Know your memes

Since the turn of the new century, Internet has become part of our daily routine. It has brought new trends and we had to adopt new lifestyles according to the evolution of communications, e.g. e-mails. But 5 years ago, Internet gave us something particularly special. I am not talking about Facebook, even though we can relate this topic with the massive social network. Memes are specific representations of moments in our lives, imagination, and even our deepest fears. A meme is a virally-transmitted symbol or idea formed by an image and a caption. Most memes are intended to be funny; however, some memes are often used as a way to publicly ridicule human behavior, other memes can be videos or gifs showing verbal and physical expressions. Memes are here to stay because they have a positive effect on our health and they are part of our system of communication.

To begin with, we know that everyone loves a good meme, we can agree on that. But what people do not know is that memes have a positive effect on our health. Memes can be found on social media: Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, and taking a few minutes to relax and to surf through your social feed could be helpful to avoid stress. The relaxation that comes hand in hand with a meme that you can relate to has proven to alleviate stress among students. What is more, multiple online tools can be found to create your own meme i.e. everyone can be a meme creator!

In addition, memes are so well universally understood that you can share them with whomever you want! In my first year at university, I had a teacher who was in her twenties, and used memes to grade our translation mistakes! We are not talking about bad teaching here, but she considered that memes can be functionally equal as grades (and she made her class funnier than the rest.) Of course, it was sort of a joke, and she did grade us under academic standards. But the point is that memes, just as in written communication, are a form of communication. Additionally, kids are learning through tablets, computers, and cell phones, so mastering the use of memes may come in handy in the future of communication.

To sum up this idea, I would like to consider that sharing a meme displays your type of personality, and it often says a lot about who you are or what you believe in. People are most likely to be accepted when they see that they share interests with the rest. Memes have a half-life, they do not last forever; they become popular, and then, taken as a whole, they are consumed and relegated to the scrapheap of internet. To put it more simply, if one meme becomes popular, some other meme must pass into obscurity. So whenever you are tagged in a picture of an angry cat with a sad caption on it, do not think of it as a simple picture of a grumpy cat, but the meaning and the purpose behind it.