Where's the meme type?

Memes as a cultural phenomenon

The first meme was the simple smiley 😉 , which was sent by IT professor Scott E. Fahlman on September 19, 1982 in the Usenet of Carnegie Mellon University.

The smiley is known as an emoticon and Fahlman is considered its inventor? Already right, but "at a higher level" this emoticon also a piece of internet culture that can become a meme through online transmission. If it is spread and gains influence - we all know that this was exactly what happened and happens with the smiley.

In 1996 the dancing Ugacha-baby (by web developer John Woodell; let it dance again, yeah):

1999 Hampton's Hamster House ("The Hampsterdance Song")

With the first measurable success of 17 million visitors a day over three months, a little later Advice Animals + Lolcats in rough quantities and much more ... and then finally more serious content.

Memes are fleeting, fun, ironic - and often so wrong that the ashamed of the natural reaction is. However, memes are not quite as fleeting on the net; Not as fleeting as the ingenious flash of thought of the girlfriend, who could not be noted somewhere in time ... because this is so, there are few reasons to spoil life with bad memes, because here too there are some selection and could be much more witty and stimulating with design. Later, we first take a look at the content and shape of the memes, which are currently dominating the network:

From a nice picture to the influential communication tool

Today not only comments and jokes, but also statements about political debates, complaints about public bureaucracy outgrowth, displeasure about the failure of public transport, etc. are spread. The meme has grown up and lost his innocence. It has blossomed into a means of communication that also transports serious content and causes serious reactions (sometimes, would be a shame otherwise).

Such memes influence masses ; They are used by companies that want to influence masses for this purpose. Some of the most successful memes in 2018 show this clearly: In January, Google put on a selfie feature by Arts & Culture app. It should enable users to search photos of their faces in famous paintings and thus fuel the general interest in art and culture according to Google.

Behind it was the testing of a facial recognition technology-until data protection officer storm ran, many inexperienced art-interested people irrevocably transferred their physiognomy to a Google database. In the social context, however, the campaign backfired: The data protectionists also received more attention in connection with these memes and were able to point out millions of previously uncritical users of the lack of inhibition of the search engine operator's data greed.

The latest note in some detergent advertising: "Keep detergent from children away" was triggered by a wave of memes. Here teenagers wanted to influence click numbers and thus the supposed personal internet, but their brain had obviously had to do at completely different construction sites.

In the "Tide Pod Challenge", the teen community was asked to consume detergent capsules and film themselves. The most brainless teenagers were fully included, from the beginning of the year to February 15, 2018, 86 young people were admitted to the US emergency rooms with oral assets, seizures, pulmonary edema, breathing arrest, coma etc. (see Mercury: Deticic remedies for clicks-why this can end with coma ).

This meme has worked very sustainably: millions of consumers who had simply bought detergents have now wondered what the hell is in the stuff that young people in rows in the emergency room and switched to non-toxic organic detergent.

There are (few) better examples of influential communication through memes, but still applies:

Memes can inspire

People like to inspire themselves and easy for enjoyable, stimulating everyday interruptions, flashes of inspiration, small surprises. This is not only a good thing, but a basic human need - neurobiological research has long since discovered that enthusiasm creates a "cheap climate" in the brain.

What is meant is a mindset that favors the creation of certain brain connections, all of the synapses that are formed when learning, understanding, developing ... enthusiasm arises from practice, i.e. a bit of enthusiasm every day.

Since gratifying, stimulating phenomena have become rare in everyday life in everyday life (or enrich the everyday life of all people to rarely, nobody has complained about too much suggestion and joy), creative minds also used the Internet from the start to bring a little pep and fun into everyday life.

Through weird videos, stupid people cat pictures, dancing comic figures-all of which become a meme when they are amused by a (un) suitable saying and then/therefore/therefore are distributed wildly through the network.

Because in 2009 the internet meme was defined in 2009 by author Patrick Davison in the essay "The Language of Internet Memes" as follows: "An internet meme is a piece of culture, mostly a joke that gains influence through online transmission." (See Academia: Makes A Meme Instead: A Concise History of Internet Memes , p. 3).

So Memes have been fun to the everyday life of people for a whole decade. On the one hand, an indication that Memes will probably remain part of the Internet culture for a long time, on the other hand, the meme has gone through the (also) serious means of communication in this long period of time, but not much learned:

Call to uprising against impact!

Memes, the nice, mocking, sloping internet jokes, are underlaid in their classic form with a font that ... is simply garbage:

Impact was developed in 1965 as a lead and was already outdated at the time of its creation. Every reasonably advanced printing company has been trying to use the new photo sentence processes since the beginning of the 1960s, and the first digital set methods had already been created.

Impact should give an impression (e.g. in the headings of the media and advertising stubbornly to be lit, the font has no place in flow text)- and the font does that in an unscharious way, which has nothing to do with elegant design: Impact shouts at the reader; What is in impact was obviously conceived in a bad state.

Today, so wooden attention -grated font has a fixed top position among the most unpopular fonts in the world. This typography disaster is only suitable for memes that should spread bad mood or frustration or should show your author as a graphic zero at first glance.

This collection of the "Best Memes 2018" turned out to be aesthetically unusually cruel overall, until Firefox crashed: Thrillist: The 108 Best Memes of 2018 . Doesn't have to be, Memes have not closed a pact with the devil, which obliges them to become constant ugliness.

The best memes 2018 (worldwide)

Art (doctorate) with art memes

Memes are a cultural phenomenon that reaches millions of people in individual forms. Here are some examples that have achieved millions of people over the years (see PC Welt: The 30 Funny Internet Memes ))

Haha, funny? Well, but you don't have to be a professional humorist to suspect that there is more. But in German -speaking countries, Memes are rare overall - which z. B. could be due to instinctive impact rejection of the world region that invented the brief or the difficulty of writing witty aphorisms in the rather opulent German language.

There are some really funny (dialect -tinted) examples from Switzerland, a few laughing muscles stimulating memes from Austria ( Buzzfeed: 21 Memes that only funny San, if a Austria ) and a lot of quite stupid to embarrassing memes from Germany (no author should be personally too close here, simply search for Facebook and Co. for memes from Germany)

Too bad and not really a reflection of creative people in Germany (in the roof room)-because Memes do not have to remain limited to the roaring font "Impact" and offer creative people many opportunities: attention-if the meaning of the memes is only to be understood at second glance, even quite sustainable attention. With a smart (no one insulting, apolitical and non -religious) content, the author has the laugh on your side.

Memes can communicate serious, critical content relaxed without provoking defenses.

And Memes can of course become delightful miniature works of art if a few of the many people get to work who are easy to think of with writings and fonts, photos and photo editing (unthinking what could come out if artists from the memes agree) ...

Joachim Rodriguez y Romero

Owner and managing director of Kunstplaza. Publicist, editor and passionate blogger in the field of art, design and creativity since 2011. Successful conclusion in web design as part of a university degree (2008). Further development of creativity techniques through courses in free drawing, expression painting and theatre/acting. Profound knowledge of the art market through many years of journalistic research and numerous collaborations with actors/institutions from art and culture.

www.kunstplaza.de/