Malmö University

Communication for Development (ComDev)

New Media, ICT and Development

Memes, Can We Take Them Seriously?

Gaudi Delgado Falcón

Publication details:
http://wpmu.mah.se/nmict182group7/

Published online: 19 Oct 2018.

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Humor as a political weapon - The phenomenon of memes
Memes, Can We Take Them Seriously?
Gaudi Delgado Falcón

The term “meme” was introduced by the biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish
Gene (1976). As part of his larger effort to apply evolutionary theory to cultural change,
Dawkins defined memes as small cultural units of transmission, analogous to genes, that
spread from person to person by copying or imitation.

Internet memes can be treated as (post)modern folklore, in which shared norms

and values are constructed through cultural artifacts such as photoshopped images
or urban legends.1

According to Shifman, what Internet users seemed to have grasped—and Richard

Dawkins couldn’t have imagined back in 1976—is that the meme is the best concept to
encapsulate some of the most fundamental aspects of the Internet. Three main attributes
ascribed to memes are particularly relevant to the analysis of contemporary digital culture:

1 On memes as folklore, see Lynne McNeill, McNeill, L. (2009). The End of the Internet: A
Folk Response to the Provision of Infinite Choice. In Blank T. (Ed.), Folklore and the
Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World (pp. 80-97). University Press of
Colorado. doi:10.2307/j.ctt4cgrx5.7
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1. A gradual propagation from individuals to society,
2. Reproduction via copying and imitation, and
3. Diffusion through competition and selection.

“Memes may best be understood as pieces of cultural information that pass along
from person to person, but gradually scale into a shared social phenomenon.” 2

Although some readers may object that Shifman is wrong when she claims that memes
shape the mindsets, forms of behavior, and actions of social groups, I would argue that
she is right that although they spread on a micro basis, their impact is on the macro level.
This attribute, says Shifman, is highly compatible to the way culture is formed in this digital
era, marked by platforms for creating and exchanging user-generated content like
YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and other similar applications and sites based on propagation
of content.

2 Shifman, L. (2014). Memes in digital culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press,
[2014]. Retrieved from https://proxy.mau.se/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/
login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat05074a&AN=malmo.b1889863&lang=sv&site=eds-live
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When it comes to the topic of how good as a tool to spread a message a meme can
be, activists and creative strategists assert that memes have always been used by
social movements to spread stories of liberation and change. This can be illustrated
with the incredible spread of Occupy Wall Street’s phrase “We Are the 99%” which
evolved into a meme and it has shown not only how a meme can be used to spread
a powerful social change message but also it can serve as an organizing tool.

In this sense, one should consider memes as a medium that supports social movements
and as a tool to raise awareness from a different perspective about important issues like
those presented in this article. Memes create new ways to engage in different debates.
Therefore, the use of memes produces public opinion as they raise the private
conversation to public debates.

Further, after I examined the OccupyWallSt.Org Facebook page, I found several memes
used to raise consciousness and to motivate the activists´ performance. See below:

There are also memes that addresses the fight for equal pay as we have seen during
protests such is the Women’s March. The protesters, committed to meaningful action,
empower, encourage people, raise awareness about the current administration, and to

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have a final say about female bodies, and so on—these goals were also encapsulated in
memes. See this image of Gene Wilder from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate
Factory” (1972)

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These memes has been used for many people as a condescending quip online, certainly
to address gun violence in the US, and also the regulation to access to birth control,
abortion sexism, and so on.

With humor, some names, have also replied to the “Not All Men” campaign, a phrase that
has been re-appropriated by feminists and turned into a meme meant to parody its
pervasiveness and bad faith of claiming “not all men are like that”, as a general defense of
men in gendered criticisms of their behavior.

The Batman slapping Robin meme is also

very popular. A meme generator allows you
to add custom resizable text to this image.

Try yours here.

If Shifman examines memes as a social phenomenon, Zeynep Tüfekçi (2017)3, reminds us

what I consider an important point about memes—parody and humor, she remarks, have a
long history [in Turkey as in other countries] as genres for dissident politics. Political
criticism, youth culture, and humor sites had merged and had become part of the
networked public sphere, which meant the ability to generate information cascades and go
viral through funny and biting political satire. This humor-laced but sharply political meme
culture, she says, echoed hundres of years of tradition when poets and jesters would use
sarcasm to criticize what was seemingly untouchable.

3Tüfekçi, Zeynep (2017). Twitter and Tear Gass. The Power and Fragility of Networked
Protest. London. Yale University Press. p.45.
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Digital media, as Zeynep Tüfekçi asserts, enhance the visibility of a cause and can assist
the breakdown of pluralistic ignorance, but what is less noticed is how connectivity also
supports a sense of camaraderie and community—even a hashtag storm can create a
sense of belonging as we have seen in the #OccupyMovement example.

What lies behind memes

Memes can emerged as a counterpoint to mock campaigns such as the recent

#BelieveWomen, #IBelieveFord. This week, after the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh
Supreme Court confirmation hearings, a post sparked a Twitter trend, according to several
publications it appeared to suggest that at this point, “men have fallen victim to false
sexual assault accusations”. The post was published by a mother who apparently
condemned what she considers false sexual assault accusations made by “radical
feminists”. “I vote #HimToo,” she added to the tweet as we can see in a screenshot of the
original post:

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#HimToo, has become a way for media users, often conservatives, to express their
support for men who they believe have been falsely accuse of sexual assault or
harassment. However, contrary to what conservatives might believe, false reports of
sexual assault are rare.

The tweet went viral immediately. Here is one of the versions:

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An ashamed son then Tweeted:

Retrieved from Twitter. Oct, 10, 2018.

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The upshot of all this is that, though I disagree that memes are essential to building a
movement, I still insist that they challenge the status quo with humor, giving voice to
people and to activists in protests when they want their message heard by the masses.
Nonetheless, this is just a starting point for a more deepen discussion about social media
activism and the limits of humor.

This is an example of the use of memes in the discourse of social movements

#IBelieveHer #Metoo #StopKavanaugh #KavaNope

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