Week 11: Kermit is my spirit animal.
FINALLY, we get to talk about memes! I remember the first ever meme I saw was theĀ āforever aloneā meme and āme gustaā, oh man does that bring me back to high school or what? Itās amazing how memes became so popular to the point where itās all I ever see nowadays on every platform I come across. On Facebook, a lot of profiles are dedicated to posting memes. To the memes that are relatable, Facebook users would usually tag someone who can relate with them and say something likeĀ āthat is so you!ā. On Twitter, there are profiles dedicated to just posting memes and not a day goes by where I donāt see a meme on Instagram.Ā
Itās also interesting to note how memes have changed over the course of the years. Back then, theĀ āforever aloneā,Ā ātrolololā and theĀ āme gustaā were all stick figures.
These are not usually the memes seen today (in my experience). Usually memes today are taken from real life events such as a snapshot of a photo from a tv show, like Kermit who has given us so many memes and letās not forget the Obama and Biden memes that recently blew up on the internet post-election.
Referring back to Davidson, when examining a meme itās important to consider the manifestation, behaviour and ideal. Come to think of it, exploring these three specifics makes it a bit more clear to answer why a meme can be so effective.
My favourite meme recently is the fist of Arthur. Yes, Arthur from the TV show..Arthur (nice on Abby). The manifestation of the meme is Arthur, and is a zoomed up picture of him clenching his fist. The behaviour of the meme is that people can download the original picture, add text to it and post it again on social media. The ideal of the picture is that since Arthur is clenching his fist, the text should be relevant to the person. Basically, add a text that relates to the picture such as the meme I posted below. Itās hilarious to me because Arthur as a TV character is very calm and outgoing, but seeing his fist clenched gives a sense that heās angry which makes it even more funnier?
Anyways, memes are just fantastic. But will they always be around and just as effective as they have been for the past years? I donāt even know, but I hope to see memes around in the future. If not, will they be replaced by another form of language on the internet?Ā












