[dropcap]I[/dropcap]magine you are scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit etc. and you see a meme. Then as you keep on scrolling you see more and more. Eventually, you fall into a spiral of memes that you can’t escape. Each month a “meme” whether old or new is brought into the light and goes viral. People spread and change them to transform into more amounts of absurd nonsense.

What is a Meme?

“A ‘meme’ is a cultural artifact that spreads throughout a population. For example, a meme of the 1990s would be Pokémon cards. In a short amount of time, they became extremely popular, thanks to word-of-mouth, children’s natural drive to conform and, of course, marketing.” says Justin Adams in his article A Brief history of memes and How They’re Destroying Our Political Culture. They are a form of language used by internet users especially millennials. You can make a meme out of almost anything when it comes to the internet. 

My View

People these days like to turn any controversial or relatable topic into an inside joke amongst the internet community-i.e. a meme. I would not go as far as to say memes are destroying the internet or mankind itself but, they are destroying peoples ways of thinking. Memes can be more of a coping mechanism that some people turn to when things aren’t satisfactory in their lives because they give some comical relief. Although I don’t speak for everyone when I say that, some may just be in it for the fun or forced by the social construct of the internet. While most of the “meme population” has consisted of millennials, others have started joining in.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]“English isn’t the only language this is becoming universal; the language of Internet is too.”- Carol Engholm. [/perfectpullquote]

“Memes” are an opportunity for people’s creativity to widen but the thinking process becomes numb and less analytical. Which is why the future generation’s will eventually find these things we call memes and be utterly confused. They could very much also be in complete understanding of them because of how much it is apart of some people’s lives right now.

Toby Gibbs in his article That meme you are about to repost could make America stupider greatly describes meme culture: “Any meme, no matter how stunningly idiotic, seems to resonate with the people predisposed to agree with it.” Yes, “memes” have a culture and its basically a second language for anybody regularly using the internet.

Study Found

According to a study done by David S. Miall and Teresa Dobson called Reading Hypertext and the Experience of Literature, “Those who read documents with hypertext didn’t retain as much information as those who read text without links. Indeed, book reading is under stimulating. That is a good thing because your brain can transfer this information from your “working memory” to “long-term memory.” says an article from Kabir Sehgal. While we are consuming all of these “memes” we are slowing becoming more mindless and less smart.

Opposing view

Many people think that having this humor or these “memes” is actually is making you smarter. Some would say knowledgeable people have a sense of humor because they know more. That is true in some sense because usually knowledgeable people can analyze different things better. If you are looking at the same meme template with different words and such you are just retaining utter nonsense continuously. In this article from Ruth Saxelby she talks about how talking through images beneficial to many. She also says “When fans like the post, share it, or even create their own versions, their interactions generate valuable data on how to market other stuff to them in the future. And just like that, self-expression becomes consumer behavior.

Examples

Vine is a perfect example of pointless humor, even though it is dead it can still be funny there is nothing to digest from it. If people spent more time on studies/jobs/real life/etc. and less time on being a meme they would be a much intelligent person.

Memes have become part of today’s society and culture in many ways. Most thing we see on a daily bases are “memeable”(not a real word). Millennials including myself are just becoming mindless consumers of humorous data. Digesting pure nonsense as a way of turning real-life problems/issues into a mechanism to avoid those problems/issues. According to an article from MIT Technology Review, the average American spends 24 hours a week online, this article is from January of this year, I’m sure it is still about the same.

This table on the left shows how different memes are and how they have changed. Back in 2010, it was the basic text over image format. Now there are so many different formats and templates it’s almost overwhelming. The evolution of memes is one of the most uninteresting yet interesting things ever not to be biased or anything. It seems the memes making people dumber keep getting dumber. I’m not trying to say memes are an epidemic that needs to be stopped I’m just saying people who follow meme content are beginning to lose their intelligence if they had any to start with. According to an article from Media Kix meme accounts are the fastest growing on Instagram. The reason they are so popular is that they are easy to digest fast, they appeal to millennials, and they are also highly shareable.

A meme that started on Reddit and was one of the most popular on Instagram last month was the “moth meme”(Shown on the right). As you can tell it’s pretty dumb but hilariously absurd. Hilariously absurd is a common theme when a comes to memes lately. Fairly recently a band of “bread” memes have surfaced, yes you heard that right, “bread” memes. Once again proving that memes are dumb and they are making people dumber.

Conclusion

Overall, my statement has two sides to it. I feel that my generation is becoming dumber every day or at least every time a meme surfaces. On the other hand, one could argue they are making us smart because of the creative freedom. I believe they are dumbing/numbing our brains to think less analytical.

Featured image by Max Pixel