Political memes have become very popular in social media in the past few years. This is because they mix humor and emotions with current pressing issues in politics, giving the people who understand them the best of both worlds. But just because they are laughable doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of things that contribute to their virality. For example, in the past few weeks, Twitter has been flooded with memes criticising “anti-vax” parents who refuse to vaccinate their children against diseases because of outdated, inaccurate studies that claim vaccinations lead to autism and other defects.

For people who reject facts, an appeal to emotion might work. Hence, memes with funny pictures and clever text go viral, while the latest research paper from the Journal of the American Medical Association is overlooked. And for the people who do accept the facts, anti-vax memes reinforce their beliefs and highlight the flaws in others’ ways of thinking, mixing satire and sad realities to make people address serious issues. Finally, those who are not educated on the topic see these memes all over their timelines and are encouraged to do some research in order to pick a side and understand the impact of the memes.

This example isn’t a traditional meme format, but the user utilized a pun to point out the harsh consequences of refusing to vaccinate your children.

This meme uses a popular internet image with a witty caption to make a point against a major argument used by anti-vax parents.

As you can see, there are many forms of anti-vax memes; some are strictly composed of words, while others use a combination of pictures and captions, using Twitter’s structure to maximize the variety of formats. But no matter what format is used, there is an anti-vax meme for everyone out there, which is why this trend quickly blew up across the app and has lasted for weeks.

 

Sources: https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/03/04/top-10-pro-vaccine-or-anti-anti-vaxxer-memes-internet-13853