By the time you’re reading this, some new joke will be speeding across the Internet, based on something somebody said during Monday night’s debate.

This is 2012, the year of the meme, when people simultaneously watch the debates and snark on Twitter — and when every week, another term seems to bubble into the lexicon and swirl around online. First we got “Etch A Sketch” and “you didn’t build that,” followed by “literally” and “47 percent,” “Big Bird,” and “binders full of women.”

Every election has signature moments, and in a way, the current online frenzy is just a form of amplification. But this presidential race is also notable for its tone.

Yes, we’ve seen the standard voter fear mongering, about Medicare and socialism and women’s health. But this cycle, the most potent weapon might turn out to be not fear, but a certain brand of subversive online humor.

It’s doubtful, after all, that Mitt Romney’s unfortunately worded “binders full of women” comment would have turned into such a thing if it hadn’t been so suitable for jokes. They swiftly spread from Twitter to the web, where they merged with other memes.

A recent survey released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project outlines some general qualities of our nation’s social media users. They’re somewhat more likely to be liberal than conservative, they’re generally more female than male, and they’re young. About 32 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds use Twitter, compared to 15 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds and 4 percent of people over 65.

About a third of all social media users comment or repost about political topics, the survey found. The younger you are, the more likely you are to put your politics online — to use your social network to persuade, or at least make use of the echo chamber.

If voter turnout holds the key to winning this election, can social-networking humor campaigns rally the base?

It’s a fairly revolutionary idea. For as long as I can remember, the folks who run campaigns and media operations have been hunting for the magic elixir to energize the youth vote. Maybe we’ve found the secret formula at last.

If so, the best thing the campaigns can do to help themselves is absoutely nothing. When a campaign staff tries to peddle sarcasm, it’s almost always a bust. The Obama campaign’s “Big Bird” ad, a spoof attack spot launched after the first presidential debate, fell flat and sounded forced. So do the president’s current campaign-trail jokes about binders.

JOANNA WEISS is a Boston Globe writer. She can be reached at weissglobe.com. On Twitter, @JoannaWeiss.