Internet meme
They appear across a broad spectrum of contexts, including marketing, economics, finance, politics, social movements, religion, and healthcare.
[2] They are highly versatile in form and purpose, serving as tools for light entertainment, self-expression, social commentary, and even political discourse.
An example of this is the combination of U.S. politician Mitt Romney’s phrase “binders full of women” from the 2012 U.S. presidential debate with a scene from the Korean pop song “Gangnam Style.” In this case, the phrase "my binders full of women exploded" is superimposed on a frame from Psy’s music video, creating a new meaning by merging political and cultural references from distinct contexts.
[5] Conversely, some memes achieve widespread cultural relevance, being understood and appreciated by broader audiences outside of the originating subculture.
[3] A study by Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear examined how Richard Dawkins' three characteristics of successful traditional memes—fidelity, fecundity, and longevity—apply to internet memes.
This evolution may involve changes in meaning while retaining the meme’s structure, or vice versa, with such transformations occurring either by chance or through deliberate efforts like parody.
[7] A study by Miltner examined the lolcats meme, tracing its development from an in-joke within computer and gaming communities on the website 4chan to a broader source of humor and emotional support.
[11] In 2013, Dominic Basulto, writing for The Washington Post, argued that the widespread use of memes, particularly by the marketing and advertising industries, has led to a decline in their original cultural value.
[12] The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene as an attempt to explain how aspects of culture replicate, mutate, and evolve (memetics).
Originally started on Reddit as /r/MemeEconomy, users jokingly "buy" or "sell" shares in a meme reflecting opinion on its potential popularity.
[33] Elizabeth Bruenig of the Washington Post described this as a "digital update to the surreal and absurd genres of art and literature that characterized the tumultuous early 20th century".
[39] After the shutdown of Vine in 2017, the de facto replacement became Chinese social network TikTok, which similarly utilises the short video format.
The term describes content lacking in quality and meaning, often associated with slang and trends popular among Generation Alpha, such as "skibidi", "rizz", "gyatt", and "fanum tax".
[45] Internet memes allow brands to circumvent the conception of advertisements as irksome, making them less overt and more tailored to the likes of their target audience.
Fashion house Gucci employed the former strategy, launching a series of Instagram ads that reimagined popular memes featuring its watch collection.
The image macro "The Most Interesting Man in the World" is an example of the latter, a meme generated from an advertising campaign for the Dos Equis beer brand.
[46] Products may also gain popularity through internet memes without intention by the producer themselves; for instance, the film Snakes on a Plane became a cult classic after creation of the website SnakesOnABlog.com by law student Brian Finkelstein.
[48] For example, the fast food company Wendy's began a social media-based approach to marketing that was initially met with success (resulting in an almost 50% profit growth that year), but received criticism after sharing a controversial Pepe meme that was negatively perceived by consumers.
[59] For example, Ted Cruz's 2016 Republican presidential bid was damaged by Internet memes that jokingly speculated he was the Zodiac Killer.
A study explored this in relation to the 2017 UK general election, and concluded that memes acted as a widely shared conduit for basic political information to audiences who would usually not seek it out.
A salient example is Pepe the Frog, which has been used as a symbol for the alt-right political movement, as well as for pro-democracy ideologies in the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests.
[70] They create a participatory culture that enable individuals to collectively make meaning of religious beliefs, reflecting a form of lived religion.
[73] Internet memes were also used in Nigeria to raise awareness of the COVID-19 pandemic, with healthcare professionals using the medium to disseminate information on the virus and its vaccine.
[78] Section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act outlines four factors for analysis of fair use: The first factor implies the secondary use of a copyrighted work should be "transformative" (that is, giving novel meaning or expression to the original work); many memes fulfil this criterion, placing pieces of media in a new context to serve a different purpose to that of the original author.
[80] After this photo became famous and was used hundreds of times without permission, Roth decided to sell the original copy as an NFT for US$539,973 (equivalent to $607,146 in 2023),[81] with an agreement for a further 10 percent share of any future sales.
