Internet crazes sweep across social media at an incredibly fast rate, one minute they’re plastered all over your Facebook home page being shared and liked by your connections, and the next they’re gone. 2016 saw the arrival and departure of:
- The Mannequin Challenge
- The Running Man Challenge
- Dabbing
- …and possibly the ‘oldest’ of them all ‘Damn Daniel’, how could we forget him?
‘Meme’
One of the latest crazes which currently seems to be standing the test of time against the dying out curse that most crazes are faced with is, meme – defined by the English Oxford Living Dictionary as:
‘An image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.’
I’m almost certain that all teenagers who are actively using social media sites will be familiar with the word. Memes are often created and shared at a higher rate depending on what news stories are generating the most interest at the time. For example, the recent US Presidential Election saw the creation of many controversial memes which were linked towards Hilary Clinton and her email scandal.
Why do we use memes?
Memes have now become a key part of web and mobile communication, with sites such as Facebook and even iMessage now incorporating an option to add memes into messages. They give something a little bit extra to the messages that we send – a lighthearted addition to what could sometimes be a dull message.
The Affects of Crazes
Personally, I use memes daily during social media interaction and they are constantly appearing on my newsfeed. I think that it is fair to say that they have contributed to my increased usage of social media, with conversations sometimes turning into sending memes back and forth as a means of communicating rather than using plain text.
Although sometimes taking political stances and ‘rubbing people up the wrong way’, I think that memes are: fun, inventive, and in some cases informative. With reference to my previous blog post, one piece of advice I would give to those who get swept up with internet crazes is: try not to let them consume you, yes watching peoples countless attempts to make a successful ‘Mannequin Challenge’ is amusing, but ultimately they are just crazes which come and go – don’t allow them to get in the way of having face-face interaction, as this is what matters the most!
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