29 memes roasting Silicon Valley and its tech-bro culture, chosen by a former valley-dweller

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The character of Erlich Bachman on HBO's Silicon Valley takes a "vision quest" to come up with a new name for his startup.

• Silicon Valley's existence is, at once, an almost-improbable mash-up of contradictions and the obvious twenty-first century step of American innovation.
• The absurdity of Silicon Valley necessitates a healthy dose of skepticism, and easily makes it a target of satire.
• I lived in Palo Alto for a handful of years, and San Francisco for a stint. My memories now converge as a tableau of farce; so, here are 29 memes roasting Silicon Valley.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In my mind's eye, I see University Avenue in Palo Alto littered with Philz coffee cups, rogue boba pearls, and strewn hover boards. A Stanford undergraduate computer science student weeps into their MacBook as their code loops endlessly. Batman-style doors lift up; a tech exec tumbles out of his Model X car and crawls frantically to the nearest electric charging port. Two VC-bros poke their chopsticks at toro at the Palo Alto Nobu and discuss seed funding the Uber-of-vegan-soft-serve that Elon Musk will, most definitely, franchise on Mars. Mark Zuckerberg peers out from a manhole on the street while Jack Dorsey directs traffic around him and recites his tweets from 2006.

I lived in Palo Alto for a handful of years, and San Francisco for a stint. My memories now converge as a tableau of farce, like the above.

In such a historically fertile incubator - where you can succeed beyond known measure or fail spectacularly - the air is fraught. But actually being stressed is taboo, so techies throw themselves at the pseudo-spiritual in the flashiest way possible. Silicon Valley is also one of the hungriest places - for innovation, success, domination, fame -  I've ever lived. And it's also run by bonafide geeks.

Silicon Valley's existence is, at once, an almost-improbable mash-up of contradictions and the obvious twenty-first century step of American innovation. Its absurdity necessitates a healthy dose of skepticism, and heavy satire.

Here are 29 memes roasting Silicon Valley. 

Will Fischer contributed to the meme-harvesting you see below.