Meme at Your Own Risk
Memes have evolved to become a new hybrid of protest art that our country hasn’t received before. Unlike other protests, memes are hard to take down or stop given the variable nature of them and how difficult it is to take something down in the networked public sphere. In a matter of minutes, a whole campaign can begin. Memes are simple to make, don’t require much skill, easy to share and distribute, and they can be comprehended within a matter of seconds. Individuals can relate more to a picture than they could ever to a long page of text which gives memes their power.
Some aspects that require a meme to go viral is it to be relevant, humor (or evoke emotion in general), to be creative, and to be easy to understand. There also might be personal criteria that one might set for a meme to qualify as being worthy enough to post or share on their social media accounts.
While memes tend to be light-hearted and not too controversial, some boundaries are crossed when sharing and creating these pictures. A group that experienced this the most was the incoming Harvard Class of 2021. Upon being accepted to Harvard, admitted students in the class of 2021 started group chats, group me, and facebook groups to talk and get to know each other. One group was oriented to sending funny memes, and while it started out innocently a counter group began that was dedicated to sharing more R-rated memes.
posted a story about the inappropriate group chat, and the Admissions Team of Harvard reviewed the case and revoked 10 incoming freshmen’ admissions to the university. To me, the students felt pressure to some of the requirements to go viral (in a smaller setting) in a very inappropriate way. They wanted to be the ones to provoke the most emotion in the group to grab the attention of others. I support the decision that the Harvard admission team made, but what concerns me is younger adults don’t understand the influence a meme can have. Most younger individuals just take memes as jokes and don’t realize the potential harm that they can have. This can lead to manipulation of these individuals especially with negative memes being shared in echo chambers. They will only be subjected to these obscene memes which just reaffirms their previous beliefs and or prejudices.
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