The other day I thought about how relationships in Heian Japan were pretty similar to those in today's Internet. Or, in general, to those in any finite group (a fandom, for example).

What they used to do back then was to write poems to each other. There was aesthetic value in the physical message being sent (the paper, its quality and colour, the caligraphy, the objects attached...), but the important part to this discussion was that each poem would usually contain wordplay or some cleverly disguised literary allusion, the more obscure, the better. The recipient was expected to understand the allusion and reply accordingly.

That's pretty much the same as us replying to someone with some variant of a meme or a quote from a movie, videogame or series. I bet we all picture the other person nodding approvingly and thinking: “Ah, I see you're a man of culture as well.”