By Haya Al Hazmi
Memes can be viewed as a second language that is spoken among similar cultures. They're used to express feelings, mock our friends, and share inside jokes with them, make judgments about the world, and so on. They bring people together and provide everyone the opportunity to express themselves. Memes come in a variety of forms, including cultural, political, marketing, and humorous memes. In this article, I'll focus on the various types of memes, and the meme culture in general. In addition, I'll look at how memes on the internet are employed as a key instrument in cultural jamming.
Many anti-consumerists employ culture jamming as a means of disrupting media culture. It tries to expose a mass society's dominant practices to promote progressive change. Many cultural jams aim to reveal the questionable political assumptions that underpin commercial culture. According to Christine Harold, cultural jamming is a sort of media activism that aims to undercut multinational businesses' marketing rhetoric, notably through techniques such as media hoaxing, corporate sabotage, billboard liberation, and trademark infringement. It frequently takes the form of parody or sarcasm.
With the growing popularity of political memes, a mass audience is now able to get involved and share their political thoughts on the internet. Political memes in a sense elicit an emotional response by the inside jokes they carry. What's intriguing about political memes is that they may effectively convey the truth about politics humorously and appealingly. When they give people a sense of belonging to a group and make them feel that they can freely discuss a certain political issue, most likely in a light-hearted manner, they have succeeded. Political memes are powerful as well since in some cases they can affect political decisions. In Hilary Clinton's case, for example, memes did play a role in her losing the elections. Several memes indicating Clinton was weak or unwell and fatigued were generated. Images showing her utilizing lumbar support pillows in seated interviews, stumbling downstairs, having to rely upon or hang on to others, or making strange facial expressions surfaced, prompting questions about her wellbeing and whether she'd be capable of managing a state at all. Although these were not supported by medical evidence, that false information was circulating all around the internet and a lot of individuals believed it which might be part of the reason why Clinton lost the elections.
In the United States, fair use is a doctrine. In essence, it permits restricted use of copyrighted content without first obtaining permission from the owner of the copyright. Because it can incorporate parody, criticism, and sarcasm, certain memes may not prove to be problematic because they are protected under the fair use principle.
Because memes are so easily shared, businesses are incorporating them into their marketing strategies. Memes are a recommended technique to engage with the audience as they're a fun, simple way of advertising that attracts the attention of most users. It's usually simple since all one must do is use an already viral meme and tie it to their band, which increases the likelihood of the meme getting viral. Marketing memes are used to entertain customers of a specific brand and so create value through entertainment. In this instance, we can consider commodity fetishism, companies that use memes to market their products hope to spice up their feed by providing a fun environment for their customers. The relationship and value set in this case are not between customers and producers, but rather by the memes that not only raise the recognition of a certain company or a product but also cause the viewers and consumers to laugh.
Gucci, for example, created its memes to advertise its new watch collection. Although there were some issues as to why Gucci would utilize a style of promotion that would attract the attention of younger generations who would most likely be unable to purchase their watches, it was still a wise decision. This is because the main goal is to make a lasting impression on customers that they will recall even after a while.
When it comes to cultural and humorous memes, we can relate both to each other. Memes provide people a sense of belonging by allowing them to generate inside jokes that they can share with others based on their own culture. Even though different cultures have different opinions and ideas, and memes may be regarded as funny in some places but not in others, memes can be a way of bringing people together owing to globalization. Younger generations are coming together to share memes that they identify with; in certain situations, memes are being used as a coping mechanism. This is also referred to as "Dark Humour." They make jokes about taboo or sensitive themes, such as death or illness, to cope with the difficulties, they may be facing. This is comparable to the term "global village," which refers to the phenomena of the entire world being increasingly interconnected. Certain individuals facing different difficulties feel comfort when they read something they can relate to but at the same time makes them laugh.
What role do memes play in culture jamming? As mentioned earlier, another method that media consumers use the media to challenge dominant ideology is through culture jamming. They can be accomplished using politics or humor, but I'm particularly interested in how memes are used to accomplish this goal. Because memes can be created by anybody and viewed by a mass audience, they can be a useful tool for allowing others to understand the true meaning behind a message. Using memes as a tool for culture jamming creates laughter as well as an insight into what is occurring around individuals socially or politically. Moreover, memes can be shared and discussed between individuals light-heartedly allowing more space for communication and expressing thoughts peacefully.
Eventually, memes have altered how we communicate with one another. Although many people feel it is merely used for laughs, it has a significant impact. Nevertheless, it is vital to comprehend the growing popularity of communicating using memes, as well as the ramifications of this trend. What role do political memes have in getting the general public active in politics? Are marketing memes exploiting humor to alter our personal views? What role do humorous and cultural memes play in globalization?
Bibliography
- Taylor & Francis. 2021. Marxian Value Theory and the Problem of the Subject: The Role of Commodity Fetishism. [online] Available at: <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08935698908657868> [Accessed 25 November 2021].
- Ross.mayfirst.org. 2021. [online] Available at: <http://ross.mayfirst.org/files/carducci-vince-culture-jamming-soc.pdf> [Accessed 25 November 2021].
- Escholarship.org. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://escholarship.org/content/qt96h003jt/qt96h003jt.pdf> [Accessed 25 November 2021].
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