While I was reading the chapter in McCulloch about Memes I found it extremely interesting that there is a meme for almost everything. No wonder there are generational gaps in Internet culture! To many of us it is almost like a second language and we do not think much about it because it’s how we grew up.
Within the entire Internet of what McColluch calls “insiders,” there are also different groups that have their own memes, as well. Literally if you Google baseball memes, football memes, a TV show’s memes, mom memes, even animal memes, a vast amount of pictures will come up.
A question that I’ve been thinking about is memes are a part of Internet culture, but could they also be considered their own language? I keep going back-and-forth on this because they are different than emojis ,as they contain words, however, you have to be able to understand them to get the joke and there are some people that don’t understand them. I mean there are times when someone could ask a question and the other person just replies with a meme and they both understand the conversation.
This is so true, Hannah. There is a meme for everything and whenever I go to google one (like I do very often for this very class), I'm amazed at how many there are! This is always one of may favorites.. because it's true!
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I absolutely think memes are their own language! They often get deconstructed, reconstructed, remixed, and modified in new and creative ways. Some can get so abstract you basically need a PhD in Memeology to understand them! Memes are a big part of my research (GOD what a WEIRD SENTENCE) and I've been trying to draw analogues between them, language, and specifically heiroglyphics, for aaaages.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever want examples of how incomprehensibly niche memes can get, I have a whole folder of ones I made just to send to a friend as a one-off joke. I hold onto them because they remind me of the conversation we were having, and because they're hog-wild out of context. Heck, just the other day, my colleague and I accidentally made two versions of the exact same mashed-up meme, because our conversation reminded both of us of it at the same time!