The memeing of life

They spread across the globe as quickly as a virus, but are internet memes actually the antidote to our collective lockdown frustrations?

THE classic recipe for internet alchemy goes something like this. Take one cat. (In absence of a cat, substitute a baby.) Add current political event.

Stir in pop-cultural reference. Drop in a pinch of words (optional).

Marinate on a popular platform for at least 30 minutes.

However, sometimes the recipe is unnecessary — life just delivers.

On January 20, that delivery came in the form of a 79-year-old US senator clad in an unremarkable anorak teamed with hand-made handwear.

Set against the sweep of former presidents, ladies first, and Gaga, Jennifer Lopez in an almost ecclesiastical all-white, Ella Emhoff and Amanda Gorman, the obstinately be-mittened, scowling Bernie Sanders untidily folded atop a deck chair, was perfect meme material.

Instantly the internet was inspired. The Vermont senator was stationed on the deck of the Starship Enterprise, transported back to ‘The Last Supper’ and atop the Iron Throne.

In what has been a seemingly endless lockdown, increasingly we

scream into the online void via memes.

Our collective pandemic frustrations have been captured and distilled into 10 words or less. And apparently also sometimes through the medium of Paul Rudd. A Hollywood actor as cultural medium was technically not beyond the remit conceived by British biologist Richard Dawkins when he coined the term ‘meme’ 45 years ago.

But for all its insight, the projection of a unit, in The Selfish Gene, of cultural transmission spread by imitation could not have predicted its manifestation in the online hegemony of, for instance, a grumpy cat.

For this, it first required its adoption by BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti, which brought it forward into the internet age (the word, not the cat).

In her book, Merchants Of Truth: Inside The News Revolution, former New York Times executive editor

Jill Abramson describes how a pre-BuzzFeed Peretti recognised that the rapid circulation around the world’s media of a 2001 email exchange he’d had with Nike’s marketing department about his choice of ‘sweatshop’ on a trainer promotion had conformed to the characteristics of the term ‘meme’.

“Peretti had started a chain reaction organically and had seen it grow to reach millions of people on all seven continents,”

Abramson wrote.

“What had started as a laugh

among a circle of friends began racing around the world like a virus… It struck him that the email chain behaved according to a framework he recognised from his college biology courses. “Without really trying,” he wrote, “I had released what biologist Richard Dawkins describes as a meme.”

And yet, while we can sequence the DNA of an actual virus, there remains less of the trial and more of the error for those looking to make their memes flourish.

Some, however, make it look easy.

The group, ‘Ireland Simpsons Fans’ on Facebook has over 150,000 members, adding 20,000 in the first six weeks of lockdown.

Its approach is intentionally organic.

“Many of those in the group would be described as millennials, so posts that appeal to our growing sense of nostalgia are often popular,” explains a spokesperson for the group.

“Remember those lads who used to take shots of houses from overhead and sell them to our parents? A meme on that got over 4,000 likes. A post on [Tayto] Banshee Bones is guaranteed box office.

“Our members are growing up and getting older — there was a spate of posts on the fear of turning 30, while we have seen a lot of content around new parenthood. This led to a recent epiphany on my part — do young people view Simpsons memes in the way I viewed those chain messages my parents sent when phones first came out? Am I so out of touch? But then I thought, no.

“Sometimes the members will

respond well to posts that are totally off the wall. The Shawshank meme is an example of this. It’s difficult to explain. Basically it was a mash-up of The Simpsons, The Shawshank Redemption and a litany of references taking the piss out of popular formats on the page. The post consisted of 19 panels. We haven’t seen the likes of it since.”

The abundance of media organisations who trade in virality means there are always openings for those who can spin internet gold, and the myriad opportunities for monetisation.

That shouldn’t suggest cynical motivations. The joy of memes is that they connect us — with a community, a generation, a group — as thousands of WhatsApp users, whose groups have become little more than a steam of memes during lockdown, will attest.

A meme is all the better if the humour or cultural reference point is slightly obtuse or esoteric, because that makes the club a little bit more exclusive.

Psychological Society of Ireland President-Elect Dr Vincent McDarby agrees that sometimes memes can be shibboleths.

“Some memes, particularly those shared by people who are deeply involved in the internet, are hard to understand. They’re very in-group humour. The podcast Reply All sometimes reviews memes and in some the humour is just so obscure. You have to be aware that one thing happened, and then the next thing happened and all of the connections between them.

“And if you get it and you can see

the humour, there’s a sense of identity, because if I share that, the only other people who will find it funny are the people who have the same knowledge that I do and are able to join the dots.”

But as online activity becomes increasingly tribal, memes too can polarise audiences. And as much we want to signal that we’re part of something, we also want to signify that we’re not part of something else. “There’s a danger when you put a nuanced opinion or a new piece of knowledge into something that’s very short and snappy,” says McDarby.

“When we compress big ideas down into digestible pieces intended to provoke a reaction, there’s always a danger in that. Particularly for political ones that relate to identity, those issues aren’t straightforward and memes don’t necessarily promote critical thinking.”

What of Sanders? Whatever his politics, he is an astute politician with a precise instinct for messaging. Plenty of elected officials affect that polished political dressing is a sop to the bourgeoisie. As such, aggressively casual attire as political theatre is a strategy that has been well rehearsed.

Intentional or otherwise, the Sanders campaign’s response to the online reaction was as swift as it was effective. By the evening of January 21 — the day after the inauguration — Sanders’ team was selling ‘Chairman Sanders’ merchandise on his website.

Between the merchandise and charitable donations made by the mittens-maker, over $2m has been raised for local Vermont charities.

It may have been Biden’s day but it was Sanders who turned gloves into gold.

If you get it and you can see the humour, there’s a sense of identity, because if I share that, the only other people who will find it funny are the people who have the same knowledge that I do and are able to join the dots