@flyingoctopus but actually - I was discussing this yesterday with my boyfriend. Memes are actually very nicely and summarily representative of world culture.... and it addresses our sense of belonging and self-value...
But you are going to need background for this.
1. Belonging: all humans wish to be included in an in-group of sorts. Now an in-group (social psychology term) is a group with which you can identify in having similar values, experiences, aspirations, or opinions, or even all of those. You can belong to several in-groups, e.g. your culture, language, race, sports teams you support, the funsub community, academic fields, interests, etc. Now someone who is in your out-group are those who you do not agree with and who are not included in your in-group, either by choice or by unwritten social laws....
Hence, meme culture is an in-group, as memes are actually just a series of inside jokes, shared with your in-group. The more advanced the meme (evolved from and relying on context from previous memes) the more inside the joke, and when you "get" those memes, you feel included and happy, because you enjoy certain privileges (inside humor) others won't who are not in the meme circle. Hence, you belong. You feel special.
It is also evolutionarily advantageous to belong to an in-group for the benefits, as it has survival purpose. You get to share resources which may have been difficult to come by or which you have to compete for, whilst those who do not fit your values, don't get to share in the resources and thus has less survival chance.
2. Now, on to meme culture itself. You also need background here:
a) there were two artificial intelligence deep-learning chat bots who were put in communication to see what would happen. They first asked simple questions and made basic conversation, and then complex sentences, and finally began talking what the scientists though were gibberish, using only punctuation. However, their language evolved so fast they removed redundant words, and manged to summarise concepts in singular dots and commas.
b) languages can be analysed by linguists to determine the culture behind the development thereof. Examples include some African languages - they use concepts that are group inclusive, and show social cohesion (like the concept of Ubuntu - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_philosophy) as opposed to individual competition-based culture like European languages - Me, myself, and I based, focused on individual achievement....
So, memes are a symbolic language (like the Ai language) and thus a representation of our culture as it stands currently. Every meme graps so many concepts based on preexisting knowledge and current events, and summarises it as a simple, yet complex picture representing our current standing, views, emotions... We are joking/memeing about things we can relate to, such as socio-economic issues, environmental issues, gender equality, politics, and all that jazz. It is our way of representing and bonding over similar issues, and also facilitates discussion around critical events, but only able to do so based on what we understand from the meme itself, and hence reaffirming the in-group.
Furthermore, our society is currently at pre-teen stage in development. We have enough knowledge to start testing boundaries and rules (such as patriarchy and racism) but are also still developing maturity and sometimes oversteps our testing of the boundaries - e.g. trying to label something "as not racist, someone was generally being an ass and got reprimanded" as racism. But, the good news is we are developing our frontal lobes, our mature cognitive process able to not only learn, but understand and integrate, and are at the point where we start realising as a collective, that that was, in fact, not racism, or when actual racism or sexism happens, we can classify it unarguably as racism or sexism or whatever, without false claims. We can already see this happening in anti-clickbait users, and those set out to check facts and determine if it is fake news. We are become mature as a society, and although we still have a long way to go, we are definitely further than when...
...slavery, patriarchy, child abuse, cultist support and brainwashing was the unquestioned norm. I'm not saying it's all gone, but we are looking at it. And memes are a tool thereof, enabling these discussions and publication of what we thought were solitary, secret, or individual events (like our parents comparing us to everyone else, or subtleties of emotional abuse, or finding out we all liked or did something as kids), and in doing so, helping us realise that whilst we have differences, we are also similar in a lot of aspects which assist in breaking up the curtain of previous division. Finally, it helps us understand that we may also be proud of our differences in culture, and yes, our ancestors may have fucked up, but we can learn from it and not repeat the past. All in all, it learns us to keep an open mind, and to simply make the world better to the best of our capabilities.
I learnt it over time since I studied psychology and physiology, and furthermore talk about these to my boyfriend (who really likes science, Ai and technology), and with my philosophy and linguistics friends and flatmate.
All of us really like discussing these things, and often spend many hours (like, 8 hours straight a day) debating about all these aspects and how they integrate. So this comes from a long path of knowledge acquisition, with insatiable inquisitiveness and analytical minds.
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As to how long it took me to type that- about half an hour to an hour? I don't even know.
Lol. That’s a good trait in humanity. Besides- the way I figure it- you can easily browse memes faster than they are posted. So if you come in, blow through everything, and then what? Most people are here when they have nothing better to do right? So you can try and share knowledge and engage in discussion through writing, or you could what? Sit around? Browse amazon? Watch YouTube videos? One could argue that idle time can always be used for enrichment- but if that were a 100% rule- recreation and entertainment activities like Funsub wouldn’t exist. So.... type on. Type on.
1. Belonging: all humans wish to be included in an in-group of sorts. Now an in-group (social psychology term) is a group with which you can identify in having similar values, experiences, aspirations, or opinions, or even all of those. You can belong to several in-groups, e.g. your culture, language, race, sports teams you support, the funsub community, academic fields, interests, etc. Now someone who is in your out-group are those who you do not agree with and who are not included in your in-group, either by choice or by unwritten social laws....
a) there were two artificial intelligence deep-learning chat bots who were put in communication to see what would happen. They first asked simple questions and made basic conversation, and then complex sentences, and finally began talking what the scientists though were gibberish, using only punctuation. However, their language evolved so fast they removed redundant words, and manged to summarise concepts in singular dots and commas.
All of us really like discussing these things, and often spend many hours (like, 8 hours straight a day) debating about all these aspects and how they integrate. So this comes from a long path of knowledge acquisition, with insatiable inquisitiveness and analytical minds.
'
As to how long it took me to type that- about half an hour to an hour? I don't even know.