A key part of the appeal in memes is that they promise little, then overdeliver. Their shamelessly dumb humor can’t be judged too harshly, because they never claimed to be a literary masterpiece. All they want is to make us chuckle, or at least make us dedicate a couple of our precious seconds to absorbing what they’re all about. 

Time may be money, but there’s nothing wrong with spending a little bit of it on memes. They make us feel better, or at least take our minds off of the things that make us feel bad. They’re one of the easiest ways of relating to others, and being reminded that we are all kind of the same, deep down. Also, we share a lot more humor than we often think that we do. Memes are here to bring us together, even if they don’t expend a lot of effort in doing so. There’s beauty in that.