Are memes harmless fun or an offensive weapon?
Y u no play nice? Sweta Rana considers the darker side of internet memes.
We are living in the age of an uncontrollable epidemic.
You can try to run. You can try to hide. But you can’t escape them. They are everywhere. We are drowning in them. They’ve taken over our food, our clothes, our music, our pets and our jobs. One quick glance at Twitter or Facebook, and they’ll consume you. They’re on TV — in sitcoms and on the news. Our literature has been infected. Try to escape by taking a stroll outside? Well, they’re on the billboards. They’ve even seeped into our basic understanding of logic and number. Surrender, people, for their time is here: the internet meme has taken over.
Usually, memes are jokey — something to share with a colleague and guffaw over with a friend. They’re like an adorable little language: very geek, sometimes chic, usually hilarious. But the truth is, memes aren’t always the innocent giggle they may first appear to be. They can be uncomfortable, offensive, downright dangerous — and the worst thing is, you may not see it straight away. We see them everywhere, yet the worst memes have the unnerving ability to hide in plain sight.
The word meme was first coined by Richard Dawkins. It refers to mimeme, from the Ancient Greek term for imitation and mimicry. The spread of ideas across culture is likened to a viral infection, with the original germ adapting, mutating and varying as it spreads. Dawkins’ examples of memes include catchphrases and fashion trends. Everyone talks about them; they are recognised widely and immediately.
Then the internet arrived. With our communications methods faster than ever before, it doesn’t take long for an idea to grace the entire world — especially if it’s funny. We humans like funny. Memes are often a basic joke which is then altered slightly for tailored humorous impact. In the space of days, hours, perhaps even seconds, one of these jokes has the potential to go viral. Social media reaches millions; image boards like Imgur and 4chan are more popular than ever before; there are even meme aggregates and reference sites like KnowYourMeme.com. Dawkins himself has acknowledged the pervasiveness of the internet meme.
Most internet users recognise Condescending Wonka and ‘Not Sure If’ Fry, even if they’ve never seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory or Futurama. We’ve seen Sweet Brown lament her bronchitis, and laughed at the increasingly hysterical ways in which one would struggle to get into Mordor. And as well as providing us all with a hearty chuckle, the viral power of memes has even been harnessed into good causes. The Salvation Army recently used ‘The Dress’, the widespread image of a garment which appears in different colours to different people, to highlight awareness of domestic violence.
So far, so good happy. We’re communicating, we’re laughing, we’re maybe even changing the world for the better. Sure, some memes may seem a tad stupid, but it doesn’t matter. It’s all just a bit of harmless fun. But in our joy, we tend to forget: this is the internet. And we all know it wouldn’t be the internet without a bunch of people trying to ruin it all.
Enter the terrible memes: the misogynistic, racist, downright cruel propagations. The meme of the ‘main chick and the side chick’, which deems it appropriate to regard women as though they are components of a meal for men to pick and pull at (how precisely does one function as a ‘side chick’? Do you have to be a salad, or can you be onion rings if you want?). There’s the Good Girl Gina meme, which derides any woman who isn’t a simultaneous cook/gamer/beer-guzzler/ironer/naked Snapchatter/blowjob-dispensing machine. Meanwhile the recent Ebola hysteria was converted into many an internet joke, including this unabashedly racist image which is idiotic to the point of sheer disbelief.
It is no secret that aggressive and prejudiced vitriol appears on the internet 24/7. But when it appears in meme form, things get more complicated. Memes, by definition, have the power to go viral in an instant. What’s more, their recognisable traits (e.g. big cartoony font, endearingly poor editing, colloquial language) are firmly manifest in our minds as part of the meme world: funny, affable, ultimately harmless. When we see a blurry photo with a loud caption emblazoned across it, we think, “Oh yes, another internet meme, very cute.” Looking closer, the message could actually be extremely dangerous, whether racist, sexist, or otherwise venomous. If the wrapping is familiar and simple, it is easy to overlook toxic contents.
Internet memes can be amazing. Truly funny memes are some welcome relief from what can at times be a complex, gloomy world. The adaptability and familiarity of the meme means you can laugh heartily along with a stranger on the other side of the world. But we should not become complacent. We’re so used to memes as innocuous distraction that we are becoming blind to their more disturbing incarnations. We need to remember that an offensive image cannot be excused on the grounds that it’s ‘just a meme’. Memes are now demonstrably widespread and influential — as such, they should be subject to the same levels of scrutiny and common human decency as the rest of our conduct.
Originally published at abstractmag.com on March 23, 2015.
