Memes: The genre we use everyday

Memes: The genre we use everyday

Huirong Sun

University of California, Santa Barbara

Instructor: Valentina Fahler

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 Memes: The genre we use everyday

Memes: The genre we use everyday

I was busing memorizing the rules of gaining and losing electrons on chem class. Suddenly a

picture of a cat with chemist-like costume and huge caption “I THINK I’VE LOST AN

ELECTRON; IN FACT, I’M POSITIVE” showed up on the slide. I chuckled and remembered

the rules; I was busy studying for my final and a picture sent by my friend showed up on my

phone: John Snow hugging Starbucks and Red Bull with huge caption: BRACE YOURSEVES;

Finals are coming. I laughed, grabbed the coffee beside me, and worked on my finals again.

Aware or not, today we are bombarded with all kinds of Memes. We make Memes, send Memes,

“like” Memes, and see Memes on social media, commercial advertisements or even lecture slides.

So I decided to take a closer look at Memes in the academic writing field and concluded that

Memes is an effective genre that spread in the everyday communication within a limit of culture.

You may feel curious at first, how can Memes be a kind of genres? Indeed, Memes are

usually combinations of different captions and pictures and have tons of different appearances.

But they do share something in common: First, they have similar structures and patterns. The

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 Memes: The genre we use everyday

reason we know some combinations of lines and pictures are Memes is that we can notify the

differences and similarities between Memes and other kinds of writing. So we classify all these

similar formats as a category with a nice and fancy name: Memes. Second, Memes appear

under certain similar situations. Most of the Memes appear online situations from social medias

to chatting as informal ways to make arguments for spreading. For Memes that share the same

theme or topic, the situations could be more similar and obvious. For example, the Memes of

final exam I mentioned above could be used by every students who are suffering from the finals.

Last, Memes appear over and over again during the communication. Apparently, Memes are

meaningless if they’re not show up repetitively. The most successful Memes are those used,

send, or “like” by most people during its spreading. So Memes have to recur under similar

situations by the same or different users over and over again. All three common characteristics

of Memes above match the definition of genre in the academic writing field perfectly. As Lisa

Bickmore defined in her article Genre in the wild “Genre is a word we used when we want to

classify things, to note the similarities and difference between kinds of writing...We begin to

classify a kind of writing as a genre when it recurs frequently enough and seems to perform the

same functions in recurring situations.”(n.d.)So Memes are a kind of genre.

Every genre are made to reach some specific goals in a better way, so as Memes. The word

Memes was first named by biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The selfish gene.(1976,

chapter11)Why does Memes first come out in a biology book from a biologist? The reason is

that Memes have a gene-like nature. We know that genes can self-replicate, mutate, and

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 Memes: The genre we use everyday

respond to selective pressures in order to inherit from generation to generation. Similar to genes,

Memes can also be copied and sent to others, changed to different sub-genres, and weeded out

or evolved in order to connect and spread to more readers. So to analyze whether Memes is an

effective genre or not, we need to examine how well Memes connects to its readers and achieve

the goal of spreading from its possibilities and limitations in the academic writing study.

Word limit for Memes seems to be the biggest problems to impair its effectiveness. Like

mentioned above, most of the Memes appear in the Internet situation. The online scene of this

genre shapes the expectations audiences have for Memes. As Devitt, Reiff, and Bawarshi

pointed in their article Using Genres to Read Scenes of Writing, “Reading, too, is enmeshed

within situations and scenes...[Audiences] knowledge of the genre provides [them] with a

mental framework for how to read it; it gives [audiences] a set of guidelines... for how to

approach and make sense of a text ” (2004, p.48)Indeed, no Memes readers want to read a

800-word Memes while chatting or browsing, they expect to see the Memes that have

arguments or ideas catch them or make them “like” and “Share” at once. So to cater the readers

expectations, Memes need to have arguments concise and get to the point immediately.

In fact, even though it may sound unreliable to make an attracting argument spread

within a couple of words, Memes creators did a good job solving this challenge and make it one

of the unique characteristics of this genre. One trick Memes writers like to use is ethos. One of

the most efficient way to build connection with readers is to raise their emotion and be emotional

appealing. On one hand, writers tent to choose topics from our daily life or breaking news.

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 Memes: The genre we use everyday

Recall the Memes I sent to my friend, most of them are related to college life or daily routines

like finals, boyfriends, professors, etc. Some of the Memes even use captions like “The face you

make when you....”; “That moment when you...” to put you into the situations and emotions

directly. What most Memes writer do is not creating new arguments. They make arguments to

amplified or dramatize the ideas that we share in common to make us feel connected and put us

into the emotion in that specific situations. On the other hand, the short-length straightforward

sentences can be more powerful if the writers choose the right styles and use them properly. For

example, in the final Memes I mentioned above, “brace yourselves” can be more sensitive and

evoking than “To physically and mentally prepare yourself, because we are about to have an

imminent event.” Even if they are talking about the same things, the first one connect to the

readers in a more direct way. What’s more, the limit word count in Memes ignites authors to use

many strategies like punchline and irony to make the topics more interesting and humorous.

Overall, the word limit does not harm the effectiveness of Memes. Instead, the short arguments

not only speed up the spreading of Memes naturally, but also provides some possibilities for this

genre.

Another limitation of this genre could be the cultural barrier for Memes readers. After I

picked Memes as my topic, I asked my American roommate “are there some super popular

Memes you can think of immediately?” She said “area 51.” Question mark is the only thing

popped up into my head. After that, I did a little research and found out that “area 51” was a

mock place in which American assumed that US government were doing experiments on aliens.

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 Memes: The genre we use everyday

Is “area 51” funny? Even after knowing some background information, the answer for me is

still a NO. I suddenly realized that the differences between cultures do block the spread of

Memes in a large extent. And the different habits of language use for different cultures even

shape this genre to different sub-purposes and sub-genres. For example, in China, Memes are

already a part of our daily chatting. They help us to spread the opinions in a more euphemistic,

interesting, and effective way. On the contrary, Memes in the US or other cultures could be

used in totally different ways. They may show current pop culture, allude politics, or simply

make laugh. However, if we consider the culture barrier in another aspect, even though it does

impair the effectiveness of Memes, it stimulates this genre to evolve and mutate under different

backgrounds and environments. And that does provides more possibilities for Memes culture.

From the analysis of Memes genre nature, its goal, and its effectiveness comparing its

limitations and possibilities above, it’s pretty clear that Memes is an effective genres that helps

ideas to spread from one to another within in a culture. In fact, the truth that we are immersed in

Memes everyday is already one of the best indicators that Memes are successful as a genre.

According to Limor Shifman, A recent Google query of the term “Internet meme” yielded

around 1,900,000 hits(2013, chapter 3)Notice or not, Memes are becoming more and more

popular in a light-speed more than ever. Are they affecting the way we are thinking,

communicating, and spreading ideas? In a good way or bad way? Although these questions are

beyond the academic writing domain we are talking today, it’s probably the right time to take

Memes seriously and study it as a topic in the academic field.

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Reference

Devitt, A. J., Reiff, M. J., & Bawarshi, A. S. (2004). Scenes of writing: Strategies for composing

with genres. Pearson/Longman.

Lisa Bickmore, genre in the wild: understanding genre within rhetorical(eco)

system,https://openenglishatslcc.pressbooks.com/chapter/genre-in-the-wild-understanding-g

enre-within-rhetorical-ecosystems/

Limor Shifman, Memes in digital culture,Cambridge: MIT Press 2013

Richard Dawkins, The selfish gene, New York : Oxford University Press 1976