Memes Shmemes

Memes have become an integral part of our online communication and their dominating presence is evident on almost any webpage. I am an avid Pinterest user and this is where I first encountered meme culture. The “Grumpy Cat” phenomenon is still present as it continues to be repurposed and redesigned for a quick laugh. I personally think that you have to be fairly clever to come up with a good meme, it can be wordy or complicated thus requiring the creator to be concise while still getting the main point across. While most memes seem to serve their core purpose of light, witty entertainment they have also been used to transcend deeper, more political messages such as in the case of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The symbolism of Martin’s hoodie became extremely popular to the point where famous people including the Miami Heat basketball team showed their support by putting this picture online.

And it seems that with any controversial incident there are hundreds of memes created. Even the awful Sandy Hook tragedy inspired memes. Now this is where memes start to grind my gears a bit, when someone dies, or has something awful happen to them, why is it socially acceptable to create something that makes light of a terrible situation? Memes seem to be taking away the scrap of personal online communication currently existing and twisting it in order to get a quick reaction.

Memes can be anonymous thus allowing Internet users to express their true views but hiding behind a picture of a crying girl or geeky looking boy seems a bit cowardly. Rebeeca J. Rosen has some interesting analysis in her article Are LOLCats Making Us Smart? about how internet memes can represent society’s views and values. What I’m starting to see with the presence of memes is society’s growing lack of sensitivity and actual detachment from what the images used in memes really infer. I saw on Instagram a girl had posted a meme of an overweight boy who was wearing his marching band uniform while holding his instrument. The caption read “But I thought bands would make her dance” –a reference to a popular rap song. For some reason this picture made me sick to my stomach and I instantly unsubscribed the girl who had posted the picture. It’s 2013 and we’re still picking on the fat kid? Something about it just made me sick. And no I’m not being oversensitive and dramatic in my reaction to this picture because it’s true, I’m not saying that all do but some memes do continue to support negative stereotypes and just because they’re doing it in a seemingly funny and entertaining way doesn’t make it acceptable.

What this particular meme really seemed to be was a slick hybrid of cyber bullying. People forget that the person in the meme’s picture is an ACTUAL person who now perhaps has to deal with the ramifications of having their face strewn across the Internet.

Now apart from my little vent sesh that just occurred, I do find some memes entertaining such as the Duck Dynasty ones or the Y U NO memes. And as with almost anything there are positive and negative sides to memes but as long as Internet users stay engaged and don’t become entirely desensitized to the underlying messages behind some of these images, memes can be continue to be quick and fun form of online entertainment.