Jokes appeared almost immediately. People criticized the price and the small size and said such earbuds were easy to lose. On Twitter the hashtag #courage was used, poking fun at the company's habit of calling controversial decisions brave. The earbuds were compared to an electric toothbrush and a hair dryer, and owners of devices on other systems mocked iPhone users who were mourning the headphone jack.

2019: spying and a photoshop contest

In January 2019 a post about the “Live Listen” feature spread online. It turns an iPhone into a remote microphone, and AirPods let the user hear the sound, and the feature was designed for people with hearing difficulties. Users immediately joked that it could be used to eavesdrop on conversations. That was only a joke: people use the feature deliberately.

In March 2019 a contest asked participants to put AirPods into famous works of art. It shows that by then the jokes were no longer only about loss and price: the earbuds had become an independent visual symbol.

Status and “flexing”

Over the years, the theme of wealth became more prominent in the jokes. AirPods began to be depicted as a sign of affluence, and people wearing them in the frame were shown as showing off their possessions. There is an English term for this kind of showing off: flexing. The meme does not assess people's real income: it is an exaggerated storyline in which the object matters more than the person.

Attitudes toward the earbuds also shifted. Reviews from 2018 were already noticeably friendlier than the first reactions to the launch, so the laughter over loss and price gradually gave way to jokes about status.

Sample captions

The captions below were written for this frame.

“Found my earbuds in the washing machine, so now that's my hobby.” The joke about losing things turns into a pastime, and the habit of losing things becomes an activity.

“My wallet is resting, but the earbuds are not.” The caption shifts the price theme to an everyday contrast between a modest budget and an expensive item.

“I paid so much for these earbuds that now lunch is just bread, and that's fine.” The exaggeration turns a purchase into a sacrifice and parodies talk about luxury.

“Headphones for people who have stopped counting their money.” Status is named outright, but the caption sounds self-ironic, and the laugh comes from that twist.

How to use the frame

The frame is almost sterile, so the caption has to do all the work. It is best to keep the text short and not mix the joke about losing with the joke about price: one idea per picture.

The product image does not express the company's position: the joke is about owners' habits, not about the brand. The contrast between the glossy ad image and a completely mundane caption works well. If you place photos of people next to it, choose fictional ones or your own, without recognizable strangers.