Every generation has had a second language; for some it was French, and for some others it was coding. But for the Gen Z and younger millennials it just might be memes.
Until a few years ago, mentioning memes as a skill on a resumé would have sounded like a joke. Today, cultural literacy has evolved into a skill that can provide competitive advantage in professional workspaces.
Brands seem to be increasingly tapping into this skill in today’s attention-based media economy, where trends are expiring in days if not in weeks. Brands, therefore, seem to be looking for young graphic designers, video editors, and social media managers, who don’t just create content, but understand internet culture. The brief is no longer just to make a reel or to design a post. It’s to know why a meme is funny, when a trend has peaked, and how it can be tweaked to suit the brand’s image and marketing needs.
“When I switched from graphic designing to video editing a year back, my meme knowledge became a point of discussion in my interview itself. The company I was interviewing for wanted to know if I could create content laden in memes that can go viral, as well as create story-driven content,” recalls Yogeshwar Sakthivel, a visualiser. He even confesses to having been “meme-ready” for his interview. “I used the ‘distracted boyfriend’ meme (a popular template of a man with his girlfriend, turning back to look at another woman) and created a motion graphic using Artificial Intelligence (AI). I titled the woman next to the man as ‘typical brands creating content’, and the other woman as the name of the brand I was interviewing for. The interviewers were surprised and they really liked it, so they hired me,” he shares.
Adding culturally relevant memes specifically tends to work for brands on social media because it immediately grabs the attention of the Gen Z, says Thiyanaish Kumaran, a cinematographer who also produces videos. “Even in serious videos that start with something like ‘Did you know’ or ‘Do you know what happens when…’, if we follow it up with meme templates like Vadivelu’s dialogue ‘enna va irukum?’, it instantly makes the audience believe that it is more of infotainment than information overload. That way, we can sustain their attention,” Thiyanaish adds.
Vignesh, a video editor, says that he applied the same logic and incorporated memes into serious news packages that were uploaded on YouTube by a news channel. Although it made news more entertaining for some of the audiences, who expressed their approval in the comment section, it also didn’t appeal to some others, he notes. “We tested the concept and with meme-based comebacks the videos really worked well. But in the end it was an editorial decision to abstain from that format,” Vignesh explains.
To make memes work or to have trend-based content elicit a positive reaction from a constantly evolving audience, these youngsters admit to handling the pressure of having to be on top of social media. “Trends are fizzling out in weeks these days. If we use a particular meme template say three weeks after it begins to trend, people dismiss it in the post’s comment section,” notes Yogeshwar. Aravindan, a graphic designer, adds that due to the nature of this algorithm-powered generation, they are constantly pushed to think creatively on their feet. He illustrates with an example of how for one of his clients — a restaurant — Aravindan and his team, created a spoof poster when the first look of Simbu’s 2023 film Pathu Thala was released. “We immediately changed it to ‘Parcel kattu thala’ (pack the parcel, boss) and replaced the actor with the brand’s food parcel.”
Cultural literacy for these professionals also extends far beyond familiarity with Tamil cinema and regional pop culture. They are expected to stay informed about a wide range of current events and cultural trends, ranging from global sporting events like the FIFA World Cup to political developments, viral social conversations, and the latest in Hollywood, Bollywood, and beyond. This broad awareness, they say, is expected of them, as it enables brands to engage with diverse audiences whose interests span multiple domains. This way, brands can ensure that their content remains relevant and relatable for all.
This often results in longer screen time for professionals as they end up balancing multiple roles, compounded by the pressure of being constantly online. Many say they have lost the ability to enjoy platforms like Instagram or YouTube because browsing them almost always feels like work instead of a break. “I tried app locks, but nothing works because I need to constantly be updated to make relevant trendy content,” Vignesh rues. Yogeshwar admits to taking a break from the internet every Sunday. “I think I can catch up on Monday,” he confidently says, adding that the nature of his work often leaves him wondering whether professionals like him are effectively doing the work of several people.
While audience and market analysis is recognised as a distinct department with specialists in many business domains, communication professionals say that they are expected to shoulder these responsibilities alongside their core work in most organisations barring a few multinational companies that could have specialists to analyse trends. This expectation from small to relatively developing brands has gained more weightage, especially in the last three years, says Jagan, a video editor with almost a decade’s experience.
In a race to engage with the cultural sensibilities of the Gen Z and their reducing attention span online, many brands are no longer allowing video editors to stitch memes into their video stories on the fly for social media. Vignesh highlights, “Instead, my clients ask me to script the video by keeping memes and cultural punchlines in the skeleton of the story they want to tell. Memes have become a non-negotiable part of companies’ social media presence.”
Thiyanaish, however, warns that this doesn’t mean that brands’ social media are completely unserious. “Many traditional brands still stick to their own style of content that does not have memes or cultural references. Some brands do a mix of both. But the truth is that trends work best in terms of algorithms and that is where the attention is shifting to.” Yogeshwar points out that with the next generation of CEOs taking over, cultural literacy and internet trends might just become the next most sought-after skill. It could even pave the way for an entirely new job market irrespective of the size of the company, he holds out hope.
