Memes

In this age and time, most people have seen memes before. Memes have the capability of bringing in intense emotions and dramatic statements. So how exactly do memes become popular and trending? According to Dawkin’s analysis, memes that spread successfully incorporate three properties, which include longevity, fecundity and copy fidelity. All of which are enhanced by the Internet. When memes are posted online people respond in various ways as well. These include through commenting, liking, sharing, or by creating mimicry or remixes. Recreating original documents is viewed as networked individualism.

Shiffman talks about the six P’s that enhance content’s virality. These include positivity, provocation of high-arousal emotions, participation, packaging, prestige, and positioning. According to a key finding, people are more inclined in sharing stories that are positive because what they share is a reflection of themselves. Most people want to be perceived as being upbeat and entertaining. Next, provoking high arousal emotions are important in order to better catch the audience’s attention, whether it be positive or negative. Stories that created a more “wow” response has a lot more influence than other content that may be considered sad. When it comes to packaging information, it is more beneficial to create messages that are clear and simple. This type of information really sticks to people. Content that is shared by famous or influential individuals is seen as being credible and reliable. In addition, they would be able to reach more people because of their status, this is all related to prestige. Positioning is then where they decide to distribute the content. Lastly, participation relates to the engagement from viewers or stakeholders. All of these six components really aid in content gaining visibility.

In addition to just sharing entertaining and comedic memes, a lot of people share memes for political purposes. Memes shared to express political points of views is beneficial to showing personalization. As more people around the globe become Internet users, the user-generated globalization of memes becomes more relevant. Memes are not driven by high-profile commercial agencies, but instead are created by ordinary users, it does not involve commerce, and when memes are translated, sometimes a few extra key words or markers are added making some words or phrases invisible to those who view it. When memes are translated, they often include adaptations, which may alter the meaning. Although memes can mean different things dependant on the translation, the speed at which memes travel on a global scale is very impressive.