The latest Facebook trend that has seized control of most Elon students’ news feed’s over the last few weeks has probably garnered more “Likes” than I care to estimate. What is this trend, you ask? The answer is simple: memes.
But the meme that has gained the most attention as of late is not exactly what you would call complicated: plain white text superimposed over a picture of a recognizable person or object. Rival schools, unsavory locals, university officials, Greek life stereotypes, off-color classmates, beloved (and dreaded) professors: All are considered fair game for Elon’s meme-creating population. Other popular references include campus buildings, pop culture figures and phrases, all of which are supported with an appropriate picture to help take the joke from merely chuckle-worthy to “LOL” funny. Maybe even a “roflcopter” might work its way in somewhere, but I digress. The point is that memes have invaded our daily lives, causing a significant shift in the way students have been utilizing social media in recent weeks.
QuickMeme.com and MemeGenerator.net, where anyone can easily build their own gags from pre-packaged templates, have become some of the most heavily trafficked photo-sharing sites on the Web since the launch of Pinterest back in 2010. Many campuses across America have created pages so as to post scores of campus-specific memes, racking up thousands of fans and dozens of contributions in only a matter of days (see Elon Memes).
But how long will this meme train last? Very few trends that start from social media last more than a few weeks before someone comes up with some new way to turn a phrase that makes the previous joke a thing of the not-so-distant past. It seems like even #hashtags are on the downward spiral from the pedestal on which they previously sat. However much longer the memes continue to dominate our Facebook pages, only two questions remain: what trend will replace them? And will we even remember the word “meme” when they go?
[box] What's a meme?
According to knowyourmeme.com: "Internet memes have risen in popularity with the rise of Internet Culture as more and more people identify with and participate on the Web as their primary method of expression and content consumption. An Internet memes is a piece of content or an idea that's passed from person to person, changing and evolving along the way. A piece of content that is passed from person to person, but does not evolve or change during the transmission process is considered viral content." [/box]