Meme Culture Reflection

For my meme culture assignment, I worked with Hayley and Royce. We chose to use a meme of Donald Trump for our project. The meme itself addressed a combination of current events, those being Donald Trump’s term as president of the United States, his stance on and ever-present battle with the Mexican government, and the hurricanes that have plagued the United States and Puerto Rico.

Visually the meme contained a photograph of Trump placed on a background of a shot of the Earth, with the words, “The Mexican government…is forcing hurricanes into the US.” Obviously Trump never uttered these words, but this meme is a clear depiction of America’s views on Trump’s intellect and expected responses to tragedies such as these. Memes have become both an expression of frustration and a means of mockery for young Americans, but for some they may also be a source of news and a way to keep up with current events. If this is the case, then we must be careful when we create memes like this one, as they add to the phenomena known now as “fake news.” It is important that we do our research instead of trusting this method of humor as a source of news. Otherwise we may end up believing some very incorrect information.