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Memes and Viral Content Date: 2019 From: Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection Publisher: Gale, a Cengage Company Document Type: Topic overview Length: 2,196 words Content Level: (Level 5) Lexile Measure: 1380L

Full Text: In 1976 evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explored the motivations behind an organism's behavior in his book The Selfish Gene. He proposed that the survival of a genetic sequence depends on its ability to be spread through replication, such as by sexual reproduction. In this manner, the gene survives beyond the original organism and its actions. Genes mutate and evolve, leading to the emergence of new traits that can be significantly different from the original source. Dawkins then applied this biological concept to culture. In the same way that genetic information travels across generations of a species, cultural information disseminates through society in patterns, though not necessarily as it was originally intended. These traveling units of cultural information are known as memes.

In accordance with this idea, memes can include any transferrable aspect of culture, such as hairstyles, slang words, or religions. These memes spread from host to host without needing involvement or even permission from the original source. The meaning of an idea or cultural artifact can radically change during transmission and replication, as seen in the German Nazi Party's adoption of the swastika, which has been used for thousands of years as a sacred symbol in Buddhism, Jainism, and other religions.

Global adoption of the internet has accelerated the dissemination of cultural data. Images, videos, text, and music shared widely among internet users, typically over a short period of time, are referred to as viral content. The underlying ideas behind this viral content can be replicated, manipulated, and redefined independently of the content's original creator. Like the gene, the idea survives beyond the original creator—and, like genes, ideas mutate and evolve.

Main Ideas Memes refer to units of cultural information that travel across society, typically changing or evolving as they are shared, regardless of the creator's original intentions. A symbol that changes meaning when adopted by a different culture or group is an example of a meme. Viral content refers to content that spreads among online communities. The term evokes the spread of a biological virus, but such content does not harm machines like a computer virus. Social media enables content to be shared more widely and rapidly than traditional publishing methods previously allowed. The introduction of popular products like smartphones led to more people creating and distributing content. Viral videos have been used to generate awareness about political issues, raise funds for social causes, and entertain people. Some viral videos have drawn criticism for encouraging dangerous behavior. Image macros featuring a picture accompanied by text are some of the most common forms of internet memes. Celebrities and other social media users have come under scrutiny for sharing memes without attributing credit to the creators. Memes have become frequent tools of political campaigns. Federal investigators have determined that the Russian government has used memes as part of disinformation campaigns intended to disrupt US politics.

Ideas Travel on the Internet

In the late 1960s, the first network of computers was created to exchange packets of information, which led to the creation of the internet. As more users joined the internet, more information passed through the network. Innovations such as e-mail, chat rooms, forums, and instant messaging further facilitated the exchange of ideas. Forwarding content by e-mail became one of the most popular ways to share information. The arrival of social media sites such as Friendster in 2002, Myspace in 2003, and Facebook in 2004 made joining an online social network more accessible. At the end of its first year, Facebook had about one million worldwide users, going on to attract more than one billion users within eight years. Facebook's option to "like" and "share" content made it an efficient platform for the spread of information, providing a model that other social media platforms followed. The launch of YouTube in 2005 also provided users with a platform to share and view video content. Social media innovations such as Reddit, Twitter, and

Instagram soon followed, each offering a variation on how information could be spread online.

In 2007 Apple released its first iPhone, which made mobile use of the internet easier and more popular. Camera technology and mobile apps gave users more advanced tools for creating and sharing information online outside of the restrictions of a traditional desktop or laptop computer. Within the following decade, many internet users possessed the tools to create and distribute their own content at unprecedented levels. These tools could also be used to replicate and manipulate the content of others.

Smartphone technology enabled groups of citizen journalists to capture events with the cameras on their phones and upload their footage within moments. In 2014 smartphone footage captured the death of Eric Garner, an African American man who was placed in a chokehold by a police officer during an arrest. The video went viral quickly after being posted online by the New York Daily News. While the incident was not the first time that bystanders had captured police brutality on video, the footage marked the beginning of a new era for documenting police misconduct. In the months and years following, many videos of police officers using excessive force against African Americans surfaced, triggering emotional and polarizing reactions from the public and demonstrating viral content's potential for social impact.

Viral videos have been circulated to organize protest movements, raise donations for charity and research, increase tolerance and acceptance of stigmatized groups, and empower victims of abuse and harassment to share personal experiences with millions of people worldwide. Video challenges involve suggesting others perform a specific task, document it, and share it. Such challenges may be used to generate awareness or raise money for a cause, but they are often for entertainment purposes, such as the 2019 trend known as the Baby Cheese Challenge. In the challenge, parents recorded themselves throwing slices of processed cheese on their babies' faces and the surprised children's reactions. Some parents and other social media users criticized the makers of these videos, contending that humorous videos are not worth the risk of traumatizing the babies.

Though composed of billions of different users, the online community has often been characterized as a mob representing public opinion. As material goes viral, users may express significant admiration for a person or idea but then quickly turn against the object of their admiration after additional information is revealed. Twitter user Ben Ward coined the term milkshake duck to describe this phenomenon. In his tweet, he imagined a scenario in which internet users fall in love with a duck that drinks milkshakes only to quickly learn that the duck is a racist. In many cases, a person becomes a milkshake duck after controversial social media posts from their pasts are unearthed. In April 2019, for example, cartoonist Nathan W. Pyle, creator of the webcomic Strange Planet, became the target of online outrage after older posts discussing his support of the March for Life, an anti-abortion organization, resurfaced.

Communicating with Images

Image macros are popular mediums for sharing information, expressing opinions, and telling jokes online. Around 2005, image macros featuring cats with imperfect English started to appear on the internet. This genre of image macros became identified by the name "LOLcats" and gained a global following on the website I Can Has Cheezburger? The text of these image macros appeared in white capital letters outlined in black using the Impact typeface. An image macro featuring this typeface is one of the most common types of internet meme. The use of recognizable imagery and simple English facilitated the spread of this format.

Musicians such as Snoop Dogg, Beyoncé, and Freddie Mercury have become subjects of popular memes, as have fictional characters such as Kermit the Frog, Spider-Man, and SpongeBob SquarePants. Memes often use images from stock photos, textbooks, and advertisements. An image may be shared many times without being changed or with only the text being altered. Many popular internet memes begin with a photo that users alter to change the image's meaning. Politicians and celebrities often find themselves the subjects of "Photoshop Battles" in which an image may be altered to communicate a political message or to simply ridicule them. Adobe, the company that created the Photoshop software, has shared an annual list of their favorite Photoshop Battles since 2017.

Using a copyrighted image without permission can have legal repercussions even if the image has been manipulated. The penguin that originally appeared in a photograph used on a National Geographic Wild Animals website became the subject of a popular meme called the Socially Awkward Penguin meme. Getty Images, the licensing agency for National Geographic, has successfully pursued legal recourse in several cases of this photograph being reprinted without its permission. Much of the copyrighted material used in memes falls under the parameters of fair use, however, which denotes that people who use the material for parody, criticism, or other specified purposes do not need to obtain permission from the original source.

Social media users have attracted negative attention for sharing content without attributing credit to the original creators. Several celebrities accused of this include social media influencer John Ostrovsky, actor George Takei, and entrepreneur Elon Musk. Some moderators of these accounts dedicated to memes have been able to generate significant revenue, a situation that creates ethical questions about whether people should profit from memes that they did not create. Concern over the issue has led the social media site Instagram to conduct a series of purges in which they remove accounts from their site for violating the site's terms of service. In July 2019 Instagram removed more than thirty popular meme accounts, many of which had millions of followers, for alleged violations.

Critical Thinking Questions What is a milkshake duck, and what does the term reveal about the way people behave online? In your opinion, how should the government respond when an image-sharing website or social media group becomes popular among violent individuals and groups? Explain your answer. Do you think the use of memes improves political discourse? Why or why not?

Memes and Politics

Political groups online have implemented memes as an effective method of propaganda. Extremist political groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Ku Klux Klan have used memes to spread their message. The alternative right, or alt-right, an antiestablishment conservative political movement linked to white nationalism, is another such group that relies heavily on memes and operates primarily online. The group rejects both liberalism and modern conservatism for their support of free trade and multiculturalism. Like any host in the lifecycle of memes, the alt-right has co-opted the content of other sources and has also had its content appropriated by other groups. The alt-right adopted a comic character named Pepe the Frog, for instance, as an unofficial mascot of the group. The character's creator, Matt Furie, objected to the use of his creation by a group that espouses racist rhetoric. Furie has stopped some third parties from using the character through a series of successful lawsuits, including cases against conspiracy theory website InfoWars, neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, and an oil painter in Missouri. In 2016 the Anti-Defamation League identified the character as a hate symbol. On top of Pepe's legacy as both an apolitical character and a symbol for the alt- right, the character appeared in a new role during the summer of 2019, when pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong began using it in their demonstrations against mainland China.

Journalists and members of law enforcement have uncovered evidence that several perpetrators of mass violence had engaged heavily with meme culture. In one incident, authorities discovered an affinity for memes in the social accounts of Cesar Sayoc, a terrorist who sent bombs to several media outlets and prominent liberals in October 2018. Sayoc's van was also covered in stickers based on conservative memes. In 2019 mass shootings targeting Muslim communities in Christchurch, New Zealand, were committed by a terrorist whose manifesto referenced several popular memes. Several image-sharing websites, such as 4chan, 8chan, and iFunny, have gained reputations for allowing content suspected of radicalizing internet users and encouraging violence.

Mainstream political groups have also used memes to support campaigns and advance agendas. Evidence surfaced in 2015 that the Russian government was using memes in disinformation campaigns aimed to promote Russian interests, encourage geopolitical discord, and destabilize foreign countries. During the 2016 US presidential campaign, these Russian operatives worked to help Republican nominee Donald Trump win by creating fake social media accounts that distributed incendiary memes and fake news items. Trump's victory aroused suspicion, sparking further investigation into Russia's actions. In February 2018 US Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller issued indictments against three Russian organizations and several individuals for interfering with the 2016 election through nefarious social media campaigns.

Memes continue to play a role in US politics. As Democratic candidates vied for the nomination in the 2020 presidential election, many contenders found themselves the subjects of memes. For example, an anonymous internet user created individual Facebook groups for the explicit purpose of sharing memes related to candidates Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Julián Castro. When CNN reporter Sarah Mucha asked candidate Marianne Williamson how she thought the second Democratic debate went, Williamson responded that she would not know until she could "see the memes."

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2021 Gale, a Cengage Company Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition) "Memes and Viral Content." Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2019. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints,

link.gale.com/apps/doc/BVRDVL685165215/OVIC?u=txshracd2512&sid=OVIC&xid=0fe693bf. Accessed 4 May 2021. Gale Document Number: GALE|BVRDVL685165215