Are meme’s just funny?
Posted by nacolejordann on February 5, 2013
In class and in our text it talks about meme’s. I wanted to further the discussion on them. I heavily use instagram and most of the pictures posted on the application are meme’s and if your a Facebook or twitter use an abundance of people post the funny little picture on there. A lot of the time the picture are inappropriate and a little insensitive.
My question for the class are we being more insensitive with things we find funny like the picture attached to this post. Or is the content available making us not care and purely find things humorous?
samford said
Quinna, I’d love for you to expand on this and share a bit more of your own opinion on the matter. Whitney Phillips’ piece that you all read last week about “troll culture” and 4chan touches on this very subject. (Would be interested in your thoughts on it.) Her work focuses on shamification and trolling behaviors online–what many would consider some of the “dark sides” of spreadability. After all, we see human nature of all sorts come out online, and we see people sometimes saying and sharing things they might not do in actual conversation.
iamchipcore said
There is a fine line between insensitive and funny in my opinion.
Being the founder and administrator of WKU Campus Memes, one of the first rules we established was a “public image” rule. We always keep the page open to fan submissions. However, when the submission is vulgar, distasteful, or just flat rude we will remove it. If they ask us why it was removed we will inform them of the rule.
Whether the image is vulgar or distasteful is at the discretion of our admins.
nacolejordann said
In a sense there is not always a united front on certain images?
ryannpopp said
i believe that humor has changed within our generation, and the one before us. i dont think anyone in our grandparents generation would agree that most memes are funny like we do. i dont think it’s necessarily insensitive that we find things like this funny. it’s obvious that it’s fake and i dont think anyone should consider anyone insensitive for laughing at the content of memes, but i mean not all of them are funny.
hannahpoland523 said
Personally, I am a redditor, and enjoy the hell out of memes because I have campus employment and, well, there is only so much homework you can do in one day without straying to see the juices of the internet among the millions of others that do so. I think in a way, memes are de-sensitizing the messages and particularly harming the poor people that get their picture used for one. My friend was a victim to this, but luckily the meme wasn’t one of those instant success kind so probably only several thousand saw it. But still. It was sending a derogatory message and his face was associated with it whether he exhibited that type of behavior or not. That really puts into perspective the kind of impact memes can have on the lives of people and how situations are viewed, based on the biased way memes are presented. Then again, you do get those occasional people that miss the entire point of the whole meme and make generic ones that aren’t so spot on, thus softening the blow a little. I enjoy memes personally but I see how they can be very offensive and hurtful, often stereotyping people.
beealexandria09 said
This just made me bust out laughing! This picture is funny and I thinik meant to be just that. As a heavy user of instagram, I come across pics like this daily(outside of meme’s as well). I dont think its insenitive but that would also depend on who you asked. I totally agree with Ryan(^) fromt a generation stand point. I think spreadability in terms on things we post on social media has to be taken into serious consideration when it involves certain people and the message being communicated.
beealexandria09 said
insensitive*
Funny Meme Pictures said
ha, ha ha! oh I got to laughing and then I could not stop at all. tee hee, ahhhh
andyarnoldpopculture said
There’s never “just” anything, I have come to believe. We like what we like for a reason, whether we know that reason or not. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know the reason behind my liking of horror fiction, but I’m okay with that as long as I can enjoy it.
To me, the problem with memes is that most just flat-out aren’t funny. They’re funny to a certain group, or you might nod your head and think “this applies to me, haha,” and get a slight chuckle, but if you looked at twenty memes you would probably laugh at, I don’t know, I guess seven.
Also, many memes are used to propagate racism and rape culture. I know, I know “just a joke.” But like I said. It’s never “just” anything. Memes can be funny but most of the time I just roll my eyes rather than laugh.