Here’s a terrifying thought: There are kids walking among us today who learned about 9/11 through memes.


Whether it’s the evergreen “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” quip or those spicy Barbie-influenced memes that Japanese Twitter users cooked up around the time Oppenheimer came out, a young person on the internet is far more likely to see something like “A.I.-generated gender reveal 9/11” than any actual recounting of the day.




This puts teachers in a weird position. Of course, they have to discuss the tragedy, the events of the days following and the heightened fear and militarization that still lingers to this day. However, they must also reckon with the fact that a kid is far more likely to have previously engaged with 9/11 through TikTok dances and novelty T-shirts.



Teachers, understandably, aren’t handling it well. “9/11 is hilarious to these kids,” reads a post by Redditor fourassedostrich on r/Teachers. “I really don’t even know why I bother talking about or showing these kids any 9/11 material. The event is such a mascot for edgy meme culture that I’m essentially showing them a comedy. I get it, the kids are desensitized and annoying, but man on this day my composure with them is put to the ultimate test.”


While some teachers in the comments claimed that their classes, at the very least, *attempted* to have respect for the events of the day, others said they had similar difficulties explaining that, yes, this happened, and yes, it was really, really bad. “One of my kids asked me why they don’t have 9/11 sales because they have Memorial Day sales,” wrote one user. “So many kids today making 9/11 jokes and laughing about it. Cannot stand it,” offered another.


Of course, others in the comments noted that “kids laughing at tragedy” isn’t a new phenomenon. As one user recalled, “When I was in high school, my history teacher said she got a kid expelled for laughing at seeing Kennedy shot in the head.” A second added, “People were making 9/11 jokes before we even got to 2004.”



Naturally, there were also some who tried a little armchair psychology and sociology to figure out why kids thought it might be okay to laugh at 9/11. “It doesn’t help that people feel like the tragedy has been milked for shit in our culture,” detailed a commenter. “It’s led to wars that have now killed more innocent people than the attack itself did. Add to it that you’re teaching it to kids who were probably not even born at the time of the attack, it makes sense that it seems they don’t care about it.”


“They went through a pandemic where a 9/11 worth of deaths happened every day,” stated a further Redditor. “Kinda puts it in perspective to them.”


For those actually curious about how to teach about 9/11, users suggested reading accounts from the victims or news stories from the time. After all, that makes things a lot less theoretical, a lot more real and a lot harder to laugh at.