According to my 16 year-old sister, memes are nothing much more than “just random quotes and different pictures, the stupid things people say. They’re everywhere.”
And to some degree she is right. On the surface at least memes are just that, a (stolen) image paired with a short message that is amusing for a second or two. At least until you read the next one.
Memes, are examples of appropriation. Yet there’s more to memes than meets the eye.
“Memes spread through human culture like genes spread through the gene pool.” – Richard Dawkins
They do this by spreading through and changing culture by framing human experiences in ways that can be shared and easily understood.
Memes have emerged thanks to the internet and the result of content no longer residing wholly to legacy media.
We are in a time when the once silent audience can now step into the creative process to transform ideas and create new ones. Yet we are only beginning to recognise this change for what it is.
I’ll leave you with these (somewhat) wise words.
himynameismara.wordpress.com 
I really like how you added in your sisters perception on memes! It is so true, I told a friend I was blogging about meme warfare they laughed and said “what? memes are just funny”. I think you conceptualised the way memes can be so much more than a funny image, you could have also used an example of how memes have done this in recent times, but other than that I really liked this post! 🙂
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Thanks! 🙂
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NICE MEME *cough cough* post. I really liked the conciseness of this post and your video is awesome. The simple definition of the meme makes an otherwise hard to define internet phenomenon easily understandable. However, I think if you extended your writing past a definition focus and delved more into meme warfare or memes in every day life it could have taken a really cool angle. I would love to see you take an approach like this in your next post as I love reading your stuff and would like to see you discuss something more in-depth, I think it would make for a really interesting read! 🙂
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Cheers! And yeah good point. I’ll give it a go for this week 🙂
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Great article! I like your use of links, and your use of lots of interesting bits and pieces, like your sisters quotes and other online opinions. I think something you could maybe improve on is just expanding your idea a little more, although a great explanation of memes it could possibly go a little deeper. The meme video is also hilarious, awesome for adding that in, helps keep the content lively and interesting. This video is something interesting you could replace for an explanation, to keep your word count down)—–>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4sF7VXWiOM
Keep up the fun content!
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Thanks for the comment!
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Hi Mara, I always seem to come back to read your blogs because firstly they are concise and they get the message across in a simple way. I like how you used your sister’s perspective as people often laugh when I tell them that I’m studying memes. Your blog could have used with expanding of your argument rather than just defining it and maybe even including ways in which memes have impacted your life or affected the way you viewed something – if any. Great blog!
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Thanks for that! 🙂
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