If you have heard about the recent phenomenon called Harlem Shake, read Rage comics and know about ‘Bad Luck Brian,’ ‘Good Guy Greg’ and ‘Success Kid’ then you are probably a meme junkie. For some of you the last few lines probably wouldn’t have made sense, and I don’t know whether to congratulate those people or feel sorry for them.
So what is a Meme (pronounced ‘meem’)? Webster’s dictionary says a meme is an idea, behaviour, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture. The Urban Dictionary, which is a better source for definitions of all things online is probably a better source of information in this regard. Probably a meme itself, the Urban Dictionary has this to say about Memes,
1. An idea, belief or belief system, or pattern of behaviour that spreads throughout a culture either vertically by cultural inheritance (as by parents to children) or horizontally by cultural acquisition (as by peers, information media, and entertainment media)
2. A pervasive thought or thought pattern that replicates itself via cultural means; a parasitic code, a virus of the mind especially contagious to children and the impressionable
To make all of this computer jargon simple, a meme is just a trend, maybe online or cultural, that suddenly pops up and spreads at the speed of lightning. One of the oldest and the most successful memes still around is Santa Claus. It was a trend in popular culture about a chubby old man with white hair and beard who wears red clothes and hands out gifts to nice children at Christmas.
Latest trends include LOL Cats that are photos and videos of cats in various funny positions or doing something weird. A LOL Cat picture also has misspelled and grammatically incorrect text to make it cuter, for example ‘Can I haz some chocolate?’ even the term LOL (laughing out loud) is a meme along with other short forms of words like ROFL(rolling on the floor laughing), G2G (got to go) and TTYL (talk to you later) to name a few. To most people of this age these things come naturally, to the utter confusion of their parents who are left trying to figure out what their children are up to by spying on their phones or chats.
Rage comics are a series of comics with simply drawn characters which were created using MS Paint. Some of these characters are Trollface, Forever Alone, FU, Cereal Guy, Derp and Derpina. Available on websites like 9gag and reddit, these comics have become popular and have evolved greatly with time.
Other than the rage characters, these websites are a good place for the spread of other memes like ‘Bad Luck Brian’, which is a guy’s bad school year book picture and contains text that indicated embarrassing things that can happen to people due to bad luck with the punch line at the bottom of the picture. Some other memes based on photos of real people are ‘Scumbag Steve’ (a generic selfish, horrible person), ‘Good Guy Greg’ (a person who does nice things for people), ‘Overly Attached Girlfriend’ (a generic girlfriend who says crazy, stalker-ish things).
Some other meme phenomena are photo bombing, in which a person or a thing deliberately or unknowingly spoils other people’s photos; flash mobs, where a group of people suddenly start doing a synchronised, choreographed dance in a public place either to support some charity, spread a message or as a gift to someone; planking, which has photos of people lying stiffly, face down in various precarious places. The newest meme around is the Harlem Shake videos, which are called so because of the music used — the heavy bass track Harlem Shake by Baauer. The 30-second videos contain a masked individual dancing to the track where other people are oblivious to him. It then suddenly cuts to a group of people dancing in an unsynchronised manner holding various props and in costume. By February 23, 2013 about 12,000 Harlem Shake videos were posted online and are being used as a marketing and promotional gimmick by companies.
This is just a sneak peek into the endless world of memes. They are a good way of staying abreast with current affairs because if something is worth knowing people usually start turning it into a meme. It includes making fun of celebrities and harmless insults, which definitely makes a good stress buster.