Millions of people see them every day. Alyssa Ryan and Kayla Symonds are among those millions. Alyssa is a 36-year-old mother, homemaker and professional career woman. Kayla is a 16-year-old high school student. Both are users of social media and both like memes. Kayla said, “I love memes!”
Internet memes are meant to evoke emotions in the viewer. They can be funny, sad, honest or fake. Whatever the content, a meme is an idea posted online that goes viral. Internet memes take many forms such as videos, music, animation, photos, special occasion greetings or even just words. What begins as an idea is posted online and shared millions of times over. Anyone who uses social media has likely seen a meme. They show up on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr Dashboard, as well as other media sites.
Alyssa’s choice of social media is Facebook, while Kayla prefers Tumblr. Kayla said, “I use Tumblr exclusively.” While Alyssa is an occasional user, Kayla spends many hours a week on social media and posts or shares many memes.
Who among us has not shared a meme? They appear on your social media feed magically–sort of. They are a worldwide phenomenon that gain popularity by the click of a mouse or the tap of a finger. Memes involving animals, especially cats, are the most popular.
Alyssa usually shares memes from Giphy and likes the funny ones. She said, “I see a lot of political memes, but I never share those.” She also only shares memes with family and friends, but never co-workers. She believes that sharing with co-workers would not be appropriate as she is in a management position. Kayla said that her favoritse are “blurry close-up memes,” but she likes ones with music and dancing as well.
Both Alyssa and Kayla said that they do not share memes that are racist, vulgar or have sexual content, although they have seen many of these types of memes show up on their social media pages. “If a meme is shared by a friend, or a friend of a friend, it shows up on my page,” Alyssa said. Memes are especially common in the comment section of online stories, either news or entertainment.
Sometimes memes take a while to catch on, but can lead to a payoff for the creator. One video meme came from a video posted to YouTube back in 2010 and is still being shared today. The video clip is of a double rainbow and the audio is a man freaking out with amazement over this rainbow.
As has become a common practice, Late Night Show host Jimmy Kimmel featured the Rainbow video on his show. The meme was shared millions of times. Eventually, Microsoft paid the Rainbow Man to make an ad for one of their photo products.
Most memes are meant to make us laugh or at least smile. Gone are the days of shopping for just the right birthday card to send to your sister, a thousand miles away. Just type Birthday Memes into your search bar and thousands of birthday greetings are right at your fingertips. Funny, serious, sentimental–choose a meme and send your birthday greetings via the internet. This method is especially helpful if you realize that your sister’s birthday is tomorrow, and you forgot to mail a card to her.
The convenience of sending your holiday greetings to your entire family all at once saves both time and money. Saving on postage is great, but look how much you save because there is no place to insert cash into a virtual card.
Although most internet memes are fun, there has been an increase in social content memes. Alyssa said, “I see a lot of memes about politics and current social issues.” She does read most of them but does not like sharing them. Kayla admitted that she sees some social issues memes but mostly ignores them.
The internet meme has become a political tool. While some memes are harmless, others can cause great harm. A good rule of thumb is to fact check before sharing any meme on social media. Even better, you might want to follow this timeless quote. “If you don’t have anything good to say about someone, then don’t say anything at all.”
