Philippine pop culture and new

media: Memeology 101

GROUP 2
Background and history

 It all started more than 25 years ago. Before social media, even before the internet for
some people, there was the dancing baby. The 3D-rendered, diaper-clad baby doing some
version of the Cha Cha is widely known as the first viral video or meme.
 The Greek word “mimeme” he derives “meme” from comes from the Ancient Greek
μίμημα (mīmēma), meaning “that which is imitated” / “something imitated” / “something
copied”
 Most memes are first circulated on Reddit, /pol/ or 4chan. From there, they find their way
to other networks like Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and WhatsApp. While they are the
source of much humour on the Internet, they can also be used to spread messages of hate
or racism.
 Internet memes haven’t been around long, but their staying power is phenomenal. The
dancing baby came out in 1996 and is considered by many to be the first digital meme.
Main purpose of a meme

 While social media is a platform for communication, memes are a way of expressing a
culturally-relevant idea. A meme is an image or video that represents the thoughts and
feelings of a specific audience. Most memes are captioned photos intended to elicit
humor.
 Memes are funny and contagious units of cultural knowledge. This makes them an easy
and fast way of sharing cultural information. Therefore, whenever you post or share a
meme, you essentially share easy-to-digest cultural information with the world. And you
get recognition for your ideas in the process.
The Effect of Memes on Popular Culture

 Memes provide an opportunity to connect with people of all sort. To say that memes has
not had any effect on popular culture is like saying global warming has had no effect on
the world. Memes have become similar to emojis— you use it like anything else. Often
times when I am texting my friend, we communicate by sending memes to one another to
try and convey our emotions or just have a lost. Sometimes when I am texting the first
thing that comes to mind is “OMG let me find a meme for that.” It is the easiest way for
me to communicate. In happy moments, in sad moments, in moments of confusion,
memes are the way for millennials to express themselves. Memes have absolutely affected
every part of popular culture as well as our emotions. Sometimes when individuals see a
meme they experience many different emotions such as joy, sadness, happiness, fear etc.
 Another added bonus of memes is that it encourages participation and shareability. Memes have
the ability to be shared across a wide range of platforms and on smartphones as well which is
major. Memes encourage collaborative community while also cultivating a new form of discourse
community— they are unlike traditional culture. It allows you to be part of a community and be
able to contribute to the community. Many meme composers within the popular culture realm
participate with memes on platforms such as weblogs, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat just to name a
few. These platforms allow a user to interact with their friends and loved ones using memes and
incorporating other multimodal features. The composer has the ability to create, remix,
repackage, redistribute the content. Being a part of the content generating community allows for
individualism and the composer has given a voice. The community has many affordances and it
can add to the digital ecosystem. With all good things comes the bad. Although you can create
and redistribute the content you create, once it goes viral that’s it– you’ve have lost “ownership”
of it, it becomes a product of the Internet.
Members:

John Jacob M. Jorolan

 Gian Carlo Gabucan
 Janice Estrada
 Jason Monares
 Elson Neil Golloso
 Ella Garcia
 Je ann Lobiano
 Jeffrey Maloloy-on