As I begin to explore more into the different cultures in the internet in depth I would like to start with the internet culture of memes. If you don’t know what a meme is, then you probably live under a rock. A meme is usually a humorous picture or video spread throughout social media, a more detailed definition is “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme”. You might be thinking “wow this guy is really writing a passage about memes”, but hear me out, memes are very much so important and impactful in today’s society, especially in the internet. A meme can be used to communicate with friends and family, a meme can result in something good, but also in something negative, a meme can even be used as a marketing strategy.
It’s amazing how friends and families can relate and connect more with each other through the use of memes. For example within friends one can show their friend a meme that represents how they sleep so late and that meme can be used as a way of connection and having that friend understand the individual more. If a person is already close to someone, friend or family, then a meme will most likely cause laughter, and exchanges of memes that represent each other. Memes can even be used to
communicate emotions and feelings, for example I had a friend who was actually depressed and all he would share with me were sad but funny memes that usually involved depression and self harm. Yes the memes made me understand him a bit more, but it also raised concerns. Do not worry this old friend of mine is doing fine, but still posting sad memes. On a more positive note, memes can make good things happen, especially for an individual. For example in the gaming community of the game fortnite there was a meme that was widely spread within it. The meme involved a video of a kid in an orange shirt dancing in a silly way for a dance competition for the game, the competition made it so that the winners dance would be added into the game. Unfortunately the orange shirt kid did not win, but fortunately the meme of him dancing became so popular within the community that the creators of the game decided to add his dance to the game, calling it “orange justice”. A silly dance turned into a meme became a dream come true for a kid in an orange shirt. Coming back to a more negative note, memes can also have a downside. Traveling back in time to 2011 an infamous music video “Friday” by Rebecca Black was released on youtube, becoming one of the most disliked videos on youtube. Very soon memes through the use of Gifs were spread and most of them were negative and offensive. Such response towards the video caused Rebecca Black to go through bullying and it even caused her to question her dream of having a singing career. Although memes can be funny, its rapid spread can cause harm.
A different way that a meme can be used, is for marketing, intentionally or unintentionally. The most recent examples come from two very big and widely spread memes, which are the “Bird Box” memes and the Apple airpod memes. The “Bird Box” meme is a meme that involves a series of pictures that come from the Netflix Original movie “Bird Box”. The pictures usually involve a scene of the main character where she is blindfolded and the memes are centered around the blindfold conveying a message of being “blind” to things such as cleaning dirty dishes. The memes became so widely spread that it persuaded many people such as myself to watch the movie, mostly to be able to understand the meme and to take part of them. Memes spread about the movie by random people allowed free advertisement for Netflix bringing the company a lot of attention to their newest original movie. Similarly Apple airpod memes which make fun of people who own airpods, by mocking them by calling airpod owners “rich”, have been spread exponentially. I would not be surprised if airpod memes have brought Apple more money because those memes have for sure tempted my friends and I to buy a pair.
Overall the meme culture is complex within itself, and it is a huge part of internet culture, making most part of it. The internet would not have much of a culture without memes, and it’s good to say that memes aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Into My Mind 
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