(note: I am challenging myself to write every day for 30 days. What follows may not necessarily be interesting or even coherent. Parental discretion is advised.)
Memes! They’re not the innocent little smile nuggets that they pretend to be. These bite-sized morsels of brain candy litter the internet and can replicate themselves quicker than a… uhm, speeding bullet (hangs head in shame).
A few days ago I was lurking about /r/conspiracy over at Reddit when I came across a post from a user expressing dismay at how the death of Jeffery Epstein was reduced to a senseless meme and that it was propaganda likely conceived of and propagated by the evil Russians. Yes, stuff like this is why I visit that subreddit in the first place.
Here is what user surferryan had to say:
To add, it has been made a meme which is a whole other conspiracy…
Like it was edgy kids idk…or was it the government or something like that knowing exactly what they were doing, making it into something so memed that we become numb to it, its a joke after all right and just a meme.
I think what you are saying is very true but you can’t not contribute the meme aspect of it which is just weird to say but clearly we are living in a world where that is a thing ask the Russian government they will tell you right to our face they are fucking with our society that way.
Some glorious examples of the memeification of Jeffery Epstein:
Now, surfer_ryan bemoaned what he felt was Russian propaganda designed to marginalize the importance of Epstein’s death but I saw it differently.
Let’s be honest, as you’re reading this article, you already know who Epstein is and the suspicious circumstances around his death, right? Maybe your first exposure was through one of these memes which prompted you to look into further details.
That’s a good thing. Memes can spread awareness faster than a… uhm, outbreak of syphilis at a … uh.. no, faster than a greasy Usian Bolt.. oh heck, faster than a speeding bullet (hangs head in shame x2).
So what is the origin of the almighty meme? You can thank this guy for coming up with the term in the first place:
Richard Dawkins, legendary atheist, was the first person to specifically describe the meme in his book “The Selfish Gene” published in 1976 while Mark Zuckerberg was still swimming among other sperms in his father’s… okay, you get the idea. The meme was conceived back before the internet was even a thing. Here is Wikipedia’s definition of what a meme is:
A meme (/miːm/ MEEM[1][2][3]) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture — often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme.
[4] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices, that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme.
Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.[5]
So in that discussion on Reddit, I made the point that it was GOOD for Epstein to have become a meme. Russian propaganda notwithstanding, the information that Epstein didn’t kill himself was spread far and wide faster than a speeding bullet all over the interwebs. What better way or method could have sufficed other than to employ the use of a meme as a vehicle to deliver important information quickly and with great contagiousness? Other than the mainstream media (eye roll).
I then made the point to surfer_ryan in our ensuring discussion that the meme is not an exclusive tool of the “elite” to dumb down the masses with; it is a tool that is available for anyone to use. Why not weaponize the meme for purposes of good rather than evil? The only ingredients needed is a bit of creativity and something interesting to say.
Looking at the baby Yoda memes flooding the internet, one has to wonder just how many subscriptions of Disney+ were bought since the Mandalorian debuted on November 12th. The number of users who signed up prior to baby Yoda was placed at ten million.
That number more than doubled in just three weeks.
Disney Plus subscriptions ballooned to an estimated 24 million subscribers three weeks later, according to Cowen analysts. Disney Plus was 2019’s top trending Google search term. And The Mandalorian, the service’s marquee original series, has been a hit — in no small part thanks to Baby Yoda.
Yes, the Mandalorian is a fantastic show and a large part of it’s success is due to how ridiculously cute baby Yoda is. I mean, what couple wouldn’t want to give birth to a child that looks like this?
Evil couples, that’s who. There is likely not one single person left in this world who doesn’t know who baby Yoda or Epstein is. Well, except maybe an 88 year-old nun living in a Spanish convent who doesn’t have access to a cell phone or computer, but you know what I meant. Sheesh.
So, yes. The meme is a powerful tool available for anyone to take advantage of. In these information-saturated times, getting people’s attention is a difficult endeavor and requires creative approaches. The almighty meme can quickly spread awareness about important issues that many of us have little to no idea about when it is done in a cheeky and humorous way.
Also,
