Make Memes Great Again
'Manners matter. Good looks are a bonus. Humour is a must.’
Humour is an inevitable part of our lives and indeed one of the fundamental emotional requirements, and a form of expression. Recently, apart from the perspective of personal lives, it has even become a major source of income for many people and has gained equal importance from business aspect as well. Be it stand-up comedy videos, rants on YouTube or even the memes on Facebook, the use of sarcastic humour has been growing in popularity in the last couple of years. While social media is becoming one of the major providers of daily dose of humour, the meme pages on it have especially brought comedy within the reach of a scroll. And since the meme pages and YouTube videos generate money in return, it benefits both the content creator and the consumer. But wait! Everything is not so merry. These scenarios also have a dark side. Let me shed some light on this "dark side" of the humour business.
Social media is often considered as a “virtual world” where people behave differently from the “real world”. However, in my opinion, people are more “real” online than they are in actual life. And by “real”, I mean they are more at liberty to express their emotions and views. People express hate very openly online, whereas there are “confession pages” to express love. Despite the fact that a confession page is not actually dedicated to posts or comments concerning hate, we are however free to write hate comments whilst beating our chest in pride. We don’t need any disguise, do we? And that barely surprises me, because we live in a society where hate is more acceptable than love. And if you have the cunning skill of masking it with humour, you can literally sell hate and make millions.
A new “trend” is on the rise since the last six months, tagging friends in memes. It brought a downpour of notifications, almost like a soothing monsoon. Apparently, this phenomenon serves as an indicator of “true friendship”. It seems to show that a friend who tags you in memes, actually cares about you or at least thinks about you. However, people or subjects in the memes were often disregarded. Even worse, they were made fun of unethically.
Consider an example, I once saw a meme featuring a black girl, and the caption said: “I will only marry Rahul, tag a Rahul for me”. I am sure you have also seen memes like that and I hope you have not tagged anybody in them. What was more surprising was, the post had over five thousand likes and even more comments. Comments were mostly of people mentioning their friends named ‘Rahul’ with utmost sincerity and zero sensitivity. Had they been sensitive, they would have recognized that marrying a black woman (or man) is neither a sin nor is comical. That post was simply racist, so were the admins and people mentioning their friends. Of course, they don’t realize it, just like the ones who use racism to promote their business, such as those of fairness creams and other cosmetic products, who often idolize the so called ‘superstars’ of film industry like Shah Rukh Khan and others just for their fairness and fame, don’t realize they are racists. This is just one example among many other type of memes floating around on social media that strengthen the stereotypical sick mentalities like misogyny and racism. There is a fine line between comedy and insult. The memes that are insulting simply shows the character of the person who made them, shared them or laughed at (or raged on) them. Making fun of people based on their color, weight, disability etc., shows the lack of maturity and failure in becoming a civilized human being.
On a brighter side, there are some memes that are in fact funny and ironically challenge the established bad customs or bad governance at the same time. For example, I love when I see a meme mocking the dowry or any other ill traditions because I believe humour is the best way to say the most important things in life. And social media being one of the most powerful media in this day and age, must be used to say these things that make a difference. Therefore, I ask the meme makers in a voice more determined and less spiteful: Make memes great again!
So, the next time you see a meme asking you to tag your friend, think for a second about person/subject in the meme; think of the consequences that it may cause on the lives involving it. Make sure your source of laughter isn’t actually someone else's insensitive perspective of looking at people and things. Further, in case you are the one being tagged in such meme, you should be bold enough to take a stand against it. If you see a post that you feel is wrong, comment your opinion, share it. Although there is a chance that it might get lost in the numerous mentions, but your voice will be far more important than all of their laughter combined. Amidst all those who idiotically mention others, there is still a hope that someone who thinks like you, might share your post and make your voice stronger. I know you wouldn’t believe me, but if you did just this much, you will put a small step forward in the direction that everyone dreams of, making world a better place! For everyone.
