Memes are perhaps the most widely disseminated visual format of the present day, if not all of time. They can and are fruitfully used by different communities and subcultures to construct an identity, to sharpen their commitments, to define their shared values and attributes by contrasting themselves to an Other via humor. However, though they are an uniquely important part of our visual culture, very little theoretical exploration has been conducted or supported regarding the social and political functions of memes. Our purpose at Meme Insider was to prompt exactly this kind of exploration and innovation in the meme. Its signifiers, its templates, its origins and sources, its means of dissemination, its sociological function in building communities – all these and more of the meme’s different aspects were illuminated by our contributors.
Visual media have played similar roles for a long time – paintings throughout history have served this very purpose, for example. However, the meme plays a key role in articulating identities in ways that other media perhaps have not. The Meme Insider promoted work that explored exactly this issue. The submissions we have received teach very much about the multifarious facets of this process and its workings. At the most theoretical level, we can extract two perspectives regarding the operational features of the meme, features which further justify the continuation of its study as an element of visual culture. Memes serve two interesting roles in community construction: signaling and recruitment. The community in question marks out its boundaries and values by using another community (or the symbols salient to one) as a foil, visually and conceptually riffing on it to fix their own values – this is the signaling role; and it publicly deploys the memes as a mechanism for coopting other people, for bringing outsiders into the fold – this is the recruitment role. Our hope is that the Meme Insider has been able to set a meaningful precedent illustrating the potential of furthering study in these directions.