User:CPM1999/Internet meme

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Early examples of political memes can be seen from those resulting from the Dean Scream. Another example can be seen from MyDavidCameron.com, a website that allowed users to change the text of a British Conservative election campaign poster featuring David Cameron from the 2010 general election. This website was often used to produce memes that replaced the original slogan with a series of exaggerated claims or sarcastic fake campaign promises along with derision of David Cameron's airbrushed appearance.

Internet Meme

One hallmark of Internet memes is the appropriation of a part of broader culture; in particular, many memes use popular culture (especially in image macros of other media), which can sometimes lead to issues with copyright. "Dank" memes have emerged as a new form of image-macros, and many modern memes take on inclusion of surreal, nonsensical, and non-sequitur themes. Colloquially, the terms meme and Internet meme are used more loosely, having become umbrella terms for any piece of quickly-consumed comedic content that may not necessarily be intended to spread or evolve.

An Internet meme, more commonly known simply as a meme, is an idea, behavior, image, or style that is spread via the internet, often through social media platforms, such as, IFunny .

Internet memes are considered a part of Internet culture. They can spread from person to person via social networks, blogs, direct email, and news sources.

Instant commnication on the Internet facilitates word of mouth transmission, resulting in fads and sensations that tend to grow rapidly. An exapmle of such a fad is that of planking (lying down in public places); posting a photo of someone planking online brings attention to the fad and allows it to reach many people in little time.

The Internet also facilitates the rapid evolution of memes.

Characteristics

There is no single format that memes must follow. Photographs of people or animals, especially stock photos, can be turned into memes by superimposing text, such as in Overly Attached Girlfriend. Rage comics are a subcategory of memes which depict a series of human emotions and conclude with a satirical punchline; the sources for these memes often come from webcomics. Rage comics and memes created for the sole purpose of becoming memes would normally be original works of the creator and therefore, the question of infringing other copyright work does not arise. Other memes are purely viral sensations such as in Keyboard Cat.

Evolution and propagation

Consequently, an internet meme can also rapidly become 'unfashionable', losing its humorous qualities to certain audiences, often even most prevalently by its creator(s). Internet memes usually are formed from some social interaction, pop culture reference, or situations people often find themselves in. Their rapid growth and impact has caught the attention of both researchers and industry. Academically, researchers model how they evolve and predict which memes will survive and spread throughout the Web. The phenomena of viral memes is a users to users experience the represents participatory culture on online platforms.

History

Irony and absurdism

Many modern memes stem from nonsense or otherwise unrelated phrases that are repeated and placed onto other formats. One example of this is "they did surgery on a grape," from a video of a da Vinci Surgical System performing test surgery on a grape. People sharing the post tended to add the same caption to it ("they did surgery on a grape"), and eventually created a satirical image with several layers of captions on it. Memes such as this one continue to propagate as people start to include the phrase in different, otherwise unrelated memes.

References

1. Nissenbaum, A., & Shifman, L. (2015). Internet memes as contested cultural capital: The case of 4chan’s /B/ board. New Media & Society, 19(4), 483–501. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815609313
2. Shifman, L. (2015). Memes in digital culture. CRC Press.
3. Huntington, H. E. (2013). Subversive Memes: Internet Memes as a Form of Visual Rhetoric. ACADEMIA. Retrieved February 25, 2022, from https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/32547359/Huntington_AoIR2013_paper-with-cover-page-v2.pdf?Expires=1645843031&Signature=ahZlTZ06a3W3ze3ncXyo4dp7WL3sjRHJPlMSM1QQRre00xJFWO8czI-hZ9J9k2UB7caLH5pHNTBdtKtiu~lopiEFgmpO~RI8W4Qc79qOVcRVWaEbvlkQGHF6IYgHzPOx4OZ6ZA4I-V1a4H7dAJZCZYxgDVlKmlne6AaedpzRfSW0BbxkqJ21tIZIYwR9BKmClJYcn8l6gEI3~HQ1YkkMcOwLjJXXMjJiWG2sIrCyb-4dSjQ7TvER23cCTXMJBvrQhBtALDp~keFVr4rr3e7~jD0FXTmSrqVFOFhMftkeiUHxnFj-2aJbWH4ScRrBtZ3kW6jzuucAVCgxTbj2HWwJbg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
4. Chris Tenove, Postdoctoral Fellow. (2020, November 26). The meme-ification of politics: Politicians & their 'lit' memes. The Conversation. Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://theconversation.com/the-meme-ification-of-politics-politicians-and-their-lit-memes-110017
5. Dank. Urban Dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dankadison. (2019, April 9). Meme-ology: Studying patterns in viral media.

External Links

• Definition of Dank at Urban Dictionary
• Chris Tenove, The meme-ification of politics - academic article on politics and memes