Hi, I’d like to share with us an old note I’ve written back in the 2018 about memes and their importance on public opinion and well-being of people, especially younger generations. I have written it back in high school, where I studied computer science, and few months after getting out of mental hospital due to long-term problems with alcoholism and depression which led me to start writing a journal to help me keep me thoughts and getting some hatred out on the paper to ease my mind. It started as a daily routine and led to writing some other “longer stories” like the following: “Meaning of Life”, “What are emotions”, “What is happiness”, “Why I hate humanity” and few others.
If anyone of you will be interested to read more from me at the time, let me know in the comments and I’ll translate them and post them.
First things first
I’m gonna show you the unedited version that I’ve written at the time (only visually formatted for better reading) and afterwards will say my current opinion on the topic. So let’s get to it…
Everyone of us know this modern trend – meme, taken from Greek minema – imitate. Mostly to make others laugh, or at least most of us see it this way. But what if it isn’t like that?
To this day I liked memes and presented myself as meme-lord. This probably changed today. Memes are here with us for a long time, as we know them today since 2015, I think. But finally today I thought that maybe we don’t see memes as we should.
I saw memes as most of you do, just some kind of fun, that makes others members of this community laugh and/or to distract others from everyday stress. But today I saw context, that alone means nothing, but it connected with other things. Corn meme – trend of July, 2018.
Year ago there was famous meme with futuristic girl holding corn with text “This meme is from future. You don’t get it yet.” Back then we all saw it just as another template for making more memes. Last week I saw on Reddit post which content could be summed as “from tomorrow everyone upvote very meme with corn.” And as was written, it happened. From this day these “corn memes” were unstoppable.
After few days later I saw another post which said – “Someone go back in time and post this meme to mess up with people” with picture of the futuristic girl with corn. After 2 days I started to think about it. I was surprised about what I’ve discovered, but it was still okay. More important were thoughts that started coming to my mind afterwards.
Most of young people see memes every day online. Even ads are inspired by memes nowadays and this made me think. What if memes aren’t just random templates made to make us laugh but has “deeper meaning.” A lot of memes nowadays are about low self-esteem or depression. It shows us the wrong side of the world etc. In the past there were no internet and people then were referred only to what they saw in their surroundings. But today we have internet and everyone, who is curious, is able to get to know about everything he wants to. What if some meme templates are made to regulate our thoughts?
For example: corn meme to make corn more saleable and inflation of it. Memes about low mental stability to make young brains restrain about thinking about the real world around them.
What if some sort of memes were just made from illuminati (insert your favorite shadow organization) to make us submissive sheep. Kids then were not depressed as today; what if memes are the reason of this massive self-confidence loss. Even some sort of fame is made from memes (e.g. Trump).
As my dear roommate J.J. said after debate about this topic: **M. E. M. E. = Manipulate Encoded Media’s Expression
Just think about it.
So what do I think now..?
I couldn’t agree more with the author, clever man (corny attempt at being funny). No but seriously, there’s more than this article showing the increase in mental health issues in younger generations due to social media, memes included. About the “from the future” meme - it could have been just a well thought plan for karma farming and creating verifiable accounts for whatever purpose there is; or it was indeed from the future (who knows how many lizards, aliens, demons and God knows what else walks between us every day). Or maybe it was just a coincidence and I’m looking for something that ain’t there.
Needles to say that whatever is true it’s important to note that it’s necessary to make sure you are feeling alright and if you are feeling depressed, anxious, excluded from society or so, try to think about what content you are consuming and try to encapsulate yourself in a bubble made of positive things and vibes. :)
And what do you think..?
I’ll be glad for any tips on writing, your thoughts on the topic or whatever you gotta say either towards be or the article, thanks for reading!