The Development Of Mems As A Cultural Medium

If you’ve had any sort of interaction with the World Wide Web in the past decade or two, you’ve probably come across some form of a meme. The phrase ‘meme’ has become synonymous in our society with images and phrases pulled from the internet to make us laugh. They typically exist as something humorous, ironic or satirical. In a society where so much social interaction is carried out online, it is no surprise that the internet has produced its own form of language. However, memes have become much more than a funny caption plastered over an image of a cat on social media. The practice of creating online content has led to them being replicated and adapted as they jump from one mind to the next.A meme is, by definition, an idea, behaviour, or style that is embraced on a large scale and shared quickly from person to person. The phrase ‘meme’ was first used by the famous biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book ‘The Selfish Gene’. He used the phrase to refer to the practice of social imitation. Ideas can spread through culture and be replicated and transformed in many ways. Simply put, a meme is a social idea that is capable of evolving through human interaction and creative participation. Though he first introduced the term ‘meme’, Dawkins cannot be solely credited with its introduction into mass media and culture. American philosopher Daniel Dennett and British psychologist Susan Blackmore are some of the academic minds responsible for advocating the conceptualisation of the meme. Memes can be categorised into different archetypes. Northrop Frye suggests “A symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be recognizable as an element of one's literary experience as a whole.” The Social Construction of Technology, also known as Social Shaping Theory refers to the design and use of different types of technology as a response to patterns of social and economic change in society. The theory suggests that technology is not neutral and is shaped over time by prolonged exposure to social, political and economic elements of society. The emergence of technology is a social process since the social process is so integral in causing change. Meme culture can be analysed through the lens of the social shaping theory. In the past several years, the growth of meme culture has seen it explode into relevance in many forms of life, including academics, culture and politics.

Memes work in a way similar to visual language. They are elements of culture that are imitated and changed through circulation. If a person was to present someone with a random picture it would normally signify very little. However, in the online community frequently presenting the same image in response to a story can cause it to gain popularity and become synonymous with that story. Eventually, that image itself will gain context and be regarded to mean something without the accompanying piece of media it once referred to. One of the first elements of meme culture to appear on the internet was the generic sideways smiley face, ‘:)’, which gained popularity in 1982 and is still widely used today. They were first popularised by computer scientist Scott Fahlman, although early emoticons had appeared on the PLATO IV computer system as early as 1972. Early emoticons provided people with a shorthand way to quickly convey emotions without having to write full sentences. As time passed, these ‘smileys’ evolved to contain different meanings and expressed users emotions in a way that text simply could not. More complex emoticons, such as ¯_(ツ)_/¯, soon began to emerge as users developed more complex ways of conveying their feelings. According to Dawkins’ research, there are three main factors that lead to the rapid spread of memes. The first is copy-fidelity, which refers to the possibility that the content in question can be accurately replicated. The second, Fecundity, refers to the speed at which the content is replicated. The third is longevity, which is usually determined by the popularity and reaction to the content. The organic growth of memes can be attested to a particular occurrence in large groups, the development of inside jokes. In the early days of the internet, thanks to the rise of online message boards and blogs, these inside jokes began to grow on a large scale. These were the first memes. The ability to interact anonymously was a completely new format of human communication that was previously impossible. The lack of repercussions led to the emergence of crude humour and behaviour that would not necessarily be socially acceptable if a user’s identity was visible. Social media sites like Bebo, MySpace and Facebook started to become popular in the mid-2000s. This coincided with the mass introduction of smartphones to the general population. If somebody saw something they deemed to be funny and worthy of attention, they could show it to their friends and the wider community in an instant. People from different background began adding elements of their own culture to the online community that was soon picked up by the wider community. In the space of less than a decade, social media had become accessible to almost anyone. In more recent times, memes have grown as a way to express opinions regarding political issues.

Online content is a great way of reaching out to the masses, and political candidates have realised this. So too, have members of the general population who want to impose their political opinion on the general public. Memes have proved themselves to be some of the most compelling and vital forms of contact between people during periods of a great political divide. A good example of this is the use of memes during the United States 2016 presidential race, that boiled down to a competition between Hilary Clinton, the Democratic Candidate, and Donald Trump, the Republican Candidate. Clinton’s more traditional form of politics contrasted heavily with Trump’s outlandish claims, feuds and outrageous statements. From the moment of Trump’s first bid for office through to his nomination and election, there was a huge amount of internet activity based around his campaign. Alt-right groups latched onto forums and sites like 4-Chan, where widespread use of memes like ‘Pepe the Frog’ drew awareness to his campaign. This led to a so-called ‘meme war’ between both candidates, which drew more and more attention to the campaign, as well as the medium. This wave of memes soon spread to other social networks, like Twitter. It’s hard to believe that sites like Twitter, which was originally created as a way of keeping up with friends, could be a driving factor behind the political decisions of so many. There is no data to prove that the explosion of meme content regarding the American presidential election actually influenced to results to favour any of the candidates, however, right-wing social media users often brag in online forums that they swung the public polls in favor of President Trump. In the aftermath of the Republican election, it was revealed that Trump spent relatively little on advertising compared to other candidates. The campaign team paid close attention to the internet activity and social media culture, even prompting potential voters to take part by sharing content. The ever-evolving culture of the meme has found a way to spread like wildfire, thanks to the influences of Twitter and other social media sites. It’s extremely difficult to provide a syntax to a meme, due to the fact that many of them provide no literary context and the ones that do usually consist of words that form barely recognisable sentences. The evolution of the grammar contained in memes is particularly interesting. In many cases, meme-makers apply multiple contractions, which involves placing an apostrophe in a word to shorten it and make it more legible.

In many cases, this is taken to the extreme and creates words that no English scholar would ever find themselves uttering. These memes attempt to subvert ‘high’ English to assert literary dominance over others. Memes created in this way rely on a type of shock factor to gain attention and typically become more unbelievably stupid as the meme progresses. After a certain amount of exposure to these types of memes, the viewer typically becomes accustomed enough to understand and find humour in the joke. These types of jokes rely on more than a general sense of humour and require a subverted understanding of language and meme culture to be fully understood. When millions of people use the same form of media culture to communicate, it cannot be overlooked as just a mundane funny picture. There’s an answer to this that we cannot yet fully understand. The simple fact is that memes carry more of a message than words ever could. Our body language makes up 90% of our communication in person. However, when we hold conversations in the digital world, what we type cannot convey the same emotions as when we speak verbally. The simple truth is that memes alone carry more information than just typing, and should not be underestimated as a means of communication.