The Art of Memeing
One of the most fascinating and bizarre things to arise from internet culture in the past decade is what is generally called a meme. The closest pre-internet analogue is the greeting card. Broadly defined, it is a joke formed from one or more images with some added text. In some cases, the presentation of the images is enough that no text is needed to create the joke.
In its highest form, memes are a way of communicating ideas and emotions through shared cultural touchstones, making it a form of art. As a point of comparison, for hundreds of years, western Europe was chock full of art that communicated through reference to the Bible and other Christian concepts. And in Star Trek: the Next Generation, in the episode "Darmok," they encounter an alien species that speaks only in references to ancient stories known to all of them.
Today's culture is a wild melange compared to either of those scenarios. We have movies, video games, TV shows, commercials, corporate brands, national history, and the lived experiences of people all over the world. We also have a wide range of accessibility for making this art. Any person who owns a smart phone, laptop, or desktop computer can make one in less than five minutes. Did you just think of a joke? Find a picture on Google, then slap some text on it. Boom. There's a meme.
Memes have a power to create meaning not only through reference to the above mentioned TV, movies, etc., but also through reference to things that are more abstract, such as tropes and archetypes.
As an example I would like to do a close reading of "dat boi," though it is definitely not a "hot" meme anymore. The text near the top says, "here come dat boi." There is an image of a CGI frog on a unicycle, and near the bottom, it says, "o shit waddup." Its success had a somewhat polarizing effect within internet culture, because to some people, it's just dumb and doesn't really have a joke. The joke is working at a much deeper level, though.
The tropes we have within this are
AAVE that is evocative of Wiz Khalifa's "We Dem Boyz"
the mediocre clip art that proliferates on the internet
the recognition of a friend, or popular local figure
The first thing we are likely to notice is the frog on the unicycle. We become curious about why there is a frog on a unicycle, and what the significance of it is. We look to the words for answers, and read, "here come dat boi," "o shit waddup." The text has refused to answer our initial questions, so now we wonder, "Am I missing something here?" If we are outsiders to AAVE and African-American culture, we consider the possibility is that there is a cultural reference point that we do not know about. But it seems preposterous that a frog on a unicycle could be a significant part of African-American culture without anyone else knowing about it yet.
This is where we come to the focal point of the humor: dat boi is simultaneously a figure so cool that African-Americans, the inventors of all things that are cool, are excited to hang out with him. And yet, he is a surreal and clownish figure who we cannot imagine actually being this cool.
Popular memes evoke relatable experiences and emotions typically through the foundation of a cultural construct. Dat boi in its original form is about the joy of seeing a frog on a unicycle, and the joy of having such a thing in one's life. The expectation that it would refer to something outside of the text is only because we are so used to memes working that way. When we see something we do not recognize or understand, our first instinct is that we are missing a piece of information. Dat boi does not require additional information, which can add another element of humor on top of the pile, since subverting expectations is a common way to create humor. Your brain does a quick check to ask, "Is this something I know? ... Nope." And that is a joke all on its own.
We are only beginning to see the communication potential with memes. Our future holds memes that are far more bizarre and inscrutable than anything we could imagine.