Meme Culture As A Double-edged Sword

By Megan Trevail |

Illustration by Yuri Miranda

Every time I open my Facebook to kill some time, I’m always faced with bizarre pictures—usually with amusing captions—and other times, they are packed with chat bubbles that convey humorous or shameless banters. If this rings a bell, I’m referring to memes.

A meme is an idea or behavior that evolves as it spreads and creates interactions from person to person. They come in different forms—they can be captioned images that intend to elicit humor or videos that portray what is known to be “viral” or “funny” to the audience at the moment. These can spread through various social media platforms and even differ depending on where you’re from and which side of the internet you are on.

I doubt Richard Dawkins had any idea how the Internet subculture would reinvent memes when he initially proposed the concept in his book The Selfish Gene over forty years ago. Although the initial purpose was not to incorporate crude visualization, the essence of being a concept or behavior passed down from one individual to another remains valid.

Memes are arguably as old as the Internet, with the earliest versions spreading on message boards and email threads as interpersonal jokes. However, it wasn't until recently that individuals began to take them seriously in more ideological and political conversations. For instance, the 2016 US elections were the focus of debate after Facebook permitted Russian hackers to spread misinformation on its platform to manipulate the public's perception using memes.

So what exactly makes memes attract so much attention?

I think what makes memes so alluring is the concept itself: it can be quickly and easily made, understanding the context isn’t tricky, and, most of the time, it is hilarious—the same as cracking jokes in chitchats with your friends. Likewise, it's possible that memes gained popularity because they effectively captured our cynical worldview, which holds that when faced with issues that never appear to be resolved, we have no option but to complain about them. It evolved into a means to express tension and empathize with those who have the same feelings.

Different types of memes differ in theme and context, and although they all intend to make the audience smile, some people take it too far and fail to realize the insensitivity and offense their memes has brought upon them. The desperation of some people to come off as valid through memes has led them to subject insensitive topics as their main content disguised as “dark humor” that would greatly affect the masses. “Jokes” related to disabilities, murder, racism, other heinous crimes, and major societal offenses are often made into memes. This negative aspect of meme culture supports ableists and brainwashes netizens into thinking that it is acceptable to make such offensive jokes. These creators need to understand that there are restrictions on the kind of content that can be turned into memes.

Moreover, memes are also made into a “coping mechanism” for many people who have gone through a traumatic experience. This serves as a solution for some people that would help alleviate the feeling of sadness by laughing at their own problem as an alternative rather than actually facing it. This is acceptable if memes are what would help them eventually overcome their problem. But the danger lies when people who are in no relation to the problem or have not experienced this particular trauma are the ones making the jokes. This is inconsiderate and disrespectful to people who have gone through it and face the heartbreak of the situation despite displaying a lack of interest in appearing unaffected.

Memes also raise some questions about how we currently analyze the circumstances in our daily lives. Through these, people deal with problems more reflexively and simplistically than they might otherwise. They have improved how information is shared online and have a much wider audience than conventional methods. In certain instances, people could even become aware of the meme before understanding its context. They draw interest in a particular topic by demonstrating what people care about or can relate to. Some individuals may research the joke if they don't get it, and in doing so, they unintentionally become familiar with it. From this angle, memes have given us an approach to capture the interest of a largely idle public.

Aside from that, since numerous memes are based on unverified information, meme culture can still spread misinformation. How frequently do we find ourselves reading a news headline, seeing a lot of critical remarks in the comments section, and then reading the full article and realizing there was much more than what the headline led us to believe? This can significantly impact many internet users who, regrettably, rely on social media and view the majority of people reposting it as fact-checking without carefully examining it to see whether it comes from a credible source. And while both the creator of the meme and the internet community need to work together to find a solution to this issue, the source of the content should be the one to mainly adjust.

There is no escape from the continually swinging double-edged sword of Internet culture. Memes evolve continuously as our society develops its own culture. Therefore, I believe we should fully apply the famous catchphrase that has always encouraged us to follow, “Think before you click,” to the context of making and sharing memes, as this would considerably help in our analysis and prompt us to ask: “Would this offend anyone?”, “Is it worthwhile to share this?”, “Will this provide joy without offense?" before carelessly posting things online. I think that the culture of making and sharing memes is a wholesome act done by many, and this should continue to be so. Memes are one of the few things that spread positivity on the internet, and having memes be the root of negativity would be a shame. It should stick to the main reason it was created in the first place: to make people happy.