If people have sent sMerits to theymos to reward him for the quality of the joke, then why not. We could argue that generally it makes zero sense to send sMerits to theymos, since he is the top sMerits creator and as such the very one in the forum who absolutely doesn't need to receive them. But perhaps people like to waste their sMerits just for the pleasure to make a point by notifying theymos that they're appreciating what he's doing.
But if on the other side these people have sent their sMerits to theymos to praise his newest merit reform, without obviously having understood how it works, since there was nothing to understand there, then they have fully deserved to lose their sMerits. One shouldn't merit a post without having understood it. It defies the logic and the purpose of the merit system.