Memes and the Laughing Stock

Internet meme is a form of communication in the new media world which has changed the way people talk. It has redefined our channels of knowledge and patterns of learning. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene(1976) coined the term 'meme'. He equated cultural ideas with genes and explained how thoughts transmit from one brain to the other, mostly by imitation but also constant transformation. The image-macro meme sequences show how thoughts and ideas imitate, mutate and evolve. The fact that memetic studies has come up as an academic subject and various institutions like Brown University have begun offering courses such as “The rhetoric of memes” or “Memes 101” shows that it is becoming an increasingly important part of our culture. A product of a hyper-connected like-minded group, memes work on exclusion. Something which the older generation just doesn’t get, it is projected as a tool for the millennials. In fact, memes ridicule the older generation trying to participate in the meme-culture within its very format.

The desperation of a middle-aged man, wearing a baseball cap backwards and a shirt with "music band" printed on it, to pass off as a teenager equated with 'oldies' trying to understand something 'hip' like memes in the Fellow Kids meme. 

But are memes really a new medium?

Old wine in new bottle

This recently-surfaced 1921 cartoon in a magazine called The Judge caused excited speculations about it being the first meme (a format dependent joke) as it follows the same template as the popular Expectation vs Reality meme sequence.

An image in itself can not be a meme unless it is reproduced with slight variation. BBC discovered that 1921 wasn't the first time such a joke was published. The Wisconsin Octopus magazine had printed the following version of the joke in 1919 or 1920, thereby making the sequence possibly the first pre-internet meme. 

Looking closer home, the Amul girl too was a meme much before her time. The impish blue-haired girl in a polka-dotted frock has commented about contemporary events since the advertisement campaign started in 1966. The much loved figure of "India's Golden Girl" has come to symbolise fearless tongue-in-cheek humour, often wording concerns of citizens, even in isolation from text.

The first Amul advertisement released during horse racing season shows the chubby-cheeked mascot as a jockey.

While it is clear that the format of combining visuals with text was available even before internet, it is its easy digital reproducibility and the lack of authorship which has made it a new language. Memes are becoming increasingly esoteric and are sometimes just a stock image unaccompanied by text. They do not need words to convey a message anymore. One knows what "Salt Bae" represents even if it received without any text. Cat and dog memes, or any other memes viral for the cuteness of its content, allow social media users a breather from the continuous outpouring of information online. The replicating forms are not only entertaining but show how the world is or should be. The ability of memes to explain complex issues and aid memorization in a fun and engaging manner can revolutionise pedagogy. Mad Mughal Memes is a Facebook page which is changing the way millennials engage with Mughal art and history, one contextualised and memified painting at a time. A Facebook event last September organised by a Dank meme page ShitIndiansSay had about 2000 people turn up to shout “Bol na Aunty” in CP to celebrate the viral meme. The extent of identification shows how effective memes are as a mass-mobilisation technique. The culture can create solidarity for a cause and bring people together to work towards it. Relatable and sensitive memes make closeted gays, those depressed or transgender people feel less alienated. Memes can be circulated without the pressure of ownership or self-endorsement, shared just for its humour value. The presence of online content sympathetic to harrowing personal experiences makes one feel part of a shared existence. The attractive visual-text or gif format allows introverts to communicate through an engaging medium. Memes are means of coping for many depressed, antisocial or socially awkward teenagers. They have normalized taboo subjects like homosexuality, menstruation, body issues, social anxiety and pornography.

The visual-text and gif text formats of memes have made it easy to engage with complex politics. Controversial issues which can't be picked up by mainstream newspapers owing to their advertisers-pay model are critiqued by internet memes. The humour inherent in the format increases the scope of freedom of expression. Memes create more politically engaged and aware citizens.

Memes in a democracy

Though memes seem like the perfect pop-art for a democracy in that they are easily reproducible, extremely shareable and non-profit, are they really so? They have increasingly become a propaganda tool as IT Cells are being set up and Image Creators employed. Furthering the interests of an aggressively imagined nation, they malign all who question with an onslaught of cheap humour. Right-wing memes are growing in popularity across nations. Populist anger, hyper-nationalism and open suspicion towards the 'other' fuel this movement. Memes divorce the content from the producer and therefore lack perspective. Since there is no authorship, the stance of the creator is unknown. There is no history of authorship which can be referred to. Can internet memes, then, be the voice of a democracy when they are being manipulated by a few and can't be trusted to be responsible anyway? The currency of online content is its virality. And it is the ruling power's interest which decides the lifetime of a meme.

Ravish Kumar, a prominent Hindi journalist, at a seminar in Miranda House on March 12, 2018, explained why he thinks political memes and jokes forwarded on social media are detrimental to a democracy. Laughing at a problem, he said, doesn't make the problem go away. If the aam aadmi laugh at jibes made on politicians doing wrong, the joke is on them since them are the ones wronged. Since politics is a serious affair with an actual impact our lives, missteps by politicians shouldn't be excused with a chuckle. I would have to differ. What needs to be questioned here is the intent of the content circulated. What purpose do political memes serve? Do memes trivialise an issue with humour? 

The PM remarked in a public address that there was nothing like mal-nutrition, only "figure-conscious girls" unwilling to eat. The statement inspired several memes ridiculing his speech.

Gibe at Rahul Gandhi's less-than-stellar oratory skills 

Laughter is not an end in itself. Satire uses laughter as a corrective measure and is a political weapon. The video an old be-spectacled Pakistani woman draped in a sari cussing at the government is an excellent example.

Yeh Bik Gai Hai Gormint (January 11, 2017)

While the source of hilarity is the explicative-filled rant in Hindi, it caught on for the relatable frustration of the 'middle class' trapped in the government-corporate nexus. Satire is an art which points out flaws with the aim of correcting society. Funny with a potent sting, the meme does just that.

In addition to identifying the intent, it would also be helpful to see who the object of a meme is and who the subject. The politics of who laughs at memes and who is laughed at is worthy of investigation. For ease of study, I have classified memes according to their reception. Self-reflective laughter on relatable memes, crass laughter on a meme ridiculing the subject the viewer deems beneath him/herself or no laughter at all at the former as well as memes which shock or soothe. Two professionals which invariably inspire meme creation are cringe-pop artists and politicians. The virality of both depends on the crude laughter at someone one thinks is beneath them. 

Cringe-pop and memes

It has been widely speculated to no end why certain memes go viral and the rest don't. One sure-shot way of making content viral is through enhancing it’s ‘shock value’. At one end of the spectrum are the 'topper memes'. Every year, as soon as class 12 board results are released, trolling of the toppers is religiously undertaken. The relatable outrage at a shocking 99.9% score is reflected in the popularity of the memes which follow. At the other end of the spectrum are memes which rely on something shockingly bad. The genre of 'cringe-pop' developed after evolution of memes as a medium of conversation. It is only after videos began being shared with captions that the possibility of such a genre arose. Rebecca Black has been credited as the first cringe-pop artist for her music video Friday(2012). In India though, the phenomenon wasn't new. Baba Sehgal, “the king of nonsense rap”, released his 'Thanda Thanda Paani' more than 21 years before the term cringe-pop came into being, before the time of modern internet. Some of the most famous memes in India have been given by cringe artists like Dhinchak Pooja, Omprakash Mishra, Wilbur Sargunaraj and Tahar Shah to name a few. Cringe-pop might be celebrated as a product of post-modernism where-in traditional ideologies have broken down and there are no rules to abide. There is no centre by which to align one self and all voices exist in independence and have equal importance. There is no authority which decides what "good" music is and so music which was hither-to unheard can now be heard in the mainstream. While the increasing acceptance of the fringe must be encouraged in a modern society, is the destabilisation of 'elite' music the reason for the popularity of cringe music? The memes suggest otherwise.

Through the vocabulary of memes which thrives on hive minds, more and more viewers are invited to watch the videos and join the supremacist club to diss the content. Why do people keep listening to such music? Is it really because it is “so bad that it is good”? Is it all just a good laugh? Internet users who continually listen to cringe-pop to go on to produce and share memes, snickering at the buffoonery of the artist, have firmly established notions of which kind of music is acceptable. The viewing and circulation of such memes and videos reek of privilege. Every share is accompanied by a condescending laugh by persons who deem themselves to be above such absurdity. "Just her name, alone, is enough for us to put her on top of our #YouCantSitWithUs list." writes Cosmopolitan in an article crowning Pooja as Rebecca Black's successor. However, the economy of virtual virality has disabled this hierarchy. While the artists are still laughed at, they can now make money out of it. Dhinchak Pooja has disabled comments on her 'selfie maine leli aaj’ video. While she sees how popular her video on YouTube is, she doesn’t see the hate. Though she is still mocked, she gets to monetise the laughter aimed at her. The exploitative gaze now has a counter. Though viewers ridicule Omprakash Mishra of 'Aunty ki Ghanti' fame, some 2000 still did assemble in the streets to shout the lyrics. It is true that the gathering was a proof of the mobilisation capacity of internet memes but it does nothing but parody the real capabilities of the phenomenon. People for whom such music is presented as cringe-pop belong to a certain class. So obviously different are they from the scorned creator of the song that they can collect for the sole purpose of celebrating the cringe without the fear of being classed in the same category as him. Calling Mishra "cool" or a "dude" in memes is an inside joke, shared by people belonging to a certain class, from which the creator himself is excluded. A Quint journalist called out the song for its misogynistic lyrics and received heavy backlash. Raftaar, one of the most famous rappers in India, came out with a video in support of Mishra saying that an artist who wants to be recognised has to use desperate measures. Vulgar lyrics or at least double-meaning lines are necessary to sell music online without external support, he says. While such a statement is debatable, what is clear through this episode is how selective liberals are with their criticism. A number of online content websites which on fairer occasions had claimed to champion feminism, embedded the video or shared memes about it. Once they gained satisfactory virality milage, they went on to support the backlash against the inappropriate lyrics.

Dank Memes

The laughter to ridicule isn't reserved only for cringe artists. Dank memes in India are mutating from inappropriate to increasingly malicious. Admins of closed Facebook groups like House of Illrepute (which describes its engagement as "Spiciest humour for a tasteless world") and Smoke memes not weed screen those who want to join, making sure no "prude" or "normie" gets in, lest offence be taken on rape jokes, caste-ist and homophobic memes. ‘Nashebaaz- The Dying People Of Delhi’ is a documentary by Dheeraj Sharma of which the story of Kamlesh, a drug addict at 13 years who can’t live without inhaling 'solution' daily, is a part. Snippets of Kamlesh admitting his love for "solution" have become hugely viral Dank memes. “Being a director and being a social worker, it is very disheartening to see such memes" spoke the director in a video. "It was also very shocking that our society has become so insensitive that it is making fun of a 13-year-old boy who...has become prey to drug abuse and is homeless and leads a pitiful life."

Kamlesh

Memes are new neither in form, nor in content. It is only the circulation of the template which has changed the way we converse. Though we engage in new communicating system, we are not free of the prejudices of the old. In our laughter we carry the prejudices handed down to us by birth. The hierarchies are always visible in the subject-object relationship. The instantaneously transferable replicators have changed our psychological thought as well as political and social engagement forever but are still weighed down by myths and superstitions. As we zoom towards an all-encompassing media world, we leave behind trails of collateral damage of caste-ist slur, misogynistic threats, exclusivist carols and wanton slander.