Those who have seen how meme culture evolved know how these images have changed the way we communicate online. So much so that therapists and mental health experts like Theodora Blanchfield wrote an entire piece about it as a way to explore further.
The first thing Blanchfield mentioned is the way memes help us “say the hard things.” They have been a medium for people to communicate their traumas and mental health challenges by adding levity and making these issues easier to digest.
“Finding the humor in tough situations can take some of the power away from these otherwise taboo feelings,” Blanchfield stated.
In our introduction, we mentioned how memes have become a language in their own right. As Blanchfield points out, their popularity has created a sense of community that essentially minimizes the fear of missing out.
“Think of a time where you were the one to clue in a group about a popular meme that they somehow didn’t know about. If you felt a small rush of power, you’re not petty,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, digital culture educator Dr. Paolo Gerbaudo compared memes to emojis. As he said in an interview with The Times of India, these images are “sort of a ready-made language with many kinds of stereotypes, symbols and situations.”
“(Memes are) a palette that people can use in a way to convey a certain content,” Dr. Gerbaudo said.
Given the relatability of most memes, other experts see it as an excellent way to create intimacy. According to counseling psychologist Rickden Bhutia, it fulfills two crucial needs: a sense of continued connection and a sense of being seen.
“(Memes) fundamentally carry effort and time, mimicking the sense of a shared physical space,” Bhutia said.
