Meme Culture Reflection

Since the introduction of social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, there has been a considerable change in the way people distribute, receive and interpret news. With these sources of information that provide quick hits of entertainment and dopamine, we have seemingly developed shorter attention spans for how we interact with these media platforms. Because of this shorter attention span, the means by which these news hubs spread informationhas transformed, as they now have to attract possible consumers to read or click on their stories. As a result, full fleshed stories are generally captured by a quick attention grabbing quotation followed by a "click bait" headline that is sometimes vaguely or not even related to the story in itself. The social media accounts of these news hubs have also began to use modern day cultural methods of commentary on social, political or economic events, such as memes. The usage of memes has greatly expanded from simply creating a hilarious cultural piece that accurately encapsulates a time frame and will be constantly referenced in our day to day conversations, but now as a visual means to spread news and impact people more quickly. For example, in the infancy of the Trump presidency, we have seen memes referencing his infamous "quotables" while also using them as a means to fact check every statement he makes. The most recent of the headlines being Trump vs the NFL protests, as a common meme that has been seen throughout Twitter is pictures of the animalistic mob of white supremacists, described as "very fine people," and peacefully protesting NFL players kneeling during the national anthem, who were called "sons of bitches". Although this is clearly a simplification of the thoughts of our president, it is an effective and almost more impactful means to spread this news with the juxtaposition of images. While all news stories should not be put into meme form, it can still be a very powerful tool to those who would like to spread a message or relay a sentiment.