Purpose of Memes

Memes are invading the internet across social media sites especially. I almost find it humorous that people in the articles have gone through the effort of "studying" these memes to determine what they say about our culture. I have seen meme's on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook and only recently found out that they are actually a phenomenon, not just someone editing some random image they find online. I usually only repost memes if I find them funny or if I can relate to the message; i'll be honest though, I do not really get a lot of the references.

I agree with the points brought  up in  "Why are memes popular?" in that memes are a way for people to connect and bond over common thoughts and also be able to share these  thoughts. The ability to easily comprehend memes has led to their success, it only takes you a few seconds to read and understand a meme if you know a little about the subject matter. Memes need get people to relate otherwise its just a random picture with random words.

As far as usefulness, I do not believe memes are anything more than entertaining. I would never use a meme to try to get a serious point across. Perhaps if the nature of memes changes to include academic or more serious images, then it would be easier to attach serious or academic text.