Memes: Are We Making A Mistake?
Memes — as ridiculous as it sounds — are kind of becoming an issue. Honestly I don’t think a good laugh is bad for the world right now, and that’s typically what they provide. I’m extremely partial to a good Kermit meme, myself. Memes are extremely artful, in a way. They incite a strong reaction with a wide audience. Unlike more traditional art forms, we can share and distribute them and even manipulate them for different scenarios. In this way, we ourselves become a part of the creation or the continuation of the meme. It’s an inclusive and interactive medium, and it’s quite a lot of fun.
Part of the reason we can relate to memes so much is because they often reflect mainstream media, society, or pop culture. We can entertain ourselves by poking fun at it, and each other. But they can be kind of a problem for that same reason. It’s good to step back sometimes and really think about what you’re laughing at, and even when you’re laughing at it.
The Harambe meme, for example, started off as a pretty sad story. It’s been so warped on the internet since the time the incident took place, I had to go back and look it up to recall what originally happened. A little boy’s life was in danger, and a gorilla got shot. Seeing the video clip is difficult to the point where I wonder if anyone who has been perpetuating the meme has actually watched it once or twice. The humour of it, I guess, is pulled from the memory of the animal, rather than the actual incident itself, but still acknowledges the death in a surprisingly light-hearted way. It’s weird, but that isn’t where I draw the most problematic conclusions. I have a little trouble with the timing.
Harambe memes rose to fame around the same time that police shootings were dominating the media. I hate to look at the parallels here, because they scare me. It’s concerning that we were able to hold a joke candlelight vigil at Ryerson for an animal, while black men were — and still are — getting shot to death in the streets. Where’s their vigil? Holding one for Harambe was overshadowing and almost mocking a very serious issue. Did we go too far with it? I think we did.
Maybe I’m reading way too far into this. But what if I’m not?
Our parody of the disastrous US election has been a constant one. All throughout the preliminaries to the devastating results, and even afterwards. We followed the process armed with our modest photoshop skills and bizarre sense of humour in tow.
From this:
To this:
To this:
Laughing at the election didn’t get the results we wanted. It may have lifted the heaviness of the situation off our shoulders. Did any of us think it was possible for Donald Trump to actually win? I definitely didn’t. When I wonder about why that is, I think about how ridiculous everything he said way, and I think about how he was mocked on the internet. I know I personally wasn’t able to take him seriously.
By allowing ourselves to laugh at these issues we’re taking the seriousness right out of them. We’ve talked in class about being desensitized and disengaged from a problem we see in the news or online. Is this how we’re doing it? Are memes part of the problem by creating a kind of laugh-it-off attitude?
This isn’t a problem with every single meme out there. I think Kermit memes are fun for the whole family. And it appears as though #SaltBae is hurting no one, except some slabs of overly sexualized meat, but maybe I’ll get back to you on that one.
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