Actually, the merit buzz seems to be smaller now for whatever cumulative of reasons. There are some reference tips posted on this thread (and all over if you search around), but above all it requires you to be willing to put time and effort into your posts regularly.

One-liners are generally not going to postulate to merit, and a poor overall posting history will normally play against you. Stating nonsense or making generic remarks are not aligned with being merited either. What is normally appreciated is seeing that you place some thought/research into you posts, making the stand-out from the general spam like prototype post. Having a decent command of the language is also a factor, since nobody want to go around having to decode posts and second-guessing the author’s intention.

You shouldn’t be in a rush either to get merit, but if after a month or two of regular posting you still have not being merited, then you should revise you posts and try to figure out what is going on.

In my opinion, getting a few merits should be fairly easy to achieve. It's more down to common sense than anything. Another matter is getting enough to rank-up to the mid-to-high ranks, but that is something to tackle further ahead if at all.