Dreams or Memes, the Latter it Seems

The life of a millennial in the 21st century. We all have our smartphones filled with social networking apps of all varieties. The cycle of unwinding after a long day of work or just simply a long day is our daily dose of memes. When was the last time you actually checked social media for the sole purpose of learning and sharing your experiences with others?

We live in a time where memes fill up our news feeds and meme pages and admins enjoy attention in the public’s eye. Sarcasm Society is far more ideal and adorned than the actual one. I’ve seen friendships forged, people united by the type of memes they follow and share. So when did we start judging people based on the memes they follow?
To understand this let us look at how memes came to be in the first place.

Wikipedia defines an internet meme as an activity, concept, catchphrase, or piece of media that spreads, often as mimicry or for humorous purposes, from person to person via the internet.

The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene as an attempt to explain the way cultural information spreads.

We see with the every expanding amount of normie memes and demand for more fresher dank memes/crossover memes, it have become a effective tool for propagating various ideas, major world events, celebrity trolling, etc in a very humorous manner. It also acts as platform to provide publicity to both the meme pages and the people who are being trolled. This leads to the creation of a meme culture where different memes are tailored to suit the preferences of different audiences. This also leads to the basis of why the most popular memes like Kermit the Frog or Be like Bill, etc are the ones most people can easily relate to. It also must be easily reproducible to ensure its spread and popularity. 

All said and done, memes aren't all that hunky dory as we would like to be. Memes are still a major distraction which prompts  us to spend a lot of time on social networking sites which has a detrimental effects on our productivity. Meme addiction is a real thing nowadays. People spend countless hours reading and sharing memes, handling meme groups, etc. This is because memes tend to make you happy and help you forget your problems you face in the real world.

People are getting stuck in this world of virtual happiness that they do not want to come out and work to achieve it in reality.

The content of memes have also come into much debate over the recent times. To satisfy and entertain the audience, more and more memes pertaining to aspects of dark humour, gender and racial stereotypes are being created. We know that memes are just for humour and always need to be taken with a pinch of salt, but some of these go overboard to the extent of fueling racial hatred or establishing gender discrimination on public forums. Adults may have the temperament to brush aside the negative aspects but children who are the major followers of meme pages may not be able to do the same. This leads to the spread of uninformed opinions on sensitive issues which may have a detrimental impact on their growth. Memes should never compromise moral ethics for the purpose of providing humour and gaining popularity. Such content must be reported and brought down.

Meme creators too play a very important role. They’re responsible for the content which helps humour their audiences.  Creators are provided with a creative outlet to test their material and measure their audience’s response. Out of all the thousands of meme creators and pages, very few are able to capitalize on their newfound popularity and develop further to succeed. Making memes can be done as an engaging hobby but people take it up too seriously and do not spend time to work on their actual shortcomings or planning how to move forward.

The same applies for various political and societal issues. Many people spend time in making memes and laughing at these issues but very few actually take steps to solve them. Sometimes memes tend to portray serious issues in a comedic and light tone which affects the importance people give to these issues and takes away from the intended meaning.

This article comes in the wake of the decision taken by EU to pass article 11 and 13 which effectively bans memes as we know. Although I strongly feel that this isn’t the best solution, we do require some form of regulation in terms of content which is not controlled by the government to make memes all the more enjoyable.

Like all good things, memes also should be taken in moderation. I myself am a meme enthusiast which gave me the inspiration to write this. The final question as people we need to ask ourselves:

Are we to spend our time laughing endlessly at memes or work towards achieving our dreams?