That being said, that is not to say that the account name “Nugget” rings no bells; on the contrary, the wordplay leaves us wondering whether it has to do more with a lump of gold or some other substance, a valuable idea or a person acting stupidly. The account has 10 million followers on Instagram.
As Chloe Arkenbout, Jack Wilson, and Daniel De Zeeuw state in their introduction to “Critical meme reader”: “Memes are bastards, and we love them for it.” The way they explain such an idea is that memes merge many seemingly incompatible qualities, such as sense and nonsense or signification and circulation. The authors go as far as to acknowledge that the term ‘meme’ itself exhibits a certain level of ‘stupidity’ because it repeats itself twice as kids often love to do when playing or teasing one another.
However, the meme’s ‘stupidity’ is not unintentional, as the scholars put it: “it is not ashamed” of it, on the contrary, this repetition and a certain level of ‘stupidity’ is a generative principle of the meme. The authors cite Einstein, saying: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” and in many contexts, that is true; however, to an extent, it might very well be funny, especially when brought up to be so.
In his study “The ‘grotesque’ in Instagram memes”, Idil Galip discusses specifically the memes from Instagram and the grotesque as their essential element. Galip notes that the word grotesque comes from the word ‘grotto’ associated with feelings and senses of being damp and bizarre, as is one’s laughter and the uncanny feeling described as grotto-esque and caused by a thing of the sort.
While discussing grotesque memes, the author uses the distinction discussed by Mary Ruso between two types of grotesque. First, there is the comic grotesque and, second, there is the grotesque as uncanny linked to feelings of unease and fear. He notes that while researching the internet for meme artists on Instagram, he found both types of grotesque to be widely used.
Idil Galip ends his article by noting that, as opposed to the carnivals from previous historical periods, the ‘carnival’ of digital life, as he calls it, is uninterrupted and continuous. “It is available for consumption, spectatorship and participation around-the-clock”. And what connects all the different activities and things associated with such memes is, according to the researcher, the experience of “in-betweenness”.
According to the researcher, similarly, as the Middle Ages carnival experience was something between penance and festivity, in the digital world, it is the experience of something between embodiment and virtuality. However, they both share the effect of creating ambivalent laughter in people.
Share your experience of internet memes in the comment section. What are your favorite themes when it comes to memes?
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