Explaining Memes to my Dad

I’ve written this essay already.

I don’t mean this is a second draft, or that I have some kind of block that makes me keep restarting this. I mean this essay I have already researched, written, edited and sent out once before.

(Kay... So why are you doing this again?)

Because the last one was written on a whim exclusively for my dad, who in his infinite wisdom accidentally deleted the thig but he none the less loved that article so I’m re-writing it for his birthday this week.

(Gotcha, I'm guessing we’re starting with definitions? Keep it nice and cliché?)

Obviously.

As Google will tell you, a meme is

“An element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, especially imitation.

a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by internet users”

(Keep in mind the secondary definition did not exist in the earlier version of this essay)

The primary definition was coined by Richard Dawkins, who used to be cool and respected before he decided that “eugenics aren’t that bad actually”.

(This is already overblown; we don’t have time for your tangents)

Right, I'm sorry.

Since this time, however, the internet happened and while the initial use certainly is still relevant, an expanded definition is needed to give the full scope.

A meme functions as both a style/format of joke that exclusively forms on the internet, but can easily be referenced outside of it, and its own brand of humor entirely. It can come from an audio clip, a stock image, or, and I cannot stress this enough, literally anything that exists on the internet. Fonts can be memes, Italics can be memes.

They’re internet in-jokes, and as such they can vary by their website or fanbase of origin, the incels of reddit are going to have wildly different memes than Superwholockians on tumblr.

(I don’t know if it’s worse that superwholockians are a meme unto themselves or that the incels have outlasted them.)

Unimportant.

Memes are as much in-group slang, as they are a media-based language. Many people will look at a single frame from a Tim and Eric skit, and understand that you’re trying to communicate that there is “free real estate”, you don’t need the full clip with audio anymore since most are fluent enough to no longer need it to know what you’re trying to tell them. It’s universal, it transcends cultures and often languages and acts as emotional shorthand.

To an extent, memes are art at high speed; They transcend ordinary societal boundaries and instead hit a much more base and emotional response than what mere words are capable of pulling from us, but as is the nature of the internet, new ones evolve, are created, become canonized, or die out entirely at such a remarkable speed that even a few days off of any given site will require a readjustment period upon your return. Like going back to the town you grew up in only to discover that old stores have closed and new ones sprung up.

(We’re getting way too pretentious, you need to wrap this up.)

There’s not really a succinct way of defining memes and their development, they’re like porn in that way, you just know them when you see them.

Regardless of their ephemeral nature, the first reference to an “internet meme” was from a Wired article in 1993 and now Buzzfeed has a contractual obligation to include the word in a title of an article twice a day.

However you use them, create them, or get annoyed when they grow stale, they’re integral to the internet and so are going to be sticking around.

Happy Birthday Dad