We want to do a Workshop about memes during a weekend. Like what are memes ? How to do memes? And also a little bit about meme history. We are around for some time and thought we have a good amount of knowledge. But we also realized that memes are very subjective and even though there are some events we both had in our minds (e.g. fuck spez) there a lot that only one of us remembered. So what are your must haves for such a presentation? Or what are your fun facts about memes?
Meme is actually just a single unit of information.
The way the image macro jokes are made now have come about from the way social media is laid out and needing quick consumption. They’re aldo easily made by anyone. Otherwise there was a time when Flash videos were the preferred medium for internet jokes.
Tom Nichols did a good video on an unrelated subject, but he covers a good and relevant point. That communities want to clarify who is part of the “in-crowd” and who is not. This is a role that inside jokes have always had. If you’re part of a group, then you have inside jokes that no one else understands, and there’s a feeling of community in that. Memes do this. My wife sees me laughing and asks why; then I find it difficult to explain 3 layers of reference in a meme (you have to know about the videogame and the political issue they’re referencing, as well as the fact that the meme is a variation of another meme…try explaining a derivative of a derivative of a “loss” meme and why that’s funny and why this story of miscarriage is funny).
Similarly the jokes look to exclude the undesirables. Boomer conservative memes do really well on Facebook and have no value in youth and liberal spaces. People do a lot of virtue signalling and display of values through memes.
We all love our memes, but essentially they’re all a bunch of dumb inside jokes. And the deeper you get inside a community, the more convoluted and weird the jokes get.