Internet memes

Statista[1] pointed out that 3.5 billion individuals had used internet in 2016, which is nearly half of the global population. Due to the increasing popularity of internet, all sorts of contents can be found and spread across the internet with a press of a button. Internet memes also thrive due to the widely use of internet. However, internet memes can be offensive and normalize cyberbullying if they are misused. According to Schubert[2], "internet memes" are activities, concept, catchphrases or pieces of media which spreads across the cyber world. The word "normalize" refers to return something to the usual situation, in another words is to make something more common than it used to be. Smith et al.[3] define the word "cyberbullying" as an…

communication in today’s culture. What do I meme? The use of the Internet meme has served as a phenomenon that has changed the way people communicate and have had a notable influence on forms of cultural expression. Memes are defined as, “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from one person to another in a culture and often altered in a creative or humorous way (i.e. images, phrases, snapshots, gifs, etc.).” The rise of the meme culture in a fragmented landscape has no doubt exercised…

The advent of modern platforms such as the expansive Internet, that includes social networking and news consumption, along with television viewership and even the use of an app, allows the meme of Waldo to spread rapidly; Waldo evolves into an international phenomenon by the end of the episode. At the close of the show, Waldo is seen across billboards in a Orwellian police state, proving that he has become one of the most powerful memes ever created. According to a passage in our text by Richard…

What is a meme? One would think that the answer would be simple and easy, after all majority of people think of memes as simple things. They are images that show up regularly on their social media sites and most of the time the response they elicit is laughter. Memes make people laugh and that is their purpose, so surely something with a simple purpose wouldn’t have a complicated nature? Well that’s where Limor Shifman would have to disagree with you. She offers a novel definition of memes:…

People encounter memes in their everyday lives, whether it be on message boards, social media websites, or in conversations with friends and colleagues, memes are an inescapable aspect of American society. The first use of the term “meme” was by Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and author, who first used the term to describe the spread of cultural information between individuals within a culture. Internet memes, in particular, are used to spread the culture of the internet among…

Halupka, Max. 2014. Clicktivism: A systematic heuristic.Policy & Internet 6 (2): 115-32. Halupka first starts by discussing why clicktivism has come to be viewed as a useless act in political terms. The article argues that online activism is more than just signing online petitions and liking things. Each action is significant in the fight for some sort of political change. Critics of it view it as a way for people to fulfil their moral obligations without actually doing anything but click a…

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the meme as an element of a Culture (taken here in the sense of civilization) can be regarded as transmitted by nongenetic means, especially through imitation. The term meme was first proposed by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene and comes from an association between gene and mimesis. Dawkins also points to a close kinship with the French word same. Memes were presented by Dawkins as replicators, comparable in this respect to genes, but responsible for the…

Meme Essay Memes are amusing images, videos, phrases etc. that people from all over the world create and spread all over the internet. Memes literally pop up out of nowhere and they show up on social media sites all of the time. They are everywhere and have been popular since the mid 2000’s. Memes are used as a form of a medium that people use to express their creativity and or beliefs. A controversial belief that people typically argue are rights of a particular group of people. Transgender…

Rao, Venkatesh. "Memes Are Not Popular Because They Are Meaningful." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2018. Opposing Viewpoints in Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EZVELA053695431/OVIC?u=jack64631&xid=4ef99e7. Accessed 20 Feb. 2018. Originally published as "How Harambe Became the Perfect Meme," The Atlantic, 6 Sept. 2016. In this article “Memes Are Not Popular Because They Are Meaningful” Venkatesh Rao claims that memes are bad ever since the Harambe accident happened.…

In Susan Blackmore’s “Strange Creatures” she describes the concept of the “memes eye view”. She claims the “memes eye view” is what makes humans different from animals, meaning humans can imitate therefore must be different from animals. As a reader dwells more on the thought of the “memes eye view” they can relate it to life experiences and other works of literature. For example, the “memes eye view” can be seen very clearly in “Bumping into Mr.Ravioli” by Adam Gopnik. In Gopnik’s work he…