Memes as Folklore?

There have been plenty of people bemoaning the so-called “death of folklore”. And in a way, it seems true. In our modern age, things like traditional folk songs or folk architecture aren’t as popular anymore. However, this does not mean that folklore is dying out completely. Like language, folklore is changing with the times. One way that this is happening is through the emergence of internet memes.

Of course, memes in general aren’t exactly a new occurrence. Oxford Dictionaries defines a meme as: “An element of a culture or system of behaviour passed from one individual to another by imitation or other non-genetic means.” (“Meme”). This is clearly a concept that predates the internet. In fact one place where a pre-internet meme can be found is medieval manuscripts. A recurring image in them is of a knight fighting a snail.

The meaning of this image has been lost to time, and there is plenty of speculation from historians on what the snail is supposed to represent. Some say it’s social commentary; others say it’s just meant to be a comical picture. Since people today are not a member of the folk group which would understand what the image means, it is baffling to them.

Memes are circulated in certain folk groups or demographics, and often reflect the culture or values of the folk group. Like the snail above, they often don’t make sense to those outside of the folk group, such as memes like this: muslim meme or these:

Someone who is not familiar with the stories or culture wouldn’t understand why these memes are funny.

And when people who aren’t a member of the folk group try to use memes, they are usually met with derision. This is because they often don’t understand what made the meme funny in the first place. Corporations will use memes in their marketing strategies, capitalizing on all manner of slang terms to seem relatable to the youth.

The youth, for their part, generally think of these efforts as cringe-worthy. corporate meme reaction 2 Politicians use them too, in an attempt to score votes.

They are ridiculed because they are trying to gain access to a folk group they are not a part of. People often see it for what it is: a transparent attempt to relate to the younger generation for their own gain.

Works Cited

Biddle, Sam. “Corporations’ Sad Attempts at Using Memes: Death Is Too Good for Us.” Gawker, 23 Jan. 2015, 4:30 pm, internet.gawker.com/corporations-sad-attempts-at-using-memes-death-is-too-1681457284.

“Meme.” Oxford Living Dictionaries, Oxford Dictionaries. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/meme. Accessed 8 May 2018.

Schultz, Colin. “Why Were Medieval Knights Always Fighting Snails?” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 14 Oct. 2013, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why- were-medieval-knights-always-fighting-snails-1728888/.

Image sources:

https://justhistoryposts.wordpress.com/2017/11/13/medieval-marginalia-why-are-there-so-many-snails-in-medieval-manuscripts/

Image 2

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-were-medieval-knights-always-fighting-snails-1728888/

https://www.wired.com/2016/05/the-uncanny-world-of-muslim-memes/

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/652553

Image 6

Image 7

http://internet.gawker.com/corporations-sad-attempts-at-using-memes-death-is-too-1681457284

https://me.me/t/how-do-you-do-fellow-kids?since=1484288600%2C7115498

https://giphy.com/explore/watch-me-dab

Do Memes Qualify?

The question remains: Do internet memes qualify as folklore? The answer is yes. Of course, one could argue that they don’t because they’re on the internet, and therefore they are written down. But they are made by individuals and distributed informally, so they may be likened to folk artifacts instead. The internet is merely another method of facilitating communication between members of a folk group. Someone posting a meme on Twitter isn’t much different from someone telling a joke to others face-to-face. They are also not anonymous, as the internet makes it possible to track when the meme first occurred and who made it. However, something does not necessarily have to have an anonymous origin in order to be folklore.

Still, some might question if internet memes have been around long enough to become part of the folk cycle. After all, the internet is a more recent invention, and there hasn’t been much time to pass down memes to the next generation. However, memes do fit the criteria of folklore in several other ways. Single memes often have many variations which all revolve around a single theme or idea. The theme is changed in such a way that it is still recognizable as the particular meme. One example of this is the “Increasingly Verbose Meme”:

Like most memes, it centers around an image accompanied by text. In the subsequent panels, the image degrades in quality while the text becomes wordier. The subject matter of these images is different, but they are still clearly similar enough to be the same meme.

Memes are unique in that they can fit into all three categories of folklore: oral, customary, and material. They fit into the oral category because of the phrases that are common to the memes. These often come in the form of text that accompanies (and often defines) the meme, such as “Cracking open a cold one with the boys”.

Or the memes themselves can simply be phrases people use, such as the “First of all” meme popular on Twitter.

Sometimes the phrase is one people say aloud, such as the “What are those?” meme.

In this way memes can be compared to jokes or folk sayings. Parodies of popular songs would also qualify, such as these ones comparing the recent tropical storm Gaston to the Disney villain and making parodies of the song he sings.

Memes fit into the customary category when they inspire people to perform certain actions because of the meme. This can be seen in the proliferation of “The Dab”, a dance move that originated in the hip hop community and involves putting one’s head in the crook of their elbow while extending the other arm outward.

Another example would be the circle game.

The object of the game is to trick a person into looking at someone’s hand when they make this gesture: circle game meme 3 People who are unfamiliar with the game will follow the instructions on the pictures and fall for it.

They fit into the material category for the simple fact that most memes involve pictures or videos of some kind. These are a new type of folk art, since they serve no practical purpose. They may not be physical items if they are simply viewed on a screen, but they do require some amount of craft to make them with photo or video-editing software. In this way memes could be likened to folk drawings. They also remain on the internet where anyone can see them. They could even be seen as a folk performance, because they are posted online with the intention of entertaining others and/or gaining popularity. One does not make a meme to keep to themselves.

Works Cited

Brad. “The Dab.” Know Your Meme, 5 May 2018, knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-dab.

Efrain. “The Circle Game.” Know Your Meme, knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-circle-game.

Stern, Carly. “’He’s Especially Good at Priciiipitating’: Tropical Storm Gaston Inspires a Host of Witty Musical Memes from Giddy Beauty & the Beast Fans.” Daily Mail Online, Associated Newspapers, 24 Aug. 2016, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3756724/He-s-especially-good-priciiipitating-Tropical-Storm-Gaston-inspires-host-witty-musical-memes-giddy-Beauty-Beast-fans.html.

Image/Video Sources:

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1204100-increasingly-verbose-memes

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1204039-increasingly-verbose-memes

https://www.redbubble.com/people/toppaforthelols/works/26592767-cracking-open-a-cold-one-with-the-boys-black?p=sticker

Image 5

http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7045247/cracking-open-a-cold-one-with-the-boys-is-the-meme-for-the-dad-in-us-all

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1304398

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1304400

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1304392

https://mashable.com/2016/02/06/dabbing-super-bowl/

Image 13

Image 14

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1323099-the-circle-game

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-circle-game

Meme sources: Pop becomes Folk, and vice versa

Memes can be made of almost anything. One rich source of memes is popular culture. This is one way that pop culture can enter the folk cycle. Fans of a certain series often make memes showing their reactions to events in the story, and will mock the parts they think are ridiculous. These are examples of folk attitudes towards stories.

Another common format for pop culture memes is to take quotes from the piece of media and combine them with different memes, like these examples.

Sorry for all the Star Wars memes.

In these cases, the movie quotes aren’t folk, but the contexts they are put in make them folk.

Like other types of folklore, memes can also become pop culture. This occurs when a meme is acknowledged in popular culture, such as in a movie. A recent example of this would be in the movie Black Panther, which came out a few months ago. In it, the character Shuri makes a reference to the “What are those?” meme mentioned earlier. Another example would be in the television show The Flash, where the character Cisco references a famous video where a woman says “Ain’t nobody got time for that”.

The video later became a meme:

Current events can also become part of the folk cycle. This is done through jokes and, of course, memes. When politicians or other powerful people make mistakes, the internet is there to make fun of them. The memes often communicate the person’s disdain for the people in power, such as these memes mocking Mark Zuckerberg when he testified in front of Congress last month:

Or when the president’s lawyer posted a picture of his passport to deny that he had been to Prague:

Prague meme 1

He was quickly ridiculed for this, as the picture didn’t prove anything.

Memes are also made of humorous events, such as when the Hollywood sign is changed.

Work Cited

Kircher, Madison Malone. “All These People Have Never Been to Prague in Their Lives.” New York Magazine, New York Magazine, 11 Jan. 2017, 1:24 pm, nymag.com/selectall/2017/01/i-have-never-been-to-prague-in-my-life-memes.html.

Image Sources:

https://screenrant.com/harry-potter-hilarious-logic-memes/

https://www.thegamer.com/lord-of-the-rings-logic-memes-that-prove-the-series-makes-no-sense/

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-tragedy-of-darth-plagueis-the-wise

http://rebloggy.com/post/gif-s1-original-1×18-his-face-cisco-ramon-carlos-valdes-theflashedit-the-flash/116429176158

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/284529-sweet-brown-aint-nobody-got-time-for-that

http://www.lovethispic.com/image/262239/summer-school.-ain’t-nobody-got-time-for-that!

https://imgflip.com/meme/Aint-Nobody-Got-Time-For-That?sort=hot&page=2

https://www.someecards.com/news/news/mark-zuckerberg-hearing-memes/

http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/01/i-have-never-been-to-prague-in-my-life-memes.html

https://www.popsugar.com/tech/Memes-Inspired-Hollywood-Sign-Prank-42940831

https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemcneal/hollywood-sign

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/hollywood-sign-meme/

Folklore has changed, but also remains the same

The internet has undoubtedly changed folklore. It has made memes more accessible to people everywhere. This has resulted in many more variations than there would be otherwise. Now people across the world can participate in making memes and sharing them. In this way it has expanded the folk cycle and formed larger folk groups than have existed in the past. It has also accelerated the folk cycle. Instead of lasting for years, certain memes will usually only last a few months or even weeks.

They become part of the folk cycle and phase out of it more rapidly thanks to the internet. One reason for this is most likely overexposure. People use the meme so many times that they quickly become tired of seeing it. And when they’re done with one meme, a new one is always there to take its place.

Like most folklore, memes can be used to reinforce traditional prejudices. Just as there are memes about movies and video games, there are memes about people’s bigoted attitudes towards others. These memes reveal folk attitudes towards racial minorities and other marginalized groups. They include offensive caricatures and stereotypes about the group in question. Bigoted people can view these memes and feel validated that others think the same way they do. The memes often express outright hostility towards the people. They can also be reactionary in nature, showing the resistance that often comes from marginalized groups gaining more rights and respect in society. Many people are aware of these attitudes, and memes that subvert them as part of a joke are also common. One genre of memes is the kind where the first line looks like it’s going to be a racial stereotype, but the second line shows that the statement is innocent.