The joke is Ohio sucks. It's an economic pitfall where people outside of Ohio see it as cheap and affordable then they enter and realize their money is damn near worthless now. Add to that the drug use and the fact that damn near everyone here wants to leave because it's a red state acting blue it's pretty easy to joke about

What many people are saying is correct, but it's only half the story. Since, well, ever, people have made fun of Ohio because it's boring and had absolutely nothing to do in it. There was this popular meme where the destinations to see in Ohio was meeting Scott the Woz, a YouTuber who makes a show of the same name, and immediately leaving.

Eventually, there was that trope of "Only in Detroit" memes of absurd things getting stolen. Eventually, the format branched off into other states with things they're known for, including ironic memes of Ohio having nothing to do, and being absurdly boring. Eventually, someone subverted the Ohio joke and had a video of something...very strange, and unnatural happening in Ohio, with the phrase "Only in Ohio". People loved the subversion so much, everyone joined in, and now the original point has been lost, now, to meme culture, Ohio is now a place where aliens invade monsters ravage the street, and dogs have three legs.

besides all of the tangible reasons to use Ohio as a punchline, it's also just a funny sounding name. most Ohio jokes could be made about anywhere in the midwest, but "Ohio" sounds comical on its own.

there's nothing inherently funny about what the spleen does, but it does sound pretty funny when you say it out loud

Ohio is a cosmic motif throughout space-time. You could travel across the universe and find a place that looks like Ohio. Also it fucking sucks.

Similar to what others have said, tough i don't know that the specific meme trend is right now.

A big thing people say though is 'ohio is so boring/bad/terrible people decide to leave the planet' because so many astronauts are from ohio. On Google maps when you enter other states it does a 'Welcome to BlahBlah', and for Ohio the little symbol is an astronaut

It's working, I'm already looking for apartments in Ohio. This is how you distribute the population in a country.

I thought the joke was originally that ohio is the most mid state imaginable, it's not hell like Florida or anything like that.

Ohio doesn't exist, it's just a meme

Ahhh so Ohio is like Victoria, Australia ! Got it !

So what is it all about?

Made-u in Ohio!

おはようございます

I'm in that corner with you

Everyone is wrong, this is my villan origin story: