A Look at Memes

Welcome back! Again, if this is your first time here, you can check out my first post to get more information. The prompt this week is about memes. Memes have been around for quite some time. They take not just the form of text pasted over an image, but also the forms of videos, specific phrases, and even charts. We can look closer at a meme to understand its rhetorical function. Let’s get started!

First I will be talking about an article we read for class titled “Subversive Memes: Internet Memes as a Form of Rhetoric” by Heidi Huntington. In her article, Huntington discusses what memes really are, as well as three different approaches to analyzing them. First is the semiotic approach that says that memes have meaning and can be interpreted as such. Second is the discursive approach which centers around the idea that knowledge is gained by using language (discourse). Finally we have the visual rhetoric approach which views memes as communicating through symbols. Another point Huntington brings up is that decoding a meme can reveal information about the time and place it was prevalent during.

In her conclusion, Huntington writes that “Memes are more than internet humor; research shows them to function by appropriation and resistance to dominant media messages” (3). For the most part, I agree with this. Yes, memes often are a collection of references to other memes or events (a meme has “layers”). They can be said to “appropriate” other content and remake it for a new purpose. However, as for “resistance to dominant media messages” I am not sure I agree with that. I would like an example of what she means. Furthermore, memes sometimes are just internet humor. They are created to make internet users laugh or smile. They are not always trying to convey a message (political or otherwise). Now we’ll take a look at a meme ourselves.

This was a popular meme a while back. As with all memes, this one allows people to use the basic frame and make their own joke with it. The one above is about WiFi (if that wasn’t obvious). The audience is smartphone users, or even people who use any device that needs to connect to WiFi. The message is that the WiFi symbol sometimes shows that the device is connected, but you know it actually isn’t. This meme is pretty surface-level compared to other memes, so it does not reflect a specific cultural context other than being targeted towards users of the internet.

I would love to hear if you have a favorite meme, so comment below and let me know! See you next week.

Clarissa