For those of you who are not millennials or just aren't updated on current internet trends, you may not even recognize the last word in the title above. A meme (pronouced mēm) is a humorous image, video or piece of text that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users. It has been an ongoing trend on the world wide web for many years now. What most people don't know is that the term actually originated in 1976 when Richard Dawkins used it in his book "The Selfish Gene." Although it didn't have the exact same denotation that it does now, that was the beginning of the phenomenon this word would be involved in decades later.
If you have any internet access at all, it's very likely you've seen a meme. They're pretty much all over the web now. I see them almost every time I scroll through my Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. They're meant to make whoever comes across them laugh or smile.
I mean, what's not to love about a picture of an absolutely adorable canine with a witty caption on it? These are the memes that I love. The ones that innocently make me laugh or smile. Not all of them are like this though. I've actually found myself finding humor in memes less and less recently. It's been replaced with an increasing feeling of anger and sympathy. I stopped finding humor in the ones that came with the destruction of someone else's reputation or self-esteem.
One extremely popular meme that went international in 2014 was "Alex from Target." It all started when a girl was checking out at Target and found her cashier, Alex, very attractive. She snapped a picture of him and tweeted it to her followers to show off her cute cashier. It went viral almost instantly and the #AlexFromTarget was being tweeted across the globe. Originally, people were raving about how good-looking he was and even posted memes of him with captions such as "he had me at 'your total is $23.37 plus tax." Alex, whose full name is Alex LaBeouf, even took to his own Twitter account and jokingly tweeted, "Am I famous now?" Sadly, his time in the spotlight wasn't all fun and games for long.
The people of the internet started to mock and cyberbully him. They called him "untalented" and "useless." People seemed outraged that he became famous for "doing nothing" when, in reality, he was just doing his job when a random girl tweeted a photograph of him. As if the vicious outrages and personal attacks weren't bad enough, people started sending him death threats and making up insane rumors about him.
The issue with this situation and the hundreds of others that occur every time someone creates and shares a new meme is the separation from reality. People are finding pictures of complete strangers and making fun of them on the biggest forum there is. I can't even imagine waking up one morning to find out that someone took or found a picture of me, slapped a caption on it and millions of people were talking about it.
Fame isn't all it's cracked up to be. These are real life people behind these humorous captions. They usually have to endure months and sometimes even years of bullying and shaming as this "trend" follows them for the rest of their lives, because what you post online never truly disappears. We live in a world where it's so easy to confront someone from behind the screen of your computer or phone. When you take away the face-to-face aspect, people start to dehumanize others and don't think about the consequences their actions may have.
We, as a whole community, basically control the internet. We post, read, discuss and sometimes share content. As great as it would be for no one to ever mutter a negative word about someone on the internet again, it's quite unrealistic. But what we can do is be aware. Really comprehend what you decide to post and share before actually doing it. Always put yourself in someone else's shoes first. Would you want this to be seen by millions if it were you in that picture?
