“How does the New Urbanist Memes for Transit- Oriented Teens Function:”
It’s no surprise that the way we communicate and express ourselves has evolved. These are some ways that we communicate according to an article from Drexel university, called “ the Five Types of Communication”, we have verbal communication which is the action of physically talking, then we have non- verbal communication which is the use of body movement to express yourself, then we have written communication which include texting, emails etc.. Then finally we have visual communication which is expressing oneself through the use of images.
So how does the New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens Function, well they use the visual form of communication, Memes to be exact. The NUMTOT’s community is based on memes, their Facebook page is full of memes. Not everybody that comes across a meme on their page understands it. For some people today when they see a meme they are like “Oh Hahaha that’s Funny” and keep it moving they don’t really take the time to think about what message it could be conveying. Memes are omnipresent which makes it a good way to share culturally relevant ideas. The meme part of their Facebook group name is accurate as to what the group is about, their way of communication is through memes they use memes to express their ideas and feelings toward their main goal which is to make the city a better place in the future and their passion for better public transport systems. Yeah memes are humorous, pervasive and resonate globally with everyone no matter where you are, that is why the NUMTOT’s use it to discuss and share their ideas.
This meme was posted on twitter from the NUMTOT Facebook page by a member of the group and anybody that sees this should get the basic ideas behind it, their group is a place where you go to and use memes to engage with deep matters important to local communities.
That is the thing about NUTMTO’S they set up their memes in a way that is simple, comes with some sort of humor like in chapter 7 of “Because Internet”, McCulloch says that are part of an inside joke which means they are funny. Even though the NUMTOT for the most part uses memes to express themselves they also sometimes use their own phrases, for example “gay for public transport” is one of the favorite NUMTOT expression according to an article from Bloomberg CityLab. They use other phrases like “Real Urbanist Hours Who’s up”, with that being said I think that different online communities come up with their own phrases that they use to communicate with each other and probably sometimes only members of that group can understand the lingo.
The NUMTOT use their meme platform to also address disagreement between politicians about certain policies like not politicians are in support of investing a lot in the public transport system, they happened to have endorsed Bernie Sanders who seemed to have liked how they use memes to express their ideas.
