If you are here I hope it means you read all my posts, thank you for your time! But, I am not done yet.
Through my research, I have come to view memes truly as viruses. As Richard Dawkins said, they are infectious units of cultural information that are highly contagious spreading from person to person with great speed. But calling a meme a virus does not fully explain my views.
I have found that articulating my thoughts on memes to be quite challenging. Their fluid identity makes thorough categorization impossible. I don’t dislike memes—I find them funny–but my distaste is in the fact that I don’t fully understand the mechanics behind them. Memes can have significant negative effects, not because they are cruel by nature, but because of the way humans react to them. Pepe the Frog is not intrinsically a hate symbol but was made one long after his creative birth.
This meme is as the expanding brain meme, I found it appropriate for my analysis of memes.
I find my internal dialogue on the ethics of memes symbolic to that of free speech. Yes, words can be used with devastating effect, but this is no reason to outlaw them. Memes are inadvertently unethical, like words, the author dictates intention.
Memes are truly fascinating. Something so easy to write off as a silly picture has an immense amount of power. I truly believe this is only the start for memes, they will continue to become further engrained in modern language and society. However, I do heed caution to those who choose to create/share them, question their effects on others and society.
I referred to the Pepe the Frog meme in my first post. It is a very commonly distributed meme being popular on nearly all social networks. However, there is a dark side to him, Pepe is labeled as a hate symbol by theAnti-Defamation League(ADL). I will get back this, first, we should explorePepe’s origins.
Pepe the Frog first appeared in a comic strip by Matt Furietitled Boys Club. For a while, Pepe was nothing more than a character in the comic, but in 2008 Pepe became a 4chan meme (a forum centered around the posting of images, also the place where many common memes were created). From4chan to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, Pepe has been a meme superstar. Having mentions from Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, Donald Trump, Wendy’s, and even the Russian embassy in the U.K., Pepe is everywhere.
But why is Pepe considered a hate symbol? This is a tad bit confusing. Pepe memes take many forms, depending on the creator of the specific Pepe, they can sometimes be offensive. For instance, there are variations where Pepe is photoshopped to appear as Hitler or dressed as KKK member. Because memes are so easily encoded into one’s brain, a person might begin to associatePepe with these extremist organizations. Furthermore, people who are apart of these extremist organization are just as easily susceptible to expressing their beliefs through memes as people not identifying with their movement. I hope it makes a little more sense why Pepe is considered a hate symbol. Essentially theADL does research into languages and symbols used in hate speech. In their research, they were frequently coming across the use of Pepe memes by white-nationalists partaking in anti-Semitic rhetoric. Hence, Pepe the Frog is a hate symbol.
Now, do you see what is wrong with this? Pepe the Frog is a frog-like human from a children’s comic. Matt Furie’s intentions were nothing but pure in creating him. But because of the metaphysics of memes, Pepe was turned into a hate symbol. I do not dislike memes, in fact, I like many others find them quite funny. But, I cannot deny their negative effects. Characters from children’s stories should not become hate symbols.
I hate talking about politics. It’s not fun, you make people angry, and contrasting opinions never seem to change. However, I think political memes are hilarious. Reducing a presidential candidate down to a silly image can take the edge off what has become such an extremely volatile topic in the past decade. Plastering images of Donald Trump with crazy hair or Hillary Clinton caught with an unfortunate looking facial expression all over the internet gave many a sense of peace during the 2016 election. While I believe the memes achieved a moment of tranquility for some, in the long run, memes are harmful to politics.
Like the way that Nicolas Cage memes cause him to be viewed not as an actor but a comedy act, political memes dull the importance of civil conversation on the topic. Rather than discussing contrasting political views, memes have led rise to one expressing their views as a meme. Given that memes often contain elements of comedy and degrading rhetoric, political memes cheapen conversations that should be held to a higher standard.
Nearly three years after the 2016 presidential election, political memes are still being heard. They are the epitome of sticky media. Donald Trump’s entire presidency has been characterized by memes, from his“grab her by the p*****” controversy to absurd images showcasing unappealing snapshots of him, I believe Trump has been victimized by meme culture. Regardless of ones view on Trump, I do not think the best way to express one’s perspective is by belittling. Memes are inherently simplistic, it is not possible to have an effective conversation; their oft absurdly comedic themes erode effective political discourse. An example of this was the infamous “Dean Scream”. In the 2004 presidential election, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, Howard Dean let out a sort of rally cry at the Iowa caucus. Many viewed this as an unattractive display of emotion, on top of this the “Dean Scream” made the rounds on late-night television and mainstream news subsequently memeifying it. It is believed to have cost him the nomination.
Society should express its political views in a civil manner. Memes do not display an individual in a positive light, often there are critical and degrading. Basing one’s perspective on an out of context image or video, like the “Dean Scream”, skews the criteria that we should judge people in politics on.
Just the other week a friend of mine sent a meme into a group message, It was titled “Nicolas Ribcage” and displayed Nicolas Cage’sface photoshopped onto a man’s stomach. Yes, it was silly and unsolicited, but I still thought it was funny. However, would Nicholas Cage think it’s funny? Not surprisingly, no he doesn’t think it’s funny. In fact, Nicholas Cage believes memes are ruining his career.
Nicolas Cage memes have been around for a while. They have been a favorite on Twitter and other media exchanging websites. They are commonly still shots of Cage in the many movies he has starred, some have text overlayed, some are photoshopped, this list can go on forever. I doubt most people even think about Cage’s feelings towards the memes. Creating a silly often abstract picture that pokes fun at the actor does not seem to be damaging in its essence. However, thinking about the basic qualities of memes sheds a different light on the conversation.
As I described in the last post, memes are an especially potent form of spreadable media. It is not uncommon for a meme to take over an entire social network in a single day. Now let’s say this meme has to do with Nicolas Cage. Because of the infectious nature of a meme, the often-silly theme of Nicolas Cage memes will be encoded into one’s brain alongside Cage himself. Now, this meme infected person associates Nicolas Cage as a matter to laugh or poke fun, not as an actor who should be taken seriously. Whether or not you like Cage as an actor, the viral quality of the meme causes one to associate Cage the actor with Cage the meme.
Nicolas Cage memes also exemplify “stickiness”, the whole purpose of creating a meme is to engage people. Defining “stickiness” under the terms Jenkins gives in Spreadable Media, stickiness refers to media that keeps one actively engaged. Nic Cage memes do exactly that, once someone sees one they understand it, spread it, and will search for more.
This perspective highlights why memes can be truly damaging. Memes are exceptionally sticky and exceptionally spreadable because their basic features stimulate the human mind. Furthermore, the internet allows one to easily spread said memes because of the copy and paste features anyone with some form of a computer/device has access too.
While it is evident that these memes can be harmful to Cage, what can really be done to help him. Let’s say Cage feels he has can litigation grounds of defamation. Who does he sue? The Internet!? Sadly, I think Cage is left without options unless society magically reforms to a structure where poking fun of others does not exist, Cage, will just have to deal with it. I’ll leave this post with two excerpts from an interview with Cage on his new movie Mandy and memes,
“The issue is, with the advent of the internet, doing these mashups, where they pull these choice moments without the context of the whole film around it to support it, has created this meme-ification, if you will. It’s been branded “Cage Rage,” and it’s frustrating. I’m sure it’s frustrating for Panos, who has made what I consider a very lyrical, internal, and poetic work of art, to have this “Cage Rage” thing slammed all over his movie. It’s one thing for me, because I’d like to think I could continue to work with Panos, but the internet has kind of done the movie a disservice.”
“I think that the movie hasn’t been given perhaps a fair viewing by virtue of the fact that the internet has mashed them up with these moments that have been cherry-picked, that aren’t really in the context of the character or how the character got there.”
Memes, virtually everyone with access to the internet is familiar with them. Even my grandmother has unknowingly sent participated in meme culture sending us things she sees on the internet. While it is not hard to identify a meme on your iPhone, defining a meme conceptually proves to be a challenge. What really is a meme? A funny picture? Purposefully misspelled text layered over an image? Categorizing memes in this fashion really does not accomplish anything, because tomorrow when you go through your Instagram explore page a new style of meme will appear.
Surprisingly memes hit the stage before the internet even existed. In Richard Dawkins book, “The Selfish Gene”, he coined the word meme, explaining it as a unit of cultural information that is easily identified and spreads in the same fashion of a virus. Once a person is introduced to an“infectious” meme, its simple identifiable pattern is engrained into one’s brain and then they became a node of contagion. Furthermore, one might change the meme and add their own twist, if one’s twist is successful then the new meme continues to spread, giving them a Darwinist quality.
While Dawkin’s coined the term “meme”, in digital culture they have a different connotation. Internet memes, as described by Limor Shifman, are jokes, rumors, videos, or websites that are easily spread and flow around the internet. They are basically digital media with an embedded infectious quality as Dawkins describes. Common examples are Pepe the Frog, Doge, and there is even a meme about Richard Dawkins himself.
Richard Dawkins
Pepe the Frog
Doge
(for the rest of this blog the word meme will refer to internet memes unless stated otherwise.)
Memes have flourished on the internet. The ability to post a meme online where thousands can view drastically increases their ability to spread. In fact, I believe memes exemplify spreadable media. Their potential to be circulated throughout the internet, regardless of the feelings of the creator or the focus of the meme, their viral quality nearly forces them to be spewed around the internet. Looking back to Dawkin’s definition of a meme, a singular cultural unit that spreads contagiously, the application of “spreadability” works quite nicely. All active members within a society can identify simple patterns seen in humanity, this is the power of memes. Like a child repetitively using a new word they learned, members of society proudly distribute memes to others. I believe the prior analogy is important to understanding why memes spread, the innate qualities of a human brain value identification and learning. One does not need much context to understand most memes, once identified one will be able to recognize spinoffs and other applications of it.
You might notice the negative word choice used when speaking of memes, calling them infectious and viruses. Truthfully, I find this rhetoric appropriate. Identifying any value that memes add to culture is hard, furthermore identifying the negatives is easy. For instance, memes can be offensive, racist, and even damaging to one’s quality of life if they are the victim of a meme. Depending on one’s opinion on memes, they might say they are the evolution of communication or the degradation of it. If you hop on Twitter and scroll through the replies to a politically charged tweet, without a doubt you will find memes. They are truly found at every level of society, they do not discriminate between children or adults, those subservient or superior. In the following posts I will explore a few cases of prevalent memes in U.S.society; enjoy.
Shifman, Limor. “Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 18, no. 3, 2013, pp. 362–77. Wiley Online Library, doi:10.1111/jcc4.12013.
Memes are funny, right? 