People like to get humorous content from any page or group in their newsfeed or may be shared by their friends.
Though memes are not a new thing on the internet, nowadays this has been propelled to new heights, thanks to the pandemic period. To fight the boredom and uncertainty at that time, people have turned to memes for entertainment and comic relief. Since then, it has become an integral part of our social media life.
According to research published in Forbes, an average millennial looks at 20-30 memes daily. It is also found that over 60 per cent of the total social media users in the world use it for funny content only. And most of them instantly feel the urge to share the funny content with their friends. According to YPulse’s research, 75 per cent of 13-36-year-olds share memes regularly.
Memes are engaging to all audiences, especially millennials. The most viral memes are the ones that are funny, timely, and relatable. The young generation likes to poke their friends with a relatable trendy meme.
If someone is caught in another’s camera in a weird moment, that picture is termed as ‘meme material.’ Then that picture is used to make fun of that person on any special occasion with a famous meme template.
Door to freshness
Sometimes these memes are more than funny content. These are escape routes to a bit of refreshment from our hectic schedules.
The reality surrounding us is sombre in nature. To energise our minds, some comic relief is needed. And these images or short videos with humour works as a tonic at that time.
And the variety of genres makes memes more interesting. Be it a football fan, a cinema lover, or a regular social media user, suitable funny content is found for every kind. Even there are hilarious memes on politics and engineering subjects.
Critique in disguise
Another thing is that humour works as a shield. There are many social awkwardness, peculiar human emotions, or sensitive issues around us. If someone wants to talk about those in a serious tone, things might heat up on the social platform turning that matter into mayhem.
Better use a meme to point out the absurdity. It is less likely to offend anyone in that regard as people will take them just for fun.
Meme for mental health
There are many memes related to depression, hopelessness, death, etc. which are termed 'depressive memes.'
Some might find these memes disturbing but research in the famous publishing network ‘The Conversation’ shows that people with depression actually prefer memes that relate to their experiences of mental health.
Here the depressed people can relate to their state of mind with the dark humour. Instead of negatively taking those memes, these people feel like a part of a community where many others are like them.
This might help them to get out of their ‘left out of society’ depression. Of course, further research is required in this field to find whether dark humour improves the mental health of a depressed person or not.
The ‘made’ and the ‘makers’
While most of us can’t resist viewing a funny picture, many cannot resist making those. It is always pleasant to make others laugh.
Some take things too seriously that they always look for anything bizarre around them to make new rib-tickling content. There is a subtle competition between the active memers. Some people being the subject of a meme feels insulting where there are many taking things sportingly and find these amusing.
In 2019, a meme went viral where a group of people was holding a knife together to cut a cake. There was this person named FH Shaan who was in that group but his hand just hung in the air, nowhere close to the knife.
The picture has been used widely to signify someone faking contribution to anything. Things got more hilarious recently when FH Shaan posted the same kind of photo with a similar pose and wrote in the caption, “My journey of not being able to cut the cake started in 2019. It is 2022 and the journey is not over yet. Pray for me.”
Internet meme culture is moving fast. It is not just for fun anymore. It has become one of the most effective digital marketing strategies across the world.
But for most of us, memes are more than any business. Rather they are the witty entertaining pictures that bring a smile to our faces.
