More than just a meme.

Source: Meme Centre

The 60's was defined by Vietnam War, The Beatles, Woodstock and the first man on the moon. The 80's were known for arcade games, bad hair cuts, Michael Jackson and boomboxes. But what cultural products will symbolise our generation?

In considering our high culture perspective on a low culture topic, I pondered the significance of memes in popular culture. While it is easy to dismiss memes as nothing more than a joke, the fact that internet material has been spread profusely over the last ten years (we traced it back to 1998 and All Your Base Are Belong To Us) and has grown exponentially in terms of exposure means that it probably not just a passing fad or a trend. From my observations thus far I think it would be safe to say that memes both reflect and shape our cultural realities. 

Popular culture has always been influenced by and is a commentary of significant events of our time. If music, television and movies have the power to shape our understanding of culture, then surely the internet and memes are not different?

I see our web feature as being able to answer this question, to uncover and deconstruct the internet meme genre and document its effect in popular culture. I think it's a great time to be asking this question as well as there is very little material on this topic. There are plenty of platforms and forums of which to share meme content but none detailing its significance or the nature of viral content. Especially since memes have gone beyond that of specific forums like Reddit and 4Chan which are catered to a very specific audience with an extensive knowledge of certain pop culture topics like film and games to a broader mass medium like Facebook. The actual content of memes themselves indeed have a more mass appeal (as I detailed in my first post) allowing for wider reach and much of the humour is no longer specific to a particular event or issue - in fact it can be reshaped and catered to suit the experiences of any one (like the way colleges and specific suburbs have meme pages on Facebook).

It's obviously quite a heavy question, one which we we can endeavour to provide answers (or at the very least insight) to our target audience, the meme user. We hope that our audiences' daily interaction with memes will spark a need to understand what significance their meme sharing and creating has on the shaping and reflection of culture. It will be interesting to see historians looking back on our generation one day and wondering how something as ridiculous as planking was legitimate trending behaviour or how pictures of funny cats with incorrect grammar was found to be so humourous to so many people.