Hello, listeners.
I'm here with my co-host, Jack, and you're listening to the Fluent Mind English podcast.
Today, we are going to be talking about mnemology, the history of memes.
Jack, what is a meme?
Well, my understanding of a meme is like, how can I say?
Usually it's like an image with some kind of ironic comment on it or something you know like and and it's something that and I think that the second part of it is that it goes viral, like a lot of people start spreading it around and it becomes kind of a, a stand-in for a feeling or some kind of some, some kind of opinion or or or perspective.
Yeah like, it's like an image to me that captures like a feeling or like, and a lot of times, or most of the time, i feel like it has a humorous undertone.
Yeah, it's always like, it's always ironic, you know usually yeah, you're humorous right exactly, I feel like a lot of times it is ironic.
You're right.
But I think for me what makes a meme would be relatability, like it capturing kind of a feeling or situation that pretty much everyone has experienced.
This is why I feel like cross-cultural memes or memes from like other countries still resonate with us when we see them.
Yeah, right.
It's like it taps into a kind of human emotion.
Like it's it's not.
It's yeah, it's not usually cultural necessarily.
It can be.
But yeah, it taps into something deeper than than even culture.
It's like right to right to our humanity.
Yeah, like the human, there's a human experience.
I think exactly, yeah.
And then i think another thing that composes like a meme is its simplicity, because usually it's like very short, visual or just easy for you like.
It's almost like you automatically get or understand it, you know, just through the image or the or the video clip or whatever is being used.
Yeah, one of my favorites is um is a uh.
One of my favorite memes is um.
I use it all the time in my, my speech class that i teach um it's uh, it's.
It says uh don't don't, don't always trust everything that you read on the internet.
And then it's written as a quote and then, and then the name underneath says abraham lincoln.
That is funny yeah yeah, and there's a picture of abraham lincoln, so It's like it's just kind of doubles on itself.
You know, it's like it's humorous.
It's it's simple.
It's like catchy.
It's easy to remix.
That's the third part that I think makes the anatomy of a meme is a remix ability.
Like you can tweak it, reuse it, reshape it endlessly to all sorts of different formats and situations and just like take it and run with it.
You know.
Yeah, yeah.
It's always like not always, but oftentimes it's like a picture that somebody captured.
That's just like perfect.
Like the expression on a baby's face.
You know, like the little girl who's making that kind of like kind of repulsed face.
You know the little blonde girl.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
That face like what the heck are you talking about?
And there's another.
There's another one too, with like a little a little uh, a little uh, african or african-american boy um, who's kind of like you know um, the kind of the say say what, what are you talking about?
You know, kind of is this another one that like looks like he has a side of his eye.
Yes, he's doing a kind of a side eye to it like an adult.
And it's how it's always like um, You know, when an adult tells you Donald Trump is the greatest president that ever lived.
And then he's like, you know, making that side eye face, you know, the face.
And it's just somebody captured an image that just speaks volumes without saying anything.
You know, I think one that is really good to point to that our students can like experience in real time is there's a very popular American sitcom that I recommend for students who are learning English, because the humor is very like, It's very quintessentially American, and that would be The Office.
Yeah yeah, and there is a meme that is very famous.
There's a lot of memes that are very famous that come from the office, but one of them is jim, which is one of the characters.
He looks at the camera and breaks the fourth wall.
So he's like looking at the audience every time that somebody in the office does something like inappropriate, crazy.
It's like he's looking at you and saying like i'm not the only one seeing this right yeah yeah, i know exactly what you're talking about.
It's like uh yeah, it's a, it's a.
It's a, it's a classic um, comedic.
Uh, what do you like?
Like move.
You know what i mean.
Like like like, people do that all the time.
It's it's i don't think he invented it, but i think that like he perfected it in in that show.
So like somebody says something just off the wall crazy and you just you don't even respond, you just look right into the camera And with a kind of dead eye stare.
And it just says, you know, this person's crazy.
You know, like it's just right.
This is absurd.
Are you hearing this?
You know, like, can you believe this is, you know, somebody said that?
Yeah.
There's another office, one where he has two whiteboards and he'll write like like a question on the first whiteboard and then he'll answer it in the second whiteboard, while doing the same camera.
You know, looking into the camera.
Do you know the one I'm talking about?
Yes, I do.
That was very popular.
There's also another one that shows two pieces of white paper.
And they asked Pam, who's another character on The Office.
They're like what are the differences between these two pieces of paper?
And she says there is no difference.
And people use it, like they'll put pictures on it.
Like let's say, let's say Fox News.
And let's say you put like a, well, what's one that's less niche?
I'm trying to think of one.
Let's say um, what could be one that would be less niche, do you think for american like, not just about american audiences, but everyone would get it.
It's like two white pieces of paper and two things that are the same.
Um, let me see here um, let's see, think of something that would be good.
Yeah like uh Oh, this one, I've got one here.
I'm just looking at the, um, the first one has the two pieces of paper.
It says, um, let me see.
Okay.
Corporate needs you to find differences, the differences between the, this picture and this picture.
And it has a fortnight, the game on one paper and a pile of trash and the other paper.
And she says, they're the same picture.
Right.
They're the same picture.
Yeah.
So basically saying Fortnite is trash, you know.
Yeah, you can use it over and over again.
It's like corporate needs to find the difference between these two pieces of paper the fluent mind English podcast and awesomeness.
They're the same picture.
Yeah, there's one that says you and then the next paper says absolute perfection.
So that's kind of an uplifting one, you know.
There you go.
Yep.
So you can use it any kind of way.
And Jack, do you know what the etymology for our students, etymology is like the origin of a word.
Do you know what the etymology of meme is?
I have no idea, actually.
I'm so curious.
So it actually comes from richard dawkins who wrote the selfish gene in 1976 and he used it to describe how ideas spread and evolve just like genes so i think that it likens memes to cultural dna so it's i think that makes sense because it's so embedded we see a meme and we immediately recognize it as a meme and again like we talked about earlier it just taps right into our human experience yeah yeah that's fascinating because i mean i think you're right it's it's like um Yeah, a good meme is something that everybody gets very quickly.
They get it and and it speaks to them on like a deeper level than you know, perhaps like just a regular joke or something like that.
It's just like, yeah, I totally I know what you mean.
It's like it transcends culture and.
That's pretty odd for ideas to, you know, transcend culture that that quickly, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just get it.
It's like our human DNA almost memes.
Well, I think, you know, I think we, maybe we always have kind of thought in memes, you know, like it.
Well, it could be like a It's.
I'm speaking out of school here because I really don't know what I'm talking about, but it seems to me that, like memes are like a shorthand for us, you know, and that's so insightful.
Sorry, go ahead.
I just, I just want to like, I just want to capture that quickly for our audience.
Like, It's just it's a shorthand, meaning like it's just a way to communicate.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
But no, no, no.
Keep going.
I think it's just like.
It's a way to communicate our thoughts, our feelings, our experiences in just one image.
And it's crazy because when I think about it yeah, of course I mean I grew up in the time of meme culture.
Like there wasn't, there were already memes like when I was born.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
It's new for me, you know, like it's but but it but it didn't.
You know, I'm not a digital native necessarily.
I'm kind of like, you're a digital native, you know, you grew up with this stuff.
My daughter is a digital native.
I'm a kind of hybrid.
You know, I remember before memes and after memes.
You know, before internet, after internet.
But, but it was something that I got immediately.
Like it didn't take me, it wasn't a long learning curve to, to understand memes.
It was like, it was like speaking to something deep, deeply internal and, immediately like and and that's why i think they're so they go viral so easily is because they you know it it doesn't you don't need to be a digital native to to understand a meme you know it captures something that has always existed in a shorthand version which is like what exactly what you said but just it's yeah i i never really thought of it that way And I think that really taps into why memes spread.
Like, there are digital inside jokes.
So it's really easy to just... Like, it bonds our communities.
We laugh about them.
It simplifies anything complex into just like one little punchy funny cutting, sarcastic image.
You know.
And I think this, like... I'm curious about this, Jack.
Like do you?
Do you use memes to like message your friends?
Like for me with my friend group, we make memes out of like.
For example, there was a picture that someone took it took of me at the club one time and I was just like I look so I don't know how to explain it.
I look so dead serious, like so, so like You're just not having fun at all.
But I was like looking into the camera like I was breaking, I was doing like the gym stare, like breaking the fourth wall.
And so every time someone said something out of pocket or weird, our friends would just like send this meme to each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, that's no, my, my friends and I don't, we were just, we're not, we're not on the micro meme level, you know, where you, you kind of personalize them and make them, within your own friend group i think it's because of my age you know i just we just didn't um like i said i'm a hybrid digital native so i can appreciate a meme um but i've never like made my i've made one meme one time um curious to hear about it this was a political one um i can't remember i'm trying to think what it was it was friends um oh i can't remember i'm sorry I posted on my Facebook and it got like a little tiny bit of traction, but not, not that much, you know?
But it was, I thought it was clever, you know?
It was from the sitcom friends and I made a meme, but that's the only one I've ever made.
I made one meme in my life.
I think we have to dive into another memeology episode about what life was like before memes kind of, because I just to know like, what kind of humor you guys use like before these like micro niche memes and yeah i'm i'm just really curious about it.
But for our listeners we will continue this as a series.
So let us know if you want us to cover any memes from your like region, if you want to email us and let us know about different memes.
I feel like that would be so interesting, like the like memes across cultures, and Jack and I are probably going to talk about what life was like before memes, like humor before memes.
We'll talk about the dark side of memes.
A lot of people are talking about how memes can influence you into the right or left pipeline politically.
Um yeah, so I think it'll be very interesting, and let us know if you enjoy this series in the comments.
Again, you can listen to us.
Well, I'll Jack, I'll let you close this out here.
Oh, sure.
Um yeah, just um.
You can send us an email at uh our our, we still have the old email a to Z.
A to Z English podcast at gmailcom.
In China, I think some of our episodes are on Bilibili.
We're on YouTube.
So, yeah, you can find us just about anywhere.
You can find your regular podcasts.
So, yeah, with that said, I guess we'll see you next time.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.
