Brief
A "meme" is a virally-transmitted cultural symbol or social idea. But what is it about memes that leads to the level of virality? Why are we so attracted to making and sharing (and sharing and sharing and sharing) memes? How has the concept changed in different ecosystems?
Learning Objectives
- Learn about the origin of the term, "meme" and the relevance of that origin for today's usage
- Understand the cultural contexts of memes and those contexts' interactions
- Practice analyzing the rhetorical situations of memes
Options and Variations
- Make a meme and share it on the UMW memes Facebook page (or some other context)
- Create a new exploitable meme template and share it with the class in Discord. Write about the experience.
- Write a post (or posts) about a specific meme, focusing on its origin and explaining it in terms of visual rhetoric
- Write a post (or several) tracking a specific meme's change in popularity over time and documenting its circulation through different communities
