Memes

By Sarah A. Basma

One of the most significant aspects of visual culture is the “meme”. At its simplest, memes are a way of broaching an idea through an amusing approach. Emerging as a viral, shareable, and extremely reproducible phenomenon, its discursive power in digital society became evident. Internet memes are defined as a mode of digital cultural production which have an impact on different aspects of society. Some of these aspects comprise politics, mediascape, surveillance, photographic connotation, and copyright/trademark. As a result, memes are rendered into tools that are responsible for transmitting ideology, politics, or propaganda. Moreover, the intentions for which memes have been used since their emergence vary. Memes have acted as forms of amusement, political statements, and marketing tools. In this essay, I will be addressing memes through the lenses of Foucault and Sturken.

The first aspect that is particularly interesting in the world of memes is the latent interlinkage between the world of surveillance, marketing, and memes. As the world of social media grows in scale, surveillance expands to utilize algorithms to market products to people. Foucault defines surveillance, “to induce in the inmate state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action.” (1997, p.201). Foucault proceeds to explain that surveillance is in effect even when it is not in exercise. In this sense, the particular way social media platforms utilize algorithms and gather your data functions as a way of surveillance that is continuous, similar to the idea of the panopticon. In fact, “When algorithms designed to track our browsing and clicking habits and our eye movements are computed to generate data about our patterns and habits, that data is computed to optimize strategies for marketing to us as individuals” (Sturken and Cartwright, 2018, p.291). As a result of this, advertising utilizes your data and anything you are interested in, proceeding to display similar content on your timeline. One of these types of content is the meme, which has a strong role in marketing. Indeed, "Viral marketing deploys the meme networks through which people pass on ideas to their friends. These strategies began initially as ways of creating clever content that would attract attention online.” (Sturken and Cartwright, 2018, p.292). One example of viral marketing through memes would be the recent Netflix show “Squid Game”, which gained enormous attention after its memes circulated widely on social media platforms. Most of these memes were salient with political connotations, which Barthes defines, “Connotative meanings are informed by the cultural and historical contexts of the image and its viewers’ lived, felt knowledge of those circumstances—all that the image means to them personally and socially” (Sturken and Cartwright, 2018, p.29). Similarly, memes can be used as tools for propaganda, inciting ideas through both connotative and denotative means. For example, Hillary Clinton used a meme in her campaign as a way to encourage women to be drafted into the military. According to Sturken, “Such marketing has now become extremely effective in disseminating messages (designed to not look like marketing) via online social networks” (2018, p.292). Therefore, many politicians or prominent figures have taken up memes to further spread their ideology, notably using social media networks. However, many of them have not given much thought to the issue of copyright, where plenty have been entrapped in a vicious legal cycle due to the illegal use of memes.

Another aspect of viral memes is the controversial issue of copyright that it strings along. According to Sturken and Cartwright, “Copyright law is based on the premise that ownership of creative expression can be traced to a single entity, whether an individual or a company" (2018, p.58). Since memes are pictures taken from the television show itself or any popular culture production, the issue of copyright ascends to the surface. One of the most prevalent memes that caused a copyright issue is the “socially awkward meme”. The original picture owners “Getty Images”, filed infringement cases against internet users who posted the meme, claiming that it was a violation. Another case of copyright issue is the case of popular memes such as the “Disaster Girl” and “Distracted Boyfriend” memes. These spread virally on the internet and got repeatedly distorted or had their meanings changed by other creators, which stimulated a lot of copyright infringement cases by the original creators. Since there are plenty of versions of memes on the internet, the owners might choose not to pursue the copyright infringement case. Moreover, in the case of memes, there are a lot of modifications that occur to previous memes, so different versions of the same meme appear frequently on the internet.

One of the most interesting aspects about the meme is that it's widely used as a form of amusement interweaved with political connotations. Memes are widely used and have spread on the internet, ranging from social media platforms such as Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram. Examples of memes with political connotations would be the viral “Bernie Sanders” and “Obama and Biden” memes. The picture of Bernie Sanders wearing mittens at the Joe Biden inauguration went viral, which inspired thousands of photoshopped memes. In the picture, Sanders dresses in a brown coat and oversized mittens, looking very humble in a crowd of people dressed very expensively. This meme contributed to a heated political debate between supporters of Joe Biden and allies of Bernie Sanders. Furthermore, it gave Bernie Sanders a huge boost in popularity, and he had received little publicity before that due to his political stance. When it comes to the Obama and Biden memes, most of the memes around them are centered around “BROTUS”, where they showcase their friendship through them. This was used as a marketing strategy for Joe Biden’s political campaign, as a lot of people still supported Obama. Therefore, Joe Biden got a lot of campaign traffic from Obama supporters after the memes went viral. On the other hand, memes could also take a more amusing approach. For example, in the Sonic Movie, there’s a meme called “Sanic”, and it was a poorly drawn image of the character. It appears in a movie in a comedic way that adheres to the community of people who are passionate about this meme.

In conclusion, memes could be texts, images, or videos that are amusing, relatable, and sometimes political. They bring forth ideas through an amusing approach. There can be different adaptations of the same meme, which emerges as a viral, shareable, and reproducible phenomenon. What has rendered them so popular is their very flexible nature which permits them to be accessible and easily consumed by anyone with basic internet access. Therefore, memes could be considered as a mode of digital cultural production which have an impact on different aspects of society. In the paper above, I have tackled how memes can have an impact on areas such as politics, mediascape, surveillance, photographic connotation, and copyright/trademark through the lenses of Foucault and Sturken. This has shown the mounting power of memes in all of these areas and its continuing impact on the media landscape, In a world that is increasingly affected by digital society.

References

Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. 2nd Vintage Books ed. New

York: Vintage Books.

Sturken, M. Cartwright, L. (2018). Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.