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Sharing Memes: How and Where are They Shared?

First, we shall address how and where memes are shared. There are a variety of spaces that a meme can be shared in. Broadly speaking, memes are shared in forums and performance spaces, both of which can exist online or in real life.

Forums can be defined as spaces in which there is a natural disconnect between the sender and the receiver. Online, these are social media, specifically social media feeds like TikTok’s ‘For You Page’ or Tumblr’s ‘Dashboard’. In real life, these are the walls which bear the messages, images, and graffiti of the people, such as the walls of bathrooms.

Disconnection occurs because of the aspect of transience which affects forum spaces. They are permanent spaces indeed, but neither senders nor receivers remain there permanently. Rather, they come and go intermittingly; or, better, they connect and disconnect intermittingly.

Because of this disconnect, when memes are shared in forums there is no expectation for an immediate retrieval or response. In fact, the sender may not ever know what the reaction to their meme was, or if even if it ever got a reaction. The sender can, of course, return to the meme to see if anything has been done with it but they themself usually do not have the privilege of directly witnessing a receiver’s reaction.

Forums also tend to be more restrictive in terms of what kinds of memes are acceptable or doable. Many social media have curated a certain type of post that users can make. Instagram is probably one of the most restrictive in that it is primarily photo and video driven. There is no ability to post just a text post or audio post; it must be accompanied by something visual. Moreover, there are even limitations on how photos and videos are uploaded, with users being able to upload only 10 photos or videos in a single post and only 60 seconds of video footage per post-slide.

Before Vine was shut down, it was even more restrictive in that videos were the only format that could be uploaded and they had a maximum length of six seconds. Although most social media is more lenient these days regarding text post size, Twitter used to only allow a maximum of 280 characters but that has been increased to 4,000 in the past year (Reimann, 2023). However, this increase only happened for users in the U.S. and international users are still stuck at only 280 (Reimann, 2023). Even despite the increase in text post size, Twitter still falls behind other social media in photo-capability since it has only ever allowed a maximum of four images.

Real life forums also have similar limitations. Text and visuals are the only types of formatting that can be presented on a wall. Further, even though visuals can be drawn onto the wall, these of course cannot include video visuals. This is a non-exhaustive list of all of the various restrictions that forum spaces have; however, it does provide a general idea of how users can be limited in the formatting of the memes that they post.

Just as users must abide by the website’s restrictions on formatting, they must also abide by the website’s restrictions on content. There are, of course, often website rules which dictate explicitly what is allowed and what is banned. However, even more than that, there are unwritten rules to every forum space. What is allowed in one space may be outright shunned in another. This is especially true for social media that are made up of various smaller ‘subforums’, like Reddit. Although the entire website has rules, each subforum will often have a number of their own rules. And while the moderators of these spaces may not take punitive action, if no rules have been broken, it is the daily community that does. In real life, the act of writing on walls is generally frowned upon and, in some places, even made illegal. Thus, it is difficult to even begin to participate in real life forum spaces.

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Performance Spaces, differently, can be defined as spaces without this same disconnect. Online, these are livestreams on websites such as Twitch, or even Tiktok and Instagram live; and, in real life, these can range anywhere from one-on-one conversations to stage performances.

These spaces are not permanent, unlike forums. Online, they are indeed hosted on permanent platforms; however, once the livestream has ended, the space in which any memes were sent and received is now, essentially, deleted.

Live streamers can, of course, upload clips or videos of the full stream; however, users who only watch these cannot participate in the sharing of memes in the same way as users who were present at the time of the livestream. They can receive the memes but they cannot react, at least not in a way that can be reached by others; for the chat has closed and nobody else is there. Thus, the transmission of the memes die, in a way. For, without the possibility of being able to be received, reacted to, and then shared, memes cannot participate in the cycle of iteration that makes them memes.

Interestingly, unlike in forums, performance spaces generally have one, or few, performers who are not only participating in the sharing of memes but often become part of the memes themselves. As audiences react to performers, their responses will often include memes about what the performer is doing. The performer may likewise respond to what the audience is doing; but they are not focused on their audience in the same way that the audience is focused on them.

Online there becomes an even greater disconnect because the performer and the audience are not on the same level. The audience is separated from the performer, held within the chat room. They cannot communicate in the same way that the performer can. And, even though the performer responds to their chat, their responses are not limited to just typing. They have access to the other formats.

Although performance spaces tend not to be as restrictive as forums, there are still some restrictions. For one, especially in real life performance spaces, the use of formatting types like text is quite limited. Although it is not necessarily disallowed, it is difficult to find a moment in which text can be used without saying it as audio.

Further, just like online social media have their own rules, livestreaming platforms have the same; further, just like there are unwritten rules in any forum space, similar unwritten rules exist when performing. However, for the performer, the performance space is undoubtedly the least restrictive. The performer, while having to abide by the rules of society and of livestreaming platforms, can also add their own rules within their own performance spaces; they can set boundaries.

#transmission #sharing #sharing of memes #performance spaces