Meme society
What memes reflect of our current society and how they can be used as propaganda.
Twenty minutes after the US government officially announced that a US missile strike had killed Quasem Soleimani memes about the attack and the possible outburst of WWIII were already going viral on major social media sites. A running meme a day after the strike joked that this would be the first military conflict where jokes about it had been made without the conflict having actually begun.
In popular lingo, memes refer to images, short videos, and GIFs with limited text that make light-hearted jokes and present relatable situations humorously. The academic papers that first theorized memes were published almost half a century ago and referred to memes as ideas spread within cultures that evolve and change to compete for our limited attention. The memes that we know today still compete for our attention, iterating constantly and propagating more easily than ever before: with social media, satiric and humorous content is being created almost at the same time that the events that these memes mock unfold.
In the XIX century, the way entertainment magazines satirized events and presented humorous jokes gave us a unique perspective on what drove that society and how it perceived the events that unfolded around it; in our era, memes as a medium of entertainment have become a reflection of our digital society: the jokes that circulate are able to mock near real-time an evolving situation thanks to our unparalleled connectivity and they reward us with an easy joke or a relatable short message that fits our short attention span.
Memes are a reflection of a much wider trend: globalization. The hyper-connectivity that allows memes to make humor of events that are unfolding in real-time has allowed this type of content, this type of humor, to be enjoyed by whoever has an internet connection. An Australian and an Algerian can laugh at the same movie reference, a Japanese and a Portuguese can relate to the same office flop through memes shared on social media. The cultural background needed to fully comprehend the humor of memes is shared by social media users spread all over the world, and this shared cultural background combined with unparalleled digital connectedness has strengthened online communities of shared interests: from vegans to wine connoisseurs, the humor and relatable situations that memes capture strengthen online communities, further building bridges through countries, cultures, and religions.
With over half of the memes published relating to politics, they have become an essential weapon in the modern politician’s arsenal. Using humorous memes, politicians inconspicuously spread their platform and reinforce their public image. President Trump himself has used memes in the past to, through light-hearted humor, rally his base in favor of controversial policies, and in recent Brazilian elections, the running politicians used memes to undermine their opponents and strengthen their image.
With an ever more democratized access to information and the ability to share it, mass control of the population through traditional media is harder than ever before. Innocent entertainment content such as memes can be, nevertheless, used by regimes and organizations to indirectly subvert and influence citizens. Memes have the potential to become the digital age’s propaganda: available at our fingertips and ready to make us laugh at a hidden message.
Foreign government meddling through social media is nothing new: Russian-born ‘disinformation campaigns’ have found on the internet the perfect tool to infiltrate national debate and stir controversy over tragedies such as school shootings and natural disasters, and in social media foreign governments have found the tool to more easily spread memes, an open invitation to laugh and subconsciously accept a subversive message. Even the Chinese government has used troll armies to spread memes and messages to subvert and obfuscate the Hong Kong protests. If these troll armies bring their influence to the US, nowadays with the mere touch of a button, this new type of digital propaganda can pose a serious threat to national sovereignty, and free will of individual citizens.
Memes can be used as the perfect medium to spread hidden propaganda, and we must not let this trojan horse reach our shores. Social media platforms must fight suspicious activity and our national intelligence agencies must take the threat of digital propaganda as a serious attack on our national sovereignty.
Since the 70s, when meme survival was first theorized in academia, to an ever more digital world that has allowed memes to thrive as a form of entertainment, this new type of content is a true testament of globalization, as it has become a type of content that anyone can laugh to, driving humanity closer. But, now more than ever, we must make sure that this light-hearted, casual entertainment is not used as a form of subversive advertisement and propaganda by corporations and foreign governments as a medium to influence individuals, elections, and nations.
References
Politicians use it to strengthen their image
