Memes.com defines a meme as “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture—often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme, or meaning represented by the meme.” And as we all know, over the past decade or two, funny Instagram memes have become an integral part of internet culture. We share them with our friends, we use them to make light of stress- and anxiety-inducing events such as the pandemic, we use them to comment on politics, promote social justice, and much more. Instagram memes come in all shapes, sizes and flavors, so you’re sure to find something you like!
Memes.com serves the largest meme community in the world, with over 7 million followers on Instagram and plenty on their own site as well, and is proud to be able to share these funny memes and jokes that mean so much to them. “We at Memes believe that the cultural representation of our time will be expressed through the memes we’ve shared,” the team shares on their site. “As we look to the cave paintings or the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt to understand the past, we will one day look to the memes of now to understand what our culture was today. Memes are how we express ourselves. Our ideas. Our passions. Our beliefs.”
Although we associate funny Instagram memes with images that we share online nowadays, according to Alexis Benveniste at The New York Times, some linguists argue that humans have actually been communicating with memes for centuries. If you consider a meme to be a “self-replicating chunk of information” that can be shared, spread, and slightly altered over time, you could say that memes have been around much longer than you and I have been here. We repeat jokes and tell tales countless times, and inevitably, they have their own lives where they shift and transform into new memes, too. Memes are all around us!
The word meme itself has experienced a semantic shift over time, too, Benveniste explains. It has actually been used 60 times in the New York Times Crossword since the puzzle began being printed in the 1940s, but today, of course, we use it to refer to these silly photos we share online. “Memes and their meanings are co-constructed by multiple users in a social context,” Jennifer Nycz, an associate professor and director of undergraduate studies at Georgetown University’s Department of Linguistics, told the New York Times. “This is really no different from any other process of communication or knowledge creation. It’s just especially salient in the case of memes because people explicitly construct them and then post them to the world for commentary.”
When it comes to why we love these Instagram funny memes so much, Saint Hoax, who runs an incredibly successful meme page on Instagram, told the New York Times, “Memes are basically editorial cartoons for the internet age. The power of a meme lies in its transmissibility and unique knack for being cross-cultural.” We can turn memes into literally anything, and their messages can be spread instantly online. Sharing and retweeting has never been easier, and funny memes on Instagram allow us to connect to others around the world in the blink of an eye.
According to Helen Brown at the BBC, Instagram memes can also be incredibly powerful as far as spreading important messages. They don’t have to be just fun and games; memes have also been used to further social justice movements online, such as #MeToo, critique politicians, and point out atrocities such as Putin’s war in Ukraine. In fact, the Ukrainian government even published memes on their official Twitter account prior to Russia’s attack to gain support. Instagram memes can be lighthearted and fun, but like good jokes, they can also have a grain of truth behind them and cause readers to contemplate important issues.
As you might expect, we’re also more likely to share funny memes and jokes that align with our political ideologies, Brown writes for the BBC. Digital activism has become increasingly popular, and memes on Moroccan Facebook pages have even inspired subversive political discussions about their monarchy. “Protestors are taking internet meme culture back onto the streets in an attempt to use the humor and imagery they have honed on social media to drive their point home,” Brown writes. Memes have even been plastered across picket signs in Myanmar and in Women’s Marches in the United States.
If you’re wondering what makes a great Instagram meme, Andrea Garza at The University of British Columbia wrote an article diving into what makes for brilliant, viral content. Dr Sandrine Han, a visual arts and visual literacy professor whose focus is on virtual worlds, noted that “The relationship between text and imagery in memes is something very interesting. It should be relevant, but it shouldn’t be exactly the same.” So, choosing the perfect image to convey your message while also coming up with a brilliantly witty caption is important. Don’t be too on the nose!
