Internet Meme Culture
A final term paper for ‘Speech Play and Verbal Art’
Why are Memes relevant to human culture and communication?
Internet memes are unique forms of language play that populate major social media sites within cyberculture. Fundamentally, they typify comics but without a formal, physical outlet: like a newspaper for example. Anyone can create Internet memes, which contain the potential to go “viral” or become highly popular and accessible. Internet memes usual take the form of pictographic jokes. In joking, creators often flirt with boundaries of the offensive under the security of freedom from social consequences. One could examine Internet memes through a multitude of different academic lenses given their context and graphic nature: visual or linguistic anthropology, psychology, and computer science to name a few. This paper draws on these perspectives and examines the sociocultural effects of Internet memes on cyberculture: beginning with its history, evolution, types and classifications, and finally social organization of Internet meme creation and virality.
What is a Meme: Definition, Early History, and Evolution
Many definitions exist for the Internet meme; the most holistic of these comes from a piece by Karen Schubert in USA Today. She defines an Internet meme as “an activity, concept, catchphrase or piece of media which spreads, often as mimicry or for humorous purposes, from person to person via the Internet.” [1] Internet memes exist as convoys for cultural information and comedy from exclusive messaging communities to global populations. Before analyzing the Internet meme as a cultural phenomenon, however, it is essential to explore the origins of the term meme.
Evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, coined the term meme before the advent of the Internet. In his novel, The Selfish Gene (1976), Dawkins explores the expression of genes and their imitating nature and parallels this with how cultural information spreads throughout populations.[2] In a similar way that genes multiply through identical replication, so does cultural information. Meme became a neologism out of the word gene and combined with a shortening the Ancient Greek term mimeme, meaning “imitated thing.” [3] Dawkins coined the term meme as a way to verbally express the way cultural information spreads: in an imitating fashion. In short, the Encyclopedia Britannica defines meme as “a unit of cultural information spread by imitation.” [4]
Internet memes, however, are a subset of this general meme concept, which exists within cyberculture. Mike Godwin first delineated the Internet Meme in a 1993 issue of Wired [5], and two decades later, upon its rise in popularity, Dawkins re-examined his coinage of the term meme within the context of Internet culture. In 2013, Dawkins claimed that an Internet meme does not follow the direct copy or imitation model that a meme does in his original use of the term. Internet memes, he claims, are memes deliberately altered by human creativity.[6] In this way, they function more like works of art or creative expression instead of direct imitation. This socio-historical analysis of the term meme reveals that people not only alter ideas to create internet memes, but the word meme itself “has been appropriated and repurposed since it’s beginning” (Wiggins and Bowers p. 1888).[7] In this way, internet memes violate the original concept of memes as direct imitation, but ultimately, the word takes on a new cultural meaning of its own through Internet memes (i.e., when users online say “meme” they refer to pictographic Internet memes and not Dawkins’ original concept).
Memes, with regards to cultural ideas, arose with the dawn of humanity. Olivia Gordon, of Sci Show, asserts that some of the first memes proliferated by humanity were things like fire and language.[8] This kind of information proved essential to survival and thus propagated across the human population without any genetic inheritance. Not to say that such cultural practices have not affected our genes, however. In fact, Olivia Gordon asserts that “the ability to replicate memes is so beneficial that our genes have adapted to make us excel at it. We are now so good at it that most of the memes we spread don’t benefit our survival at all.” [8] Internet memes support this assertion: our lives do not benefit significantly from the circulation of such material outside of its entertainment value.
Internet memes gained popularity in the early twenty-first century. One of the first Internet memes included “The Hamster Dance.” This song, produced by the Boomtang Boys, topped the charts in 2000 as a creative alteration of Roger Miller’s “Whistle Stop”; featured in Disney’s 1973 film, Robin Hood.[9] This song circulated not only via radio but also via cyberculture through email and social media platforms. Internet memes continue to propagate in this way today.
What Makes a Meme: Parameters and Composition
Ultimately, a meme can encompass multiple different categories of language, skills, and songs. To delineate the general sense of the term further, however, I want to explore the basic qualifications that unite memes. In a piece from the Sage Journal, researchers Junhua Wang and Hua Wang outline the following qualifications for a meme to fit Dawkins’ original definition: it must be capable of influencing behavior, it must have a history of social transmission, and “it must be an embedded component of the cultural system from which it comes” (Weingart, p. 301).[10][11] These qualifications, which unify memes in the general sense, also apply to Internet memes. First, Internet memes influence the behavior of users by provoking a reaction in the form of a “like”, share, or comment. Second, Internet memes also leave behind a traceable trail of digital data via circulation throughout Internet communities, and third, that circulation institutes Internet memes as a component of cyberculture. Finally, Internet memes fundamentally alter some original idea or motif in addition to these factors: the ultimate differentiating factor from traditional memes.
For the sake of clarity, I will briefly review the differences between the types of memes I’ve discussed thus far before moving forward in more detail with regards to Internet memes. A gene is a self-replicating unit of transmission that codes for human construction and inspired the term meme. A meme is a self-replicating unit of cultural value that, given its varying degrees of usefulness, provides insight into human behavior. For example, human language is one of the oldest cultural memes. Language is inherently human, and some may argue we require it to survive. The dependability on language and its spread as a result shows humans’ collective reliability on communication. While languages do evolve, adapt, and modify, its inherent mimicry makes it a meme. Internet memes differentiate from Dawkins’ traditional meme concept, however, in that they deliberately alter and do not directly copy cultural ideas.
Internet memes, as such, do not directly equate to the original implementation of the term meme. Where people spread a meme as an unaltered idea, Internet memes continually change. Creatively adapting cultural motifs and generating relatable material makes Internet memes successful. In addition, Internet memes leave digital evidence behind of their existence whereas ordinary memes do not. Memes, like oral traditions, for example, leave behind legends and narratives via physical human lives, but documenting memes like oral tradition requires additional archival and research methods as well as human resources. Computer networks, however, continually document and archive Internet memes via the World Wide Web and social media networks without much need for human collection efforts. This saves time and resources for researchers in the future; more data to work with makes Internet memes easier to study.
“Know Your Meme”: Types and Classifications
Among social media users, the knowledge of standard Internet memes promotes the success of a user to engage in social interaction and thus increases their popularity. Traditional schooling requires that students study classic novels as they frequently appear in conversation and other forms of entertainment: it makes people “cultured.” Knowledge of popular Internet memes functions in the same way among younger generations. While many consider Internet memes a lowbrow form of verbal art, in comparison to 20th-century literature, lack of basic Internet meme knowledge can lead to social consequences or embarrassment, especially in younger generations. The embarrassment results from ineptitude in such areas. Think of Internet meme creation as a hobby like playing basketball: if a group of peers frequently play basketball, but one player lacks skill, they will likely experience moderate shame. If creating and sharing Internet memes is common among a peer-group, but one user does not stay up-to-date on rapidly-changing cyberculture, then they may get left behind. Not to say that older generations do not participate in Internet meme sharing, but content sharing occurs more frequently among younger generations.[12]
Much like it would take several days to read even one novel, it would require hundreds of hours of scrolling through social media feeds to come across a fraction of standard memes, which include a handful of highly common images. To accommodate the millennial need for social inclusivity given the frequency of content sharing, Literally Media, Ltd. published an Internet meme database in 2008 titled “Know Your Meme.”[13] To my surprise, something that seems so inherently puerile, has become quite the opposite. Researchers and archivists spend hours curating and studying the virality of Internet memes to provide the public with an informative knowledge base. Not only was the database named one of TIME Magazine’s “50 Best Websites of 2009”, but in 2014, “Know Your Meme” was inducted into the Web Archiving Program at the U.S. Library of Congress.[13] Much like documenting traditional memes proves valuable to the study of society, the United States finds the documentation of Internet memes valuable as well.
As aforementioned, many things may be considered a meme (i.e., songs, ideas, stories, or images), and while the first widely popular Internet meme may have been a song, I assert that the most common Internet memes come in the form of static images. Of these types of images, image macros appear most frequently, especially in the late 2000’s through the early 2010’s in the early years of Internet meme creation.[14]The term image macro was first coined in 2004 by a comedic website, Something Awful, and refers to a digital image superimposed with text.[15] While superimposing images with text was by no means a new practice, the style which propelled the image’s popularity featured famous cultural images or icons with bold impact font with white letters outlined in black.[14] This popular style of internet meme found its genesis with an even more specific form of image macro, LOLcats. LOLcats feature this same format exclusively over images of cats. The entertainment value in LOLcats resides in the idiosyncratic nature of the text, often referred to as “lolspeak.”[16]Both image macros and LOLcats retain moderate popularity due to their long-standing history within Internet meme culture. More recently, another category of Internet meme, Dank memes, rose in popularity.
Internet memes alter some cultural icon or idea, and they often build upon themselves in a redundant fashion: by altering alterations. In this way, Dank memes require more creative thought perhaps than simply captioning a photo. Internet memes evolve over time in a fashion similar to the passing of oral tradition: changing and modifying through generations. Dank memes in particular exemplify such creative techniques among Internet meme creation. According to the “Know Your Meme” database, dank memes are “an ironic expression used to describe online viral media and in-jokes that are intentionally bizarre or exhaust their comedic value to the point of being trite or cliché.” Merriam-Webster defines the term dank as unpleasantly wet[17]. On the Internet, however, dank colloquially refers to high-quality marijuana, and in the context of Dank memes, becomes a satirical synonym for “cool.”[8] Dank memes become so distorted, via repeated circulation and alteration, that they reach a threshold of no longer being humorous. Before that threshold, however, dank memes, among other Internet memes, “go viral” daily. To examine what makes these types of memes so popular, I will first explore the functions of virality.
In her discussions of the circulation of jokes via the internet, Barbara Meek claims that “jokes gain value through the context(s) and networks of their circulation” (342).[18] More empirically, in 2013, researchers conducted a study at Indiana University to analyze how network structures affect the diffusion of such jokes, more specifically, how internet memes go viral.[19] Using computational science, the researchers were able to create a computer model which functions similarly to Twitter: a popular social sharing outlet. Ultimately, “the more communities a meme permeates, the more viral it [becomes]”(1). What sparks this virality, however, is a result of random chance. One meme may get shared or “retweeted,” and as a result, double its community reach, thereby exponentially increasing its likelihood to be shared again. On the other hand, if Internet memes do not go viral, they die out quickly. In this way, Internet memes function like a virus; spreading like a contagion and dying out without a host, hence the term virality.
In Dawkins discussion of mimetics, he develops a “Meme Theory” which suggests that genes and memes function the same way with regards to spreading information.[2] Genes, however, spread based on biological selection-pressures, and memes do not follow any such structural model. Using Internet memes as an example, random chance spreading and virality makes “Meme Theory” controversial. A theory becomes widely accepted after a series of experiments; yielding the same results each time. As studies of Internet meme virality, like the one above, produce different results every time, this calls into question the legitimacy of Meme Theory. As a result, scientists consider mimetics and Meme Theory “a pseudoscientific dogma”; in other words, hardly a theory.[20]
Meme Sharing: Social Organization, Anonymity, and Community Building
Internet memes typify comics. Even so, people publish Internet memes in much less formal mediums than comics usually appear. Where commissioned artists publish comics in newspapers or on websites, Internet memes randomly propagate across the World Wide Web often without authorship. Anyone can create Internet memes that go viral, but the meme gains fame, not its creator. Barbara Meek asserts that email and the Internet “further confound and render opaque authorship and individual agency” (341)[18]: in opposition to the aforementioned formal creative outlets . While websites like “Know Your Meme” archive and document meme histories, hundreds of memes exist without accreditation. This anonymity contributes to the often crude or insensitive nature of Internet memes. While the Internet meme gains fame, its creator can hide behind the keyboard and not face social repercussions for their commentary.
Even with the existence of highly offensive Internet memes, their comedic value fuels virality. Barbara Meek draws on Elliot Oring’s Engaging Humor (2003)[21]; he asserts that the credibility of a joke relies, in part, on its ability to interrupt moral expectation “resulting in laughter or at the very least a smile” (Meek 341).[18] It is the interruption of what people consider morally acceptable that generates humor; in other words, something taboo. Internet memes featuring racial, social, or class commentary (usually at the expense of the minority in each category) frequently appear across social newsfeeds.
People feel freer to create “offensive memes” and loosen their social inhibitions due to the anonymity of the Internet; what John Suler calls the “Online Disinhibition Effect.” People behave differently online than they do in person for what Suler delineates as six key contributors: dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection, dissociative imagination, and minimization of authority.[22] The first of these, dissociative anonymity, supports my primary point: with the ability to hide one’s true identity online, people remove responsibility for their actions. This ability becomes accessible through invisibility; the lack of physical contact with other Internet users. With that lack of physical contact, users also often dissociate or dehumanize other online users, which continues to feed the production of especially offensive internet memes: solipsistic introjection. Similarly, especially in online gaming scenarios, users may create fantasy worlds in their minds: further dehumanizing individuals through dissociative imagination. Compounding on these factors, creators not only feel free to say whatever they wish, but they possess extra time to carefully craft memes or reactions that they may not otherwise have in a physical, social interaction: asynchronicity. Finally, all of these things continue to occur due to minimization of authority; the freedom of speech and lack of an authoritative presence online reduces the fear of punishment and frees social inhibitions. This lack of a defined authority figure, alongside the Online Disinhibition Effect, leads to controversial creations that call into question the boundary between free speech and socially disruptive behavior. Although moderators often monitor message boards, they only have the authority to remove authors from the group on whatever grounds they see fit, which again are not clearly defined (i.e., some moderators may find offensive memes towards certain groups acceptable where others may maintain a zero tolerance policy).
While a multitude of separate groups and communities exist on the Internet, they all culminate to form cyberculture: “the study of various social phenomena associated with Internet and other forms of network communication.”[23] Memes require prior knowledge in various cultural areas, both within and outside of cyberculture, to appreciate the humor embedded in an Internet meme or its context. Much like any other culture, there exists a whole host of nuances required to become acculturated, from current events to film references and celebrity gossip. Common culture builds communities, and consequently, meme communities appear across several social media platforms.
Even with the anonymity of the Internet, close-knit Internet meme communities contain easier access to the identity of meme creators. Generating reactions or assigning social consequences to an Internet meme involves the creator as much as those who share or support its creation. While the term consequences creates a negative connotation, there exist positive consequences to meme sharing: although limited to small groups, successful or well-liked memes generate popularity or a positive image for the person who shares them. On the other hand, as aforementioned, the primary negative consequence usually includes removal from the group. In some cases, however, identifying authorship results in more severe consequences.
Educational institutions across America preach caution with regards to social media. A “Cyber Safety” rule from Austin Independent School District suggests that students not post anything they “wouldn't want [their] mom, teacher, boss, or potential college advisor to see.”[24] A group of students applying to Harvard University in 2016 heeded no such caution. Several accepted students from the Class of 2021 formed a private Facebook group titled “Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens” in which they shared Internet memes to build community before their arrival to campus. University officials rescinded ten student’s acceptances upon the discovery of “images mocking sexual assault, the Holocaust, and the deaths of children.”[25] These examples mark extreme topics of taboo within American culture. The extreme nature of the Internet memes parallels the punishment put upon their creators.
A “Meme Factory”
Internet memes are much simpler to analyze empirically than traditional memes; Internet memes leave behind traceable trails of data. The majority of users have no desire to research the authorship of Internet memes, and creators seem to thrive on anonymity. In the case of Harvard University, admissions officials acted as moderators, sought after the offensive meme creators, and established authority with a social repercussion similar to removal from the group: removal from Harvard.
Instances, like these, call into question both acceptable uses of profanity and the boundaries of free speech. With the boundaries of neither clearly defined, the Internet continues to produce Internet memes daily like a “Meme Factory.”[26] In the same way factories efficiently assemble pieces of machinery, Internet meme creation provides users with a convenient way to offer quick quip commentary on pieces of cultural information. Although considered lowbrow speech play, people invest quite a bit into the production of Internet memes.
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