“Memes are a collection of texts and meme
genres are a collection of collections.” Shifman, 2014:342) Historically viewers
were shown one meme at a time. This was in the form of advertising, such as Lord Kitchener's poster which is commonly used today. Memes are relevant to the
photography discourse as people can study social actions, culture and context.
Within a meme, there must be shared expectations and it must be audience specific,
so for example, a mountain bike meme would be relevant among the mountain bike
community / sport. Typically, a meme uses the same type face on an image to get
the message across. A meme generating site on the internet (Imgflip) enables
people with access to a computer to insert their words and / or pictures into a
template to generate a meme. They can add features such as a hat, create an
account and post online.
Last year the “Bill” meme was very popular
across Facebook. This screen grab shows how easy it is to make a “Bill” meme
relevant to an individual user.
Shifman focuses on three types of memes; reaction photoshops
in which a collection of edited images are created in response to something such
as politics – for example, Brexit, or Donald Trump etc.
Stock character macros are stereotypical behaviour with
text. It must contain a negative feature within a specific social category. This
type of meme can highlight racial discrimination, disabilities or gender inequalities.
Photofads are staged performances in unusual positions such
as the ice bucket challenge.
My memes
I developed a meme based on the mountain biking culture. The
text was pretty standard meme text on the internet to which I inserted five my
own photos. Unfortunately I don’t jump like I aspire to but the internet is a
good source of usable images. My friends thought it worked. My husband
preferred the second version which he sent out on his social
media. This received more likes on Instagram but was retweeted on Twitter.
References
Shifman, L (2014) The cultural logic of meme genres. Journal
of visual culture December 2014 Vol 1 13 (3) pp340-58 OCA course material
https://imgflip.com/memegenerator
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