The University of Westminster likens memes to fast-food media. “They are like cheeseburgers – highly tempting in colour, smell and texture, but low in nutritional value,” notes the website. “They feed you up a bit (on the news agenda), but you really need a decent meal (or reading a respected newspaper) to nurture your body and mind.”
Nevertheless, just like fast food, memes are here to stay. The University explains that people see, understand and respond to images way faster than we do to text. And some mental health experts believe that’s a great thing.
LA-based psychologist Theodora Blanchfield sees memes as a helpful part of someone’s healing journey. Blanchfield says memes get “trivialized and disparaged”, but they can play an important role in an age where a lot of our communication is done digitally.
Memes allow people to share their thoughts and feelings quickly, and can help create a sense of community and connection, especially during dark times.
The therapist says her clients sometimes send her memes. “I’m grateful that my friends and clients have used memes to communicate with me in order to say the hard things—to make jokes about their traumas or an element of dealing with chronic depression, for example,” writes Blanchfield.
She adds that finding humor during difficult times can help us to get through by taking “some of the power away from these otherwise taboo feelings.”
Blanchfield says that humor is one of her favorite therapeutic tools. “Laughing is every bit as much of an emotional and physical release as crying. Plus, I firmly believe that sometimes life is just too absurd not to laugh at.”
And she’s not the only expert to laud the power of laughter and relatable memes in the quest for mental wellness...
A 2020 research paper found that online memes can help those with depression to cope with their symptoms. If you've ever had depression, you might have found it difficult to leave the house, socialize, or even get out of bed. You possibly didn't want to talk about your emotions or feelings. Or maybe you felt like a burden to those around you.
“With memes, depressed people can share their experience in a simple way – possibly even allowing depressed people to form socially supportive and emotional bonds with others,” revealed one of the researchers, Dr. Umair Akram. “It might also help them feel less alone in their experience with depression.”
The experts at digital marketing agency Pennington Creative believe the popularity of memes lies within their ability to create a sense of community. They liken memes to inside jokes. “Your knowledge of a shared joke makes you part of a specific community and ties you together with the other people who are in on it,” notes their site.
