Of Memes and Emojis

It has been several weeks since my last offering, but life has a funny way of happening, especially when you're not paying attention or are engaged in a number of other activities that require your attention.  Despite all the activity that has been going on, I have been pondering what I should discuss on this blog.  The obvious would be all the political events that have been happening across the world, especially in the United States, since that is where I reside.  Or perhaps, focus on celebrities and how nauseating it is to have individuals place them on such high pedestals.  I admit, there are some I like, just as there are politicians, but I think we as a society need to stop placing such importance on people who don't necessarily have our best interests at heart.  Anyway, that is another topic for another day.  What I wish to focus on today, is the 'meme culture.'

So this may not be the most important topic of the day, but it has been something that I've thought about for quite sometime.  Everyone of us can name a meme of varying popularity catapulted into the spotlight and causing a stir for any length of time.  Of course, some may cause us to roll our eyes, while others can become, more or less, politicized.  I would be lying if I denied liking any of them.  Some I thought particularly clever and would share with my friends or other social media platforms because it was just so well executed.  But perhaps we should take a look at these memes in light of their impact upon society and how we've been largely driven by them.  Now, those that create them I would deem as being creative, intelligent, and definitely lucky.  So credit must be given where credit is due.

Human beings use their senses to take in the world around them.  This is, of course, a fact that hardly needs to be mentioned.  When it comes to being online, the senses we most often use are sight and hearing, especially since the average user is bombarded with so much stimuli, regardless of what the user is engaging in.  Now, when that user sees or uses an emoji, they understand exactly what they mean and so does everyone else.  It is a means of communicating how one feels in regards to whatever subject they are interested in.  Whether I'm right or wrong, it seems to me that the emoji is the progenitor of the 'meme.'  A meme is something that any internet user is familiar with and usually stems from some sort of pop culture moment that captured the imagination of a number of other internet users.

Like an emoji, the meme is used as a means of expression.  But it goes one step further.  Rather than a simple feeling, it gives us a higher level of complexity.  For all intents and purposes, it was like the emoji evolved into a more complex organism.  Quite fascinating when one thinks about it.  The meme has far more expressive power than just a simple emoji ever will.  Degrees of interpretation are seemingly endless and vary across political, ethnic, social, and cultural arenas.  It truly is astounding how one moment, one artistic rendering can impact so many individuals in so many different ways.  It makes me wonder what the next phase of expression is going to be, once the meme is no longer as popular.

However, while it has enabled us to communicate thoughts and ideas, it is still has its limitations as far as expression is concerned.  One of the topics that is most important to me is language and since I am an English speaker, you can guess which language is of highest import to me.  While we have all these means to express ourselves in such a visual way, we, as a society and culture, must not be so quick and callous to drop the beauty of the written and spoken word.  What I mean here is that the language is being further degraded and most individuals do not value it as they should.  We are far more interested.in the quick pleasure of a visual moment than the immense beauty of a word chosen carefully by a writer, poet, playwright, songwriter, or what have you.

I am not saying that we need to quit using memes as a means of communication. They are important, especially in a world that demands our constant attention and sometimes a well placed meme can make a conversation a bit more exciting.  Perhaps what I wish for, is that the language we use as a primary means of communicating with each other doesn't get lost in the sporadic highs and lows of the next big pop culture phenomenon.