Moth Lamp is a dead absurdist meme from late 2018 that satirized the internet's obsession with random, meaningless humor. The meme featured images of moths with captions expressing an overwhelming attraction to lamps, often using broken English ('LÄMP') or depicting the lamp as an object of worship or devotion. The meme was intentionally stupid and meaningless, celebrating the absurdity of the joke format itself. This was the entire point, the meme existed to mock how absurdist internet humor had become. By making a joke about nothing notably, the meme highlighted the state of meme culture at the time. Despite its brief popularity, Moth Lamp failed to achieve lasting appeal. The novelty of the concept exhausted itself quickly, and by early 2019, the meme had largely disappeared from active meme culture. It is still a artifact of late 2018's particular meme sensibility.

Moth Lamp emerged during a period when absurdist humor was at peak popularity on internet platforms. Memes like 'E' and 'They Did Surgery on a Grape' had established that jokes could be popular without making logical sense or having recognizable humor structures. Moth Lamp represented the continuation of this trend. The meme also capitalized on the internet's well-documented observation that moths are attracted to light sources. However, rather than making jokes about this biological fact, the meme exaggerated it to ridiculous levels, treating the lamp as if it were a god or supernatural entity commanding moths' devotion. The broken English variations of 'lamp' ('LÄMP' with diacritical marks) became a stylistic choice that added to the meme's absurdist aesthetic. The visual and textual elements combined to create something deliberately meaningless that, paradoxically, became briefly popular.

The meme format typically featured images of moths alongside captions expressing obsessive attraction to lamps. Common variations included: images of moths with 'LÄMP' written in modified text, depictions of moths worshipping lamps, comparisons of moth devotion to religious imagery, or exaggerations of the lamp's importance. The meme worked best when the lamp was treated as an unreasonably significant or desirable object, creating ironic contrast between the mundane item and the intensity of the moths' devotion. The humor relied on the pure absurdity of the concept.