Bored Panda wanted to know why certain jokes and pics go viral and attain true meme status while others pretty much remain relatively unknown. Professor Geher shared his thoughts on this. Chance, he said, plays an important role here, alongside digestibility and surprise.
"I would say that there is certainly an element of randomness in this process. Sometimes an idea seems great and, for any number of reasons, it doesn’t go anywhere. And sometimes something that seems just silly—like Grumpy Cat—takes off like wildfire!" he said.
"The memes that really take off tend to, I think, have two basic features. First, they are usually relatively quickly digestible, which is critical for any information in this day and age. Second, they provoke a relatively strong emotional response. Typically, this response is happiness and/or surprise—often literally leading to laughing out loud," the professor explained.
Meanwhile, we were also curious about what can give memes longevity, and whether a meme's relatability has something to do with this. According to Professor Geher, relatability plays a critical role.
"Relatability of a meme is also critical. Memes that lead people to say, 'Oh, I totally get that—that is ME!' tend to take off. I recently saw one that showed a stovetop and simply said, 'You know you’re a real adult when you genuinely have a favorite burner.' At 53, I have to say that I saw this and was like, 'Heck yes!!!' So yes, relatability is key for sure in terms of cultivating the success and longevity of a meme." We fully agree with the professor on this (and many of us probably have a favorite stovetop burner by now, too).
Professor Geher noted that the term 'meme' itself actually comes from the work of evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. In the 1980s, Dawkins "defined a meme as a unit of cultural evolution that has the capacity to replicate and spread." Geher pointed out that the replication happens parallel to how a gene works. This "sheds light on the actual term itself—meme kind of sounds like gene!"
If you're interested in reading more of Geher's insights, feel free to take a look at the topics he covers on his Substack and Psychology Today blog.
The ‘Evil Kermit,’ aka @Justevilmemes, social media project has enjoyed a lot of success online. Over 1 million people follow it for the constant stream of funny and relatable pics on Facebook.
Meanwhile, the project started up an Instagram page in mind-January, and it’s slowly but surely getting people’s attention with cool memes as well.
The fact that so many people around the globe enjoy memes is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means that you have a surefire way of entertaining the entire world with good humor, quips, and short-but-relatable anecdotes. It’s clear what people like if you spend even a bit of time just scrolling through your Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feed.
However, here’s the catch. Because memes are so universal, standing out from the crowd becomes quite a challenge. If everyone’s posting the exact same memes as everyone else… how exactly do you draw the audience in?
Recently, Bored Panda spoke to a couple of social media-savvy experts to get their take on distinguishing your content on the internet and creating memes that will stay relevant for a long time.
Comedy writer Ariane Sherine explained that “a unique and funny take on a topical issue is always a winning formula.” In other words, you need to elevate what’s relevant.
"Especially if it’s relatable and universal, so people worldwide will get the joke instead of just people in a specific town, for instance," the comedy expert said. However, though many of us crave internet fame and it does have its pros, we shouldn’t be aware of the cons.
"The pros [of internet fame] are that people are impressed. It also opens doors when it comes to getting jobs as companies always want people with a following as they can promote their products and services. And it’s often nice to get lots of engagement," the comedy writer told Bored Panda during an earlier interview.
"But the main con is that if you tweet something controversial and/or stupid, it’s easier to get canceled and receive hate mail than if you have virtually no followers. And even if you don’t do that, the level of engagement means your phone can constantly be blowing up with notifications, which can be very distracting!" she explained that there are certain drawbacks to being in the spotlight, too.
Meanwhile, content creator, comedian, and broadcaster Trev Lewis noted that memes that seem to have ‘no context’ could be said to be the “purest distillation of what a meme actually is." He shared more of his thoughts with Bored Panda on how context, humor, relatability, and memes interact with each other.
"The standard definition of a meme is, 'an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.' So, if a meme is nothing more than an image, and it's entirely up to the audience to interpret the symbolic meaning rather than offering any sort of caption or explanation, this is the very nature that memes are founded on," content creator Trev said.
