Life in Memes: Millenials & Gen Z's Way of The World
- Quincy Corsey
- Feb 6, 2021
- 3 min read
SOCIAL MEDIA: The "Civil War" proposed by Trump supporters, was a spectacle to be seen on January 6th, 2021 when America's Capital was trespassed. It was straight out of a dystopian origin film in the climax of its duration. Many people on Twitter were going ballistic on my feed but something felt off about people I followed specifically. These people I follow are all close to my ripe age of 25 older or younger but they all seemed indifferent and downright humorous about the whole situation. They made memes and comedy out of this historical event happening before our eyes and I thought, "Wow instead of us just taking it all in. We just made memes out of it. Lol" and I laughed right along with it.
What is a Meme?
Britanica defined Memes as "a unit of cultural information spread by information" which was introduced in 1976 by British Evolutionary Theorist Richard Dawkins. The root word Meme comes from Mimea the greek root word "to imitate" which people used to understand the taking of others details in different culture and put it in their own. During the boom of the millennial internet in 2004; a lot of expression and customization came to bring the internet into a more colorful place filled with sites to express themselves on. Starting from the AOL instant messenger boards to all of the social media today. While in between those times came different ways of making sense of the things going on around them.
The meme records debate the caricatures of the 1920s as the start of sopisticated memes with newspaper ads and media takes.
However, according to the Oldest.org website, Godwin's Law is a litmus test of something is Nazi esque as the length of discussion happens is dubbed the oldest meme in the modern internet. It dates all the way back to the 1990s and debuted in a Usenet chat forum. This and the Cha Cha Baby are the internet's oldest memes and the Cha Cha Baby is used til this day.
But the thing is, memes have evolved into its own culture like the process of the existential cycle each civilization undergoes.
Memes in Modernism:
There is the Modernist, Post Modernist, and Meta Modernist eras of human thinking and ideologies (which will be talked about in detail on another piece). Modernist is an ideology talking about things in life having a purpose and all things having to do with said life should be taken at point value since they have a purpose. Post Modernism is thninking about the ideas we have in our lives and coming to question those things and people who say we should take them as law. Meta Modernism is the end of life and thought as we know it. It is a reflection of what we knew, know today, and talk about what is next for us. The modernist era with comic caricatures in the 1920s showing the humor and purpose of what might be in various advertisements and media. The Post Modernist era in the 1990s featured Godwin's Law and Cha Cha Baby.
Lastly, the memes we know of today as the "Overbearing Girlfriend" "Grumpy Cat', and "Willy Wonka Face" to name a few, have come to make up the cynical yet nihilistic tone in our memes of grim situations as satire.
Conclusion:
Overall, the meme has grown from a nice laugh and fellowship into a self reflection of a culture that has started and ended. It is something we can use to measure how far we have come into what we are now. Progress, something that has always been human nature to view who and what we are as a group regardless of where we come from. Due to where we are I think that memes are not bad but are used as more than just comedic relief. It is a stress release, a infomercial, or a view and ideology explained in one or a few frames. It is said that Humans are the only species that can study themselves and a meme is proof of said academia. Instead of previous generations being grumpy old people, they could take this time to further understand this generation of Millenials and Generation Z who are young and are just living in the time given to them. Stop being resistant to change and grow up, just like the Lost Generation and Traditionalists told you before.
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