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Lauren Cornman

Professor Ristow

WRRH 333


11 March 2018

Critical Meme Analysis Draft 1


In the meme series, “You vs. The Guy She Told You Not to Worry About,” each meme

contains the same text while different images of two different men or male animal species are

compared side-by-side. The meme demonstrates how men are insecure about their physical

appearance, identity, and relationship. The memes within this genre are created by men and

delivered to a male audience that have prior knowledge of popular culture references that are

made in several of the memes. Character and action themes are the major factors that establish a

comparison of male identity where the rhetor believes women find the man on the right more

attractive and insinuates an action of infidelity in which the woman leaves the man for a more

desirable option. The worldview of the male rhetor is that by defining masculine ideals from

popular culture comparisons, he feels more secure about his own identity and heteronormative

relationship.

In the You vs. The Guy She Told You Not to Worry About series, a male from television,

film, music, or media is compared to either himself or an antagonistic character related to him.

Through the coding process, it was found that the meme series demonstrated fragile masculinity

in an exchange between the male rhetor and male audience. There is an implication in the

connection between the text and the two images shown in the meme. “You” correlates to the

image on the left while “The Guy She Told You Not to Worry About” correlates to the image on

the right. The implication is that the man in the right image is the more desirable option because
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of his physical appearance and identity. There are two different characterizations of male

identity; The rhetor implies that the man on the left is average, in a heteronormative relationship,

and insecure about his appearance. Essentially, a character that the male audience would relate

the most to. Versus, the man on the right, who the male rhetor characterizes as physically fit,

attractive, and secure in his appearance; a man the male audience would not identify with.

Ultimately, when the rhetor characterizes male identity, he is establishing a relationship with his

audience that they both feel insecure about their appearance relationship, and in that shared

belief, find humor in a belief of superior masculinity. Even though both the rhetor and audience

are male dominated there is an underlying character that plays a major role in the

characterization of male identity, which is females. The implication is not only that the male

rhetor and audience views hyper masculinity as society’s desired option but that it is the desired

option of women or their partner.

The male rhetor’s characterization in the meme series of male physical appearance

emphasizes the desirable man as tall, fit, and attractive, in the opinion of their female partner.

The transformation in characterization on one individual is a trait in many of the memes. For

example, a puppy on the left and the full-grown version of the puppy on the right or Vince

McMahon as himself younger on the left and him older and more muscular on the right. This

visual comparison implies that if a male undergoes a physical transformation, his female partner

will find him more desirable. This further shows the male rhetor’s insecurity about his own

appearance and validation he seeks from other males about this insecurity. Even though several

of the memes use visuals of humans, some of them include images of dogs or gorillas, such as

Harambe. This imagery evokes connotations of male stereotypes such as “alpha dog” or
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“Harambe” as an embodiment of ideal masculinity. Thus, in the creation of the rhetor’s message,

the meme uses symbols of male identity to appeal to the ethos of the male on the receiving end.

Male figures in pop culture and animals that embody a group’s definition of masculinity function

to convey the rhetor’s worldview that women find a physically fit and attractive man more

desirable.

The action theme of being in a heteronormative relationship is demonstrated throughout

the meme series, You vs. The Guy She Told You Not to Worry About. The action of a woman

being in a relationship with a man, more frequently a Caucasian heteronormative relationship, is

shown in the connection between text and imagery. Key words that the rhetor uses to indicate

this relationship is “you”, “guy” and “she”. There is a grouping identified that separates “you” or

the male audience from “guy” and “she.” The implication in the male rhetor’s text is that the

woman that the male reader is in a relationship with is most likely cheating on him with a more

desirable suitor. The action of infidelity on the woman’s part is used by the rhetor to validate his

own insecurity about his relationship. Furthermore, after close analysis of several memes, almost

all of the memes identified the action of a heteronormative relationship between a man and a

woman. By comparing pop culture figures such as Jon Snow and Khal Drogo from Game of

Thrones, the rhetor uses television character under the assumption that his audience is familiar

with the characters and can relate to the fragile masculinity he is experiencing himself.

There is a further implication in the action theme of You vs. The Guy She Told You Not

to Worry About that both the rhetor and audience are not in functioning, healthy relationships.

When observing the text, “The Guy She Told You Not to Worry About,” the rhetor uses his

female partner as an agent of cheating and someone who is not trustworthy. This places the male

viewer in the “right” and the female, who is not involved in the exchange, in the “wrong.” This
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emphasizes the male rhetor’s worldview that his female partner might leave him because of her

actions rather than his own in their relationship. For example, in one of the memes there is a

comparison between Seth Rogen and Zac Efron. The symbolism of these two actors stems from

the characters they play rather than the actors themselves. The rhetor intentionally uses these two

actors to symbolize the typical characters they play in both television in movies. The implication

being that Seth Rogen embodies a man who has trouble getting girls and is insecure in his

appearance versus Zac Efron who embodies a “ladies” man who is very secure in his own

appearance. The action of this meme is that the rhetor conveys is that a man’s female partner will

find Zac Efron so desirable that she would cheat on him with Zac Efron. Ultimately, the rhetor’s

implication is that if his relationship ends it is because his female partner cheated on him with a

man who embodies ideal masculinity.

Consequently, both character and action themes function to convey the male rhetor’s

worldview that by defining masculine ideals from popular culture comparisons, he feels more

secure about his own identity and heteronormative relationship. By using figures from the media

and popular culture, the rhetor appeals to the ethos of his audience so they identify with the male

figure on the left. When coding a series of ten different memes, it was evident that the two

different characterizations of male identity are how men view themselves and how they view

men who exemplify the ideal characteristics that are appealing to a woman. In all of the memes

in the series, the implicit action is that the female partner will leave the male viewer for a more

desirable suitor. This is evident in the right image’s representation of male identity in physical

appearance and level of attractiveness.