Aside from being sexy, what do you do for a living? Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? Great legs, what time do they open?

Pick-up lines, whether charming, cheesy or obscenely vulgar, have been the start of many relationships both short and long-lived. They have withstood the test of time with versions existing as early as the Victorian age, but time has not been kind.

People can’t help but feel a stomach-wrenching pain on hearing them, one I feel is lesser than dad jokes but greater than puns. It’s for this feeling that pick-up lines have such a bad rap, but it’s undeserved.

It might burn like whiskey, but it gives the same strong warmth and peace of mind on being taken well.

Before going further, it should be known there are two distinct uses of a pick-up. For hookups like those frequently made on Tinder, they’re a more cultured way of saying “DTF?” and are basically as effective if you’re blindingly hot, WSU freshman Ethan Adkins said.

The wittiest ear-catching line still won’t beat physical attraction when they’re looking for only a sexual partner.

For more romantic pursuits, a pick-up line can be the best introduction you have. It just may not be the one-liners we think of as a pick-up.

“The best way to get positive attention is through humor,” Adkins said.

Science agrees.

Humor in men makes women more likely to perceive them as intelligent and warm, according to an article published in Psychology Today.

The first message Adkins sent to his current partner was actually an image of his face photoshopped onto that of a child going down a slide, a meme of the popular phrase “sliding into the DMs.” Nothing stated, no context is given, just him going down a slide.

It worked and very much in the same manner as a pick-up line would. Pick-up lines and memes work off of the same two factors: their structured approach and novel peculiarity.

With literal hundreds of pick-up lines available online, it’s rare a truly original one is used. The format as well is too often melodramatic and predictable. In researching this piece, hundreds of these lines were browsed and it was perhaps one in 10 that wouldn’t be some rendition of “You’re pretty, I like you thiiiiis much!”

The appeal wore out fairly quickly for me just reading them. I couldn’t imagine having to hear them more than once.

Memes, however, are endlessly generated, recycled and reimagined. Most memes are an image embodying a particular feeling or reference a certain situation, best understood by knowing its cultural context.

“You have to be casual while being original,” freshman Sanjay Gupta said.

A picture is worth a thousand words. A meme is worth at least the sentence a pick-up line takes.

Since they are imagery-based, a meme can be found and adjusted to fit the exact mood you aim for. The range of feelings a good meme can evoke is far more than any verbal pick-up line could ever produce.

It’s for this ability that memes are not only a better alternative to traditional pick-up lines, but are what these lines were to bar crawlers.

Memes are the pick-up lines of the present day, so use one next time you want to try to bring yourself closer to someone.