Memes.
We look at them, laugh at them, share them. Some of us even make them and post
them on sites such as 9gag and reddit. Urban dictionary offers several definitions of the term meme, but the most used and popular one
is the one related to the internet culture – “an idea that is spread from blog
to blog” (user to user, site to site, Facebook post to Facebook post, etc.)
Being a frequent 9gag visitor, I had a lot of good laughs and
even learned a lot of new information from different parts of the world.
However, after some time, I noticed that not all memes were just for fun – many
of them were rather offensive – sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, or
just plain stupid and rude. The problem is that even those kinds of memes get
voted up to the so called “hot page” (on 9gag, for example), which means that
they become visible to all visitors.
Another, even worse problem is the medium they are “distributed”
by, namely humor. We know that humor and laughter are something we all have in
common and something that connects people. And that is a good thing. But humor
is also known to belittle things and people, by making fun of them, or by
making an important issue seem funny and not as significant.
As it seems that
almost no one notices these dangerous “windows” of discrimination, I’ve chosen
to present some of the worst (most ignorant, offensive, unacceptable) memes I’ve
seen online.
Gender
When it comes to the question of
gender, meme makers and users are quite “medieval” – women’s place is in the
kitchen, while men should be as manly as possible, and not show any feelings
what so ever.
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| (badideatshirts.com) |
The first
meme trend I wish to address here is one that is, as it seems, in the process
of dying out, luckily. The main idea is, as the name suggests, that
women’s place in this world is exclusively in the kitchen and their sole
purpose is to make a sandwich for the
man of the house.
Why it is dangerous: I don’t
think that this needs much explaining. We’re living in the 21st
century, and long gone are the housewife ideals of 1950’s. If you want a
sandwich in the modern era, you should make it yourself.
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| (weknowmemes.com) |
Just to make sure that the sexist jokes never really die out,
this meme’s “successor” can be found in the Yoga pants-meme, which is basically an almost pornographic fixation on female
behinds in said pants. The pictures seldom include any other part of the body,
thus objectifying women in a similar way commercials do, as discussed and
proven in several lectures and videos by Jean Kilbourne.
Another meme that I believe is
misrepresenting women is the well-known Overly attached girlfriend. While it looks
like a harmless joke directed towards the fact that there are some of us out
there who get overly attached when in relationships, the problem is that this
meme has no real male counterpart. Even though there is a meme called Overly attached boyfriend, it is not as
close as popular as the former one.
(secretsofthefed.com )
Why it is dangerous: By
pointing out that almost only girls get “overly attached”, this meme gives
girls some of the characteristics not all of us have, such as being insecure,
possessive, vengeful, and – most often – mentally unstable.
I wish to point out one
more thing here, which is not so much a meme, but a concept highly connected
with the meme-culture – the friendzone. Although the female users have
long tried to prove that the friendzone isn’t something reserved for guys (in
other words, that a girl can as easily be “friendzoned” by a guy), the large amount of
friendzone-memes mainly focus on pointing out that girls are heartless, cold,
selfish bi***es.
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| (funnymeme.com) |
When it comes to men,
there aren’t as many offensive memes, if we don’t count the Scumbag Steve
or Bad Luck Brian, which don’t really focus on the gender issue. One of the most popular memes
is certainly the Overly Manly Man-meme, which glorifies all of the extremely ”manly” things and
characteristics. Even though I personally understood it as irony, which it
might as well be, the thing that bothers me is the very concept of ”manly”
pictured in these memes. And if we consider that these sites are mainly visited
by the younger audience, the danger is evident. Instead of presenting new and
progressive ideas, these memes (together with the sexist ones I already
discussed) send us back to the times and social norms we never should go back
to.
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| (m.memegen.com) |
Homosexual and transgender issues don’t
come up too often in the meme-community, which can be both good and bad. On one
hand, that way they avoid being ridiculed as much as other issues, but on the
other – it’s as if these issues and people don’t even exist. When they do get used in
memes, it’s almost always in a negative context, especially when it comes to
trans themes. Users express a high dose of ignorance and hatred, making memes
such as the ones below.
Why it is dangerous: The lack
of open-mindedness among these young people is alarming. One would expect that
the younger generations would be more understanding and accepting towards
diversity, but if these trends continue and expand, I’m afraid that the future
will not be as bright as we imagine it to be.
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| (weknowmemes.com) |
Race
When it comes to the
question of face, memes are similarly full of prejudice and at times highly
offensive. Even some which, at first sight, don’t seem racist, but the quite
opposite, are just that – as long as your meme supports any kind of narrow
minded or old-fashioned views, you are dealing with racism.
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| (blogcdn.com) |
First of them, and also one of the most popular, is the so
called HighExpectations Asian Father. Although it seems that this meme is
harmless, since it is just “stating the obvious” – Asians are, “as we all know
it”, competitive and smart. Yeah, right. First of all, have any of us met all
of the Asian people? I doubt it. Thus, there we have a prejudice. Not a harmful
one, it seems, but still a not proven fact stated as one. Also, it’s often
written in bad English, that is, English the meme creator believes Asians speak,
such as: “Talk to me when you doctor”, instead of “when you’re a doctor”.
The other popular meme is the Misunderstood-meme. There are a lot of different types of it, from misunderstood shark and douchebag to
memes I’m going to discuss here.
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| (imghut.com) |
The Misunderstood Successful Black Man is maybe used as an attempt to show all racists out
there that even black people can be
successful, but it doesn’t make it any less wrong. By making this kind of meme,
you are stating that successful black people are rarely seen in our society.
Wrong. On so many levels.
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| (tickld.com) |
We also have the Misunderstood Redneck-meme. Even though
discriminating against white people seems like an OK thing to do, since white
people have long been evil, racist and full of prejudice towards all “non-whites”
(and some of them, unfortunately, still are!), this is not ok. We fight for a
society where everyone is going to be
able to feel welcome and not discriminated against and where prejudice is going
to be a long forgotten term. Don’t discriminate, not even against those who are racists themselves. Show them you’re
better than that.
Why it is dangerous: Every and
any emphasizing of prejudice or narrow minded opinions in today’s society is
dangerous and counterproductive. Stop dividing people, help them unite.
Meat/Vegetarianism
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| (captionite.com) |
This is a theme that
has bothered me the longest, and that almost doesn’t have anyone fighting
against it in the meme-community. We live in the era where it is proven that people should both eat and produce less
meat than they do today, thus contributing to both preventing climate change
and animal rights issue. However, in the internet community, being a vegetarian
is considered stupid or weak, while bacon has become
some sort of deity.
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| (ipadartroom.com) |
Why it is dangerous: Since I
am a vegetarian who never liked bacon (even when I used to eat meat), I can’t
really understand this trend. At the same time, this meme-shrine to bacon is
making something, namely – meat, vastly popular among young people, that is,
people who should be able to live on this Earth in the days to come. How is it
then not dangerous to promote industrial meat production?
Positive
examples
I wish to end this
blog post in a somewhat positive mood, and that's why I present a couple of memes
that try to fight against the trends described above. Keep up the good work, open-minded
meme-lovers!
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| (youthareawesome.com) |
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| (quickmeme.com) |
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| (31.media.tumblr.com) |
