Meme Culture Presentation Reflection
Political elements are always embedded in memes. When I was skimming at Donald Trump’s executive order memes online, I was surprised by netizens’ creativity and ability to express satire in funny ways. At the same time I was thinking about a question: why it seems that political memes go vital more easily and faster than critical comments even though they bear the same function — to express satire and discontent toward current events. When Trump’s travel ban came out, all kinds of memes were created and spread overnight. Now several months have past since the execution of the ban, what remained in people’s minds most impressively might be memes related to the executive order. From my perspective, the popularity and spreadability of memes lie mainly in three aspects: first, its symbolic feature makes it easy to be remembered; second, its simple and straightforward layout (image + words) makes it easy to be comprehended; third, its use of humor alleviates radical and provocative emotions that might otherwise be expressed in other forms (e.g. protest and criticism). If we carefully examine each meme, it’s not hard to notice that each of them has a symbolic figure/pattern/cartoon figure. These images, as subjects, constitute main parts of memes. Most of the time the subjects of the same event are identical. What makes each meme different is the texts that are created. These words, although saying different things, all target the same: to joke around certain topic. And since the same image appear again and again as the subject of memes, people are able to remember them easily and understand the undertone even before they read texts. These memes are products of the combination of politics and entertainment. They are the most sensitive and explicitly political-related entertainment, whereas the least provocative and radical protest against the authorities. In addition, its entertaining effects bring people an escapist pleasure by which their anger and discontent are able to be transitorily forgotten.
