The format for a traditional meme.
Labeled for reuse by Google Images
It’s difficult to scroll through social media without coming across a meme. It usually consists of a repurposed image that follows a format that serves as a joke.
The original birthplace of memes was the discontinued website, 4 Chan.
“[Memes] share in origins with the alt-right movement in the US,” says Thomas Streeter, a media studies professor at Western University. “Toxic, sexist behaviour on the internet. And, increasingly racist behaviour.”
The evolution of memes has since cleaned up. Thousands of memes bounce around cyberspace every day. Many of them consist of recycled still shots of TV shows or movies that different text can be assigned to.
Precedence
Assigning text to an image is nothing new for people. “The 60s counterculture in North America started communicating, instead of with long, written manifestos… More often a juxtaposed image,” explains Streeter.
Text images were a binding force for a generation in the 1960s who were trying to resist war that was going on around the world. It could be the earliest form of a meme.
A News Source
Memes now serve as a cultural bookmark. Analyzing the most popular memes during a given month is a good indicator as to what is popular among young people.
“I actually learned about the whole Jeffrey Epstein situation through memes. I didn’t hear about it through the news first, I heard about it through memes then had to do some research,” says Emma Jones, a media student at Western.
One of countless memes questioning the death of Jeffrey Epstein.
Courtesy: Make a Meme
During the time of Jeffrey Epstein’s arrest and subsequent death, the internet was riddled with memes with the punchline often saying that Epstein did not die of suicide as reported. It was a glimpse into the overall internet conspiracy theory that Epstein was silenced by those whom he associated with.
As grim as a topic that memes can take, they serve as a coping mechanism for young people to digest the news.
A Coping Mechanism
“When we make jokes about [tragic events], a lot of older people, like the Baby Boomer generation, will tend to hate on us for that and say that we’re not taking it seriously,” says Jones. “That’s just how our demographic has come to react and understand our version of the world.”
But it’s not always desensitization for serious news. In fact, young people will tend to gravitate towards figures who are more serious and clear cut. Bernie Sanders has a large following of young people in the United States, despite the fact that he is in his 70s.
“It interests me that, somewhere out there amongst young people, there seems to be an interest in things like honesty and authenticity,” says Professor Streeter, who is from Burlington, Vermont – Sanders’ home district.
Emma Jones, who’s 20 years old, says that she and her friends will often share the same memes with one another. It seeps into their conversations and their senses of humour. “I think that most people who don’t understand my references would not be considered a close friend,” she says.
As the internet develops and the current “young” generation grows, it’s likely that memes will be used as a marketing tool. But they are a culturally binding form of media that is worth looking at. Especially when millions of people look at memes daily.
