Memes have been one of the greatest digital trends that India has seen. They bare testimony to the country’s growing love and want for humour. So much so that memes now have a festival dedicated fully to themselves. This one’s called the Meme Fest where there are meme centric activities, talks, competitions, a karaoke booth, photo booth, comedy, and food.
Meme’s are the internet’s biggest attraction, but they preceded the internet. During World War II, they were expressed on walls as graffiti art. It was in 1976 that this expression got a name when evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, used it in his book The Selfish Gene to say how memes are carriers of cultural information.
These short visual messages with attractive catchphrases are easily recognisable and hence, so popular. “Their sheer numbers, ease of creation, basic design language and highly topical subject matter make them the most quantifiable comedic entity,” says Dishant Narang, one of the speakers at the Meme Fest.
His session is part of MEMEx Talk, a light-hearted parodical take on TEDx talks. He’s going to talk about internet trends and the role of comedy and humour in today’s digital age.
Keeping in mind their widespread outreach, memes are hard to miss. They’re so much a part of our subculture that they’ve become a language of digital communication. All you need is a picture or a video emblazoned with an eye-popping caption.
Memes are embedded in a specific subtext and thrive off trends. They are contextual in nature, and while there are plenty universal memes, Indian ones are catching on too. “Humour is in our DNA. Even though off late, we as a society, have gotten offended on menial matters way too easily, there still exists a large number of people, predominantly between ages 13-30, who can take humour for what it is, and the extensive indianisation of memes is a true testament to that,” says Narang.
The freedom to express comes with responsibility. Memes get as many likes as they get hate messages. Specially in the Indian context where radicalism banishes the smallest effort at an independent broadcast, being circumspect is wise. “You also have highly opinionated hipsters and millennial who take to social media with the slightest of aggravations and/or disagreements and put their excellent writing skills to use to dramatise events in a way that would make Ekta Kapoor proud,” he says.
Memes, just like any other new age phenomenon come with baggage, but as long as they are not exploited for vicious purposes, memes can become a power-packed mode for cultural conversation. April 1, from 12 noon to 9 pm, at DLF Place, Saket. Entry: Free Ayesha Singh