The Appropriation of Memes
CHRISTA ASSI | FEB. 16, 2018 | FEATURE
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (SCPDA) — From teenagers sharing inside jokes to media outlets communicating on serious issues, memes have become a widely-known topic of discussion as internet culture permeates the mainstream consciousness, especially for millennials and younger generations. However, the origin of the phenomenon is somewhat ambiguous. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, “meme” is short for the Ancient Greek word “mimeme” meaning “imitated thing.” The name was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 as a biological unit that should be considered a living structure. Dawkins ambiguously described memes as “cultural unit that spread like wildfire.” Over time, the term has evolved and is now most commonly used as a name for concepts, phrases or images that “go viral” or spread across the internet quickly like Pepe, Mocking SpongeBob and many others.
Though most memes are humorous, their growing popularity has sparked speculation regarding the greater impact they have on social issues, whether that be positive or negative. As more millennials and media outlets use memes to target serious matters, it becomes difficult to set a boundary for when humor is an appropriate tool. At Stanton College Preparatory School, many students believe this distinction is subjective.
“All topics are appropriate for humor,” said senior A’Kye Smith. “You can’t say something is not appropriate for humor based off of opinion. All humor is opinion-based.”
Memes have been known to cover a wide variety of subjects. But the concern may not be the content of memes themselves, but rather how people choose to perceive them.
“Memes are healthy as long as they are viewed as ironic humor and nothing much else,” said senior Patrick Lehman.
“You can’t say something is not appropriate for humor based off of opinion. All humor is opinion-based.”
During the 2016 presidential election many internet users used memes as a way to express their political beliefs on social media. One popular meme was “Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton.” These memes depicted an amusing “issue” above them and each candidate’s “stance” stated below. Pictures of both Clinton and Sanders would be presented beside each other with the referenced concept above them and their “opinion” on the referenced topic. Many variations of the meme arose comparing each “stance” to popularly known topics, such as Harry Potter. The overarching purpose of this particular meme was to portray Clinton’s disconnect with the younger demographics and lack of relatability from the millennial perspective. However, many of Clinton's supporters argued that these memes were sexist and played into the stereotype that women are not funny or likable.
The rise of certain memes has demonstrated the potential for memes to be offensive. Pepe, a cartoon character introduced in 2005 by artist Matt Furie, was featured in the comic strip “Boy’s Club” but was popularized on the website 4chan, reaching the height of its fame in 2015. Pepe has been informally called the “sad frog meme” and is often used for the expression of emotion in a socially “relatable” manner. However, the meme has been subject to some reappropriation. As the character reached prominence within internet culture, a peculiar movement arose; individuals and groups affiliated with white nationalism, the ”alt-right” and neo-Nazism began to incorporate the cartoon frog into their propaganda, this rebranding it a hate symbol.
In an article published by The Daily Beast on May 26, 2016, an anonymous 19-year-old white nationalist commented that there is “a campaign to reclaim Pepe from normies.” “Normies” meaning “mainstream members of society who have no knowingly abhorrent political views or unsavory hobbies.” Due to Pepe’s declaration as a hate symbol, Furie stopped using the character to avoid association with alt-right behavior; on May 6, 2017, he posted his final comic strip featuring Pepe, showing him dead in a casket. Which in turn, by abandoning the creation, implies he as well “killed Pepe.”
Rona Akbari, a fellow at BuzzFeed and a class of 2014 Stanton graduate, expressed her opinion on “where to draw the line” on the extent of meme usage, stating that, “I think with any form of speech, including memes and jokes, the line is drawn when it comes to anti-semitism, transphobia, Islamophobia, etc.”
While memes do have a characteristic use of infusing hard news with levity, it is questionable that their use may be of something greater than basic humor. Millennial viewpoints on memes direct toward the singular purpose of humor. Memes act as the icebreaker in a situation of current events that appear as inadmissible.
“I think with any form of speech, including memes and jokes, the line is drawn when it comes to anti-semitism, transphobia, Islamophobia, etc.”
“We indulge in these absurd memes as a means of coping with current events,” said Akbari.
This belief persists among Stanton student that memes are a way of coping with the increasingly stressful political climate. As well as memes being a form of unifying people through a mechanism of humor.
“I think the purpose is to dissolve political tension between any type of people so that now everyone can come together as one and laugh at memes,” said senior Shaan Patel.
The similar viewpoints between the students and Akbari give light to the positive spectrum memes can develop. However, social augmentation has made it known that memes carry with them a demeanor of questionable information. People have taken images and real world concepts and have turned them into a dark humor that not only can offend many, but also bring greater speculation as to if memes are appropriate to use for expressing opinions on serious issues. This contradiction is what in fact brings the argument on to what extent memes should be used.