Ikwuagwu 1

Joshua Ikwuagwu

Professor Nolen

ENGL 1301

October 2 2021

The Inclusive Nature of Memes

The word meme started as a scientific term coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book

“The Selfish Gene”, where he used the Greek word “mimeme” to describe "a unit of cultural

transmission"—the cultural equivalent of a gene (Castaño Díaz, Carlos. (2013). Defining and

characterizing the concept of Internet Meme. Revista CES Psicología. 6. 82-104. Pg. 3), though

now we know them as the funny pictures or internet videos. In 2013 he explicitly stated

mimemes and internet memes are similar in meaning when answering the question “How do you

feel about your word meme being reappropriated by the internet?”, Dawkins responded “The

meaning is not that far away from the original […] when anybody talks about something going

viral on the internet, that is exactly what a meme is and it looks as though the word has been

appropriated for a subset of that.” Dr. Dawkins is correct, memes as a genre tend to reflect the

culture/groups who view them. And, as one can see from Facebook posts I’ve gathered, memes

unite people of different backgrounds, ages, races, and even nationalities together regularly.

Whether it be in a massive comment debate, or every having a laugh, memes untie people with

their giant white words and awkwardly cut black borders.

The first post is from the Facebook interest group titled “Gaming and Memes”, the about

sections reads “News, gaming and memes”. Their demographics are 90% male and 100% 18-

30s, the community is very diverse racially and nationally. The original post stated “EA is better

than Electronic arts, RTX is better than NVidia, computer is better than pc, Ryzen is better than
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AMD”. The post is a screenshot of each comment one underneath another. The reactions to this

were 47 laughing (90% males), 13 thumbs up (100% males), 1 wow (white male), 1 sad crying

(male), these reactions were racially diverse as well. The joke itself was poking fun at someone,

who we are led to believe, has confused “EA” and “Electronic Arts” as 2 separate companies, but

with a little bit of background knowledge the reader could easily tell what they actually mean is

the acronym sounds better than the full name. They even put both of the names in quotes to show

this. The people replying to his post in the meme are unaware of this and making fun of him by

referencing other companies’ names, and making themselves look worse than the original

person. Such as “NVidia and RTX”, RTX is the title of a software, not an acronym, same with

AMD and Radeon. “Computer and pc” -was also an odd one, seeing as “PC” stand for personal

computer/laptop, but computer can be interpreted as anything with a motherboard, like a phone.

The second post is from an interest group titled “Engineering memes”, the about section

reads “The original Engineering Memes page, by engineers, for engineers. Feel free to share

your memes. Because most people don't understand what we're talking about... lol. For

Engineers, Engineering students, and Professional Engineers”. Their demographics are 92%

male, 92% White, and 100% in their 30s and 40s, this community is also racially and nationally

diverse. The meme in question is an image of a drawn generic looking, suburban, middle aged,

white male with top and bottom text. The top text is saying all engineers turn into a generic white

man in his mid to early 30’s, while the bottom text mentions their father being a frat boy and still

turning into the image. The reacts all find humor from this post. They were 118 thumbs up (90%

white males), 90 laughs (80% white males), 2 hearts (100% white males). The comments are also

enjoying this, a man we’ll call LB sent a GIF(a silent short video) of PC Principal, a South Park

character, with the caption “triggering intensifies”. Some background for this is the PC in his
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name stands for politically correct, conforming to a belief that language and practices which

could offend political sensibilities, as in matters of sex or race, should be eliminated (“Politically

correct,” [Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary]), and he is violently dedicated to this belief. Going as

far as murdering a girl for talking over him. The term triggered is typically associated with

groups that also associate with pc culture, as a sign of anger and discomfort toward the talking

point.

The third post is from an interest group titled “Political Memes”, the about section reads

“Only the funniest Memes ever. ‘Politically focused, never approved.’ ‘Hang your shame at the

door,’ and let the antics begin!”. Their demographics 90% male, 90% White, 90% are in their

20s and 30s, not a very diverse community. The post is a picture of Joe Biden sitting in a chair

with the caption “Describe Joe Biden in one word”. The reactions were 54 Angry faces (60%

white women), 31 thumbs up (60% male), 24 Laughing (60% female), 4 crying (50% male), 2

hearts (all male), 1 female wow, 1 male heart hugging, the reactions were sexually diverse. The

comments were also diverse, but they were also very divided. In one comment thread 3 people

were arguing with each other, they names will be JH, RL, and GB. JH responded “Alzheimer's,

Sick sense of the world”, this comes from a large amount of people saying Joe Biden has

Alzheimer’s due to his large number of words mix ups during speeches. RL replied with “You

apparently haven't seen Trump”, implying that Trump has Alzheimer’s, which yielded zero

results when searched, but people do think he has dementia. Finally, GB enters with “Please

provide a video or picture or article that shows that President Trump has Alzheimer’s. You

CANT!! Your laughing emoji at the end of my last post just goes to show that you aren’t very

bright!!”. It can be said that this post has sparked a lot anger out of these people, despite the fact

that the page is supposed to only focus on being funny. A political page dedicated to memes
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similar to this one is a YouTube channel called “Memeology”, he makes videos about world

events and always inserts memes throughout them. He always uses memes throughout his videos

and never seem picks a side. The ironic part is that he not even from the U.S., he’s Honduran.

Although the posts all use memes, they do not reflect in the same way. Just like how

Dawkins reference mimemes as a way cultures spread, these memes represent how our brand

new “internet culture” is spreading. Each of these memes require a large wealth of background

information to understand, background information we have gathered over the years of the

internet’s existence. The most innovative thing about it is the fact that it inclusive. Nvidia was

founded by a Taiwanese man, and AMD’s CEO is a Taiwanese woman. South Park is a

Canadian show with a history books worth of references to modern media and ancient history.

American politics is such a joke on the national scale, that even other countries make fun of it.

Memes aren’t meant to be a universal language, if they can pull it off that’s great, but they’re

designed specifically for each pocket of the internet. And what keeps us all together is those

giant white words and awkwardly cut black borders.

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https://www.facebook.com/FbGamingmemes/posts/828393857693351

Accessed 4 Oct. 2021.

https://www.facebook.com/EngineeringMemes/posts/4356990054311159

Accessed 4 Oct. 2021.

https://www.facebook.com/TheMemeRevolution/posts/1403563959990906

Accessed 4 Oct. 2021.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/meme-word-origins-history

Accessed 4 Oct. 2021.

“Politically correct.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster,

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politically%20correct. Accessed 4 Oct. 2021.

https://southpark.fandom.com/wiki/PC_Principal#Criminal_Record

Accessed 4 Oct. 2021.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/richard-dawkins-memes Accessed 4 Oct. 2021.

https://www.youtube.com/c/AntonioChavez/videos Accessed 4 Oct. 2021.