If you’ve ever giggled at a captioned picture shared by a friend on your social media feed and if you’re a frequent social media user, you must have found yourself at some point laughing at a comedic post on your timeline. Congratulations! You have already been a part of the viral internet meme movement. But while it offers a quick smile, does this seemingly nonsensical trend have any impact on the world?
So what are memes exactly? The original meaning of the word meme (pronounced ‘meem’) comes from the Greek word ‘mimema’ for ‘something which is imitated’ and historically refers to genetic or cultural heritage. The ‘meme’ word was first introduced by evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, in 1976. He first introduced this term in his book ‘The Selfish Gene’ to describe ‘self-reproducing ideas’ that are transmitted in a non-genetic fashion. Dawkins described memes as being a form of cultural propagation, which is a way for people to transmit social memories and cultural ideas to each other. Not unlike the way that DNA and life will spread from location to location, a meme idea will also travel from mind to mind. In the internet world, however, the word has evolved to refer to an image or video, often with a sarcastic or funny caption. They are social symbols, concepts or ideas that spread infectiously over the Web. They can be very deep or very simple and are more often than not humorous mockeries of human behaviors or something in pop-culture, politics, the news, a movie, a television show or a trend on the Internet. Some are philosophical and alternatively offering a darkly humorous interpretation of life or something motivational. Memes serve many purposes and functions, but at a fundamental level, they serve as an expression of people’s opinions and emotions. Memes can be formed by appropriating scenes or lines from TV shows and movies, which are then taken out of context, remixed with other content and have new meanings attributed to them in a funny and relatable manner. Meme content can range from complaining about the hardships of being a college student, to expressing embarrassment felt during an encounter in a person’s daily life – something that everyone is able to sympathize with. They are simple, succinct and explicit in their messages, and this cultural paradigm is a reflection of the mentality of modern society – one that values entertainment, champions materialism and reinforces the need felt by people to remain relevant.
Who uses memes? Throughout the relatively short history of the internet, we have seen huge shifts in how people consume, create and share content online. From the rudimentary text blocks of the first HTML pages to the dynamic, colorful and media-rich feeds of today, people have come to expect more from the internet than just being a database of information. The majority of internet memes are transmitted by 20-something millennials.
Why do we use memes?
The modern user wants to be entertained, engaged, and guided – instantly. We are hyper connected and when we see a piece of content, we decide within a matter of seconds whether or not we want to continue reading, watching or sharing. This means, in many ways, that the internet meme is a perfect representation of what the social media experience has evolved into: A quick message, a visual cue and a button for instantly passing it on to your network. Their accessibility and ability to reach a huge audience within minutes (and within days, become part of the internet lexicon) means that memes can also be used as propaganda tools that can easily instill, and cement, beliefs that quickly become popular among cybernauts.
Nevertheless, the rise of memes in our everyday online vocabulary has had people asking how they affect one’s ability to communicate. On one hand, memes (made up of very concise messages in a short text or image format) are widely understood by a lot of people across the world regardless of their native language, and they help to foster strong relationships within the cyber community. Memes don’t just cross languages– their relatableness also forges a feeling of belonging among certain internet users in particular age groups. Whether they’re used to vent their feelings over certain socio-political issues, or to reinforce their obsessions with prominent celebrities, memes are an easy and funny way for people to communicate on the Internet. The very process of propagating memes, sharing them on their social media platforms, and tagging their friends under specific meme pages has enhanced communication across the world, and has contributed to the success of globalization. As with most trends, there will always be an opportunity to harness the power of popular culture for marketing purposes. Be it in politics or in a corporate filed. Memes, both in the traditional definition and in the modern definition, significantly impact society. Politicians such as Trump have shared memes on Twitter, and meme pages such as Gary Johnson's Dank Meme Stash and Bernie Sanders' Dank Meme Stash have been platforms for people with similar political ideologies to share memes expressing their respective standpoints. New memes are constantly emerging in today's society, especially among younger demographics. Hyper-partisan memes were also prominent during the 2016 presidential election, and both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton tried to use memes to swing votes in their favor. While some argue that a meme’s ability to be shared with millions online instantly can only further promote a certain way of thinking within our culture and that they are hindering communication by stripping everything down to one-liners and pictures. They can also be used to aggravate hostile and prejudicial attitudes against certain races, against a particular gender, a religion, or a sexuality, thus widening the schism between people rather than bridging them.
But for digital marketers, memes have become an attractive tool for engaging an online audience. So, what is it that makes memes particularly useful? Well, memes are really just another flavor of visual online content. But the following statistic makes the concept very interesting: Sometime last week I read that we remember only 10% of the information we hear. However, if we see a relevant image or visual cue coupled with the same message, we retain 65% of the information three days later. In other words, it’s good marketing practice to use the existing behavior of the human brain! Meme-jacking, quote imagery and micro videos are being extensively used by all brands to make their content more likable, relatable and thus, more shareable.
Whether good or bad, there’s no denying that memes have revolutionized the way we communicate. But that just makes me wonder what sort of impact will that have as we move further into the digital age, on more traditional mediums of communication? And perhaps most importantly of all, how will memes affect interpersonal relationships? Or maybe – just maybe – memes are nothing more than a product of creativity. Perhaps at the end of the day they’re nothing more than a fun example of people using humor as a way of coping with all the tragedies and misery that life can offer.
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