Thousand Word Meme Post?

Anika Sands

Professor Daly

ESOC 211

November 14th, 2017

Thousand Word Meme Post? 

For the thousand word blog post, I decided to write mine about what I felt was most interesting about the class we have learned so far. I am going to look at the statistics of memes and how they become famous, interesting facts, and how they became what they are today. Another aspect that I am going to focus on is how many memes go un noticed, and never get any actual real recognition, and what sets apart the memes that actually go viral and become something that everyone knows. 

I started by looking at the popular memes, and knowing what we had learned in class, I know that most of these memes  spread almost overnight into internet sensations, things that almost everyone with a twitter, facebook, instagram or any type of social media would know. Using my own knowledge, I know that things can become popular by retweeting. I think that retweeting is a way that large numbers of people can see a picture or piece of information. When something gets retweeted, the followers of the person who retweeted it will see the tweet. It will appear in their timeline, and this can lead to a lot of exposure. I also believe that the more in common you have with your audience, the easier it is for your meme to spread. I see a lot of tweets that would only be applicable to me, because I am part of that organization or from that geographic area, I’m a student, or things that other people have in common with me. Secondly, I think that the amount of followers you have can predict whether or not your meme or tweet will go viral. Although these are all just my speculations, and I am going to explain to you the research that I found that will either support, or prove my individual research wrong. 

First, a short background on memes so that the definition is clear about what qualifies as a meme. The term meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1979, The term 'meme' was coined by Richard Dawkins in 1979, “who used it to describe a unit for carrying cultural ideas or behavior, similar to how genes carry genetic information from one generation to the next.” (What makes a meme).  For an example of a meme, figure one is Bad Luck Brian, who we discussed in class and watched a video of him and his life now in class. 

After doing some research, the most promising study that I found was designed by a group of researchers that also had the same questions about how memes go viral. They designed a software to track meme popularity, and discover the insight of how these memes went viral. Some interesting information that they found is, “shorter memes were 2.8 times more likely to be successful and template memes were 2.2 times more likely.” (What makes a meme). If I had to guess, I would say that this is because there is a certain format that catches peoples eyes when they see so much content on the internet in one day. Having a shorter meme, or having a meme that follows a certain template can definitely help catch the reader’s eye and they are more likely to repost. On the contrary, they also found that, “What surprised researchers the most was memes that had swear words were 1.77 times less likely to be successful.” This is likely due to the fact that things that everyone can find funny, have a larger viewing and sharing audience than things that just adults or people of a certain age range would find funny. For example, I would not repost something on Facebook that is inappropriate because I have friends and family that think of me a certain way, and I know that they would not appreciate it on my timeline. The researchers also proposed this theory that it is more likely for popularity when you have the largest target audience as possible. There is lots of other studies that have been done, and there seems to be an established algorithm on how memes become famous. Researchers were even able to identify the top ten memes of the internet today( attached below) , and in figure two I have attached an example of the most popular meme for reference. I know that I have definitely seen all of these throughout my own social media, and they are things that are very relevant, applicable, and pop culture references that I would understand. To watch a video about more research done on memes by the business insider, click here.

1. Overly Attached Girlfriend

2. My Dinner Is More Important Than Your Dinner

3. We All Knew That One Girl...

4. Would Someone Please Feed This Adorable Cat?

5. The Chemistry Cat

6. Chuck Norris is Better Than You

7. Photobombing Squirrel

8. Smartest Woman Ever...

9. The Most Interesting Man Alive 

10. That's One Grumpy Cat 

Overall, the internet is changing the way that people become famous. You no longer have to be a celebrity, actor, athlete, anybody can become somebody. I believe that this is due to the internet, it gives more power to people other than big stars and focuses on how ordinary people can have just as (if not more) relatable, funnier, and more viral posts. It is no longer about who you are, but what you post.

Figure 1:

Image courtesy of: Flickr 

Figure 2:

Image courtesy of: Wiki Commons 

Works Cited: 

Liberatore, S. (2015). What makes a meme: Scientists reveal the secret to what causes images to go viral. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3366348/What-makes-meme-Scientists-reveal-secret-causes-images-viral.html