A basic characteristic of the meme is humour, and of the anti-meme is its lack of humour. Pfordresher elaborates how a discussion of humour which makes transparent its inner workings goes against the very nature of humour. Brubaker et al. Kowalchuk comes closest to conceptualising the internet meme in the terms that this article does, and defines the anti-meme in opposition to the same.
This, of course, is in opposition to the creative and unexpected channels employed by conventional memes to achieve their humorous end. Research Questions This study intends to answer the following questions: 1. What are the differences between the meaning-making process of a meme and an anti-meme that intends to subvert it?
How does the anti-meme generate humour despite its intentional lack of humour? How is the anti-meme relevant to humour in the digital space? They were deemed fit for analysis as they are general enough to be representative of and adequately represent the signification processes seen in most anti-memes. It is to be noted that the selected examples are not especially representative of anti-memes since all anti-memes function in the same way, with any differences arising only due to the particulars of the templates they aim to subvert; this selection and the subsequent analysis may thus contribute to future attempts to analyse a variety of anti-memes.
A semiotic analysis Barthes, is carried out in order to understand the meaning-making and humour-generation processes of the selected memes and anti-memes. This primarily focuses on the different elements, taken as signs, of the meme template; how they contribute to create certain significations; and ultimately, how they generate humour or in the case of the anti-meme, a lack of humour.
Figure 1. In the public domain. The meme format or template used in the meme shown in Figure 1 is one that is popularly used to depict humorous situations and is easily manipulatable. This template relies on a comic interplay between the text, the situation implied by the text, and the accompanying image which acts as the punchline.
The text implies a situation where a person is conveying the intention to not go beyond a self-imposed restriction of one drink, presumably to avoid the possible embarrassing consequences of getting intoxicated. The meme is completed by the image, which portrays a situation where the person has very evidently overshot his self-imposed restriction, contradicting his own words.
The meme achieves a comic effect primarily through the trope of exaggeration and incongruity between the text and the image; the image used is a highly inflated contradiction of the situation implied by the text. Mocking the human resolve in the face of temptation is another one of its humorous elements. A crucial role is also played by the economy of the textual and visual images in the meme; this refers to the presentation of the content in a direct, minimal fashion, which ensures an easy, instantaneous delivery of the joke to the viewer in a bid to ensure that its humour is conveyed as quickly as possible.
Figure 2. No Thanks Anti-Meme. The anti-meme in Figure 2 is an offshoot of the previously described meme, which looked at a comical situation involving the loss of self-imposed control in the face of temptation. In using the same meme template of a text followed by an image, the anti-meme also follows the structure used by the meme to bring about humour; however, functionally, it does the exact opposite.
The deceptive resemblance of the anti-meme to the meme naturally forces the viewer to read it like the latter and expend time and effort in searching for the humour or joke within it. Meanwhile, the anti-meme intentionally saps all the humour from the said situation by arresting all possible creative, and thereby potentially humourous, play between the texts and the image, reducing its signification to one of description and fact.
The text and the image are passively complementary to each other, for the image portrays the man staying true to his initial resolve of not consuming alcohol at all. While the meme offers the joke it contains within itself almost instantaneously, the anti-meme forces the viewer to spend time and effort looking for the intended humourous signification; ultimately, no such signification is found.
The image, which conventionally serves the function of a punchline in the format, is no longer the funny part of the meme but is instead the very element which snatches away any potential for comedy to exist within the space of the template. There is no joke to be found within the anti-meme, for it has closed off any possible significations that could have been created by the interplay of the text and the image, humorous or otherwise.
The anti-meme is thus unfunny, unrelatable; it destroys the creative possibilities of the meme template since the humour is no longer situated within the image macro itself but is outside it, contained in an ironic mockery and subversion of the conventional meme form. Figure 3.
Bae Come Over. Figure 4. Bae Come Over Anti-Meme. Another combination of a meme and an anti-meme see Figure 3 and Figure 4 can be explored to understand the different ways in which the anti-meme functions. One can see the same tropes of displacement occurring in the anti-meme when posited against a typical meme following the same format.
The anti-meme sets itself up in the same fashion as the meme so as to imply the generation of a comedic situation using the same methods of meaning-making; however, it diverges at the third line of the text, where the romantic interest is not making a provocative implication but is instead encouraging the boyfriend to study.
This results in an ordinary, conversation-like conclusion as opposed to a humorous retort, or a punchline which is provided by the generic, sombre stock image of a man studying diligently. Inside the Workings of the Anti-Meme From the two examples explored, it further becomes evident that the anti-meme is not a fixed entity that uses a fixed set of tropes to derive an ironically comedic situation. The descriptiveness of the first anti-meme is in contrast with the directness of the second, yet both achieve a similar, efficient ironic effect.
The outcome is incongruous with the expectation because of the sharp contrast between the type of humour expected and received. The anti-meme achieves this effect because of how it moulds itself to take the shape of the meme it mocks; it takes the specific methods of significations, the structures of the particular meme format, and appropriates them as such.
The anti-meme, unlike a meme template, is not fixed in its form; however, it needs a meme for its existence. It also requires that the meme template gains popularity, so that enough people will be exposed to the humour mechanism accorded by the template and thus will be able to comprehend fully the complete loss of humour in the anti-meme.
The anti-meme kills the joke that the meme had brought about by using descriptive language to ensure that no joke can be derived from itself. The viewer has to process the anti-meme first, only to realise that there is no joke, no humour to be found. A joke loses any potential for humorous value the moment the listener or viewer is forced to put in intellectual effort to understand what is happening Freud, , as cited in Pfordresher, , and the anti-meme forcefully removes any humour that would accompany a meme by making the viewer conscious of the methods of humour creation and perception.
It is crucial to note here that the anti-meme is not anti-humour, but anti-template. Also, not all anti-memes in the contemporary sense of the term work in the same way, yet the examples analysed in this article can be seen as general representatives of the semiotic functioning of all anti-memes, since their primary intention is to challenge and work against established and conventional meme templates irrespective of the meme genre or the elements used in the template.
The anti-meme acts as a subversive mechanism which disrupts the conventional and normalised systems of meaning-making and humour-generation within the template or format of the meme. It achieves this effect by arresting the play of this very system, by making impossible the significations that conventionally imply humour, and replacing this system or structure with one that captures the essence of the implied situation in a highly prosaic, descriptive manner, as opposed to one that allows for multiple popular tropes of humour to be invoked through its form.
This can be seen in both examples — the speed of signification is notably slower in the anti-meme as opposed to the rapid associations that occur in the meme. The casual, easily accessible language of the meme is replaced with language that is ironically formal, and the number of words is considerably higher in order to accentuate this formal, humourless nature of the anti-meme. Where is the Joke? Where then, is the humour found in the anti-meme; why does the anti-meme invariably draw an eventual chuckle from the viewer who has frequently been exposed to the corresponding meme?
All of this points to the work of situational irony; the viewer who realises that the anti-meme is funny realises invariably that the anti-meme consciously mocks the memetic form and its systems of meaning-making. The irony of expecting a joke and instead encountering an extreme lack of humour accompanied by the exposing and closing off of the constructed way in which memes generate humour is not lost on the viewer.
Incongruities form the premise of any humour found within conventional memes, with most memes using at least two incongruous elements textual and pictorial to bring about humour Ambrus, Memes are more about the process of meaning-making than about meaning itself Shifman, , and this becomes blatantly obvious in the case of anti-memes, as well.
The humour in the anti-meme is thus situated outside the template and is contained in an ironic mockery of the template. Ironically, the anti-meme with all of its formal blandness and drabness of the created situation becomes an unprecedented fresh rendition of the template for the meme-educated viewer, who is used to different variations of memes and might even be participating in the creation of such variations , but all of which necessarily fall under the same rules of the meme template.
In Saussurean terms, the meme simply replaces the specific paroles, the individual instances, the specific images and texts used, within the same structural positions within the same langue of the meme template Barthes, In contrast, the anti-meme entirely displaces the structural positions as imposed by the template and, in the process, exposes the dominant structure used by memes to generate humour. Therefore, it creates a fully unique situation for the viewer by destabilising the entire conventional system of signification in the meme template, as opposed to just bringing about variations in the existing system.
And more sneering mockery of an old man hooked up to an oxygen tank. And date rape. And violence against animals. And fat shaming. And homophobia. And racism. And pedophilia. The look was lo-fi and absurdist, and the tone was eye-rolling, cynical, self-aware. Blocky white letter captions on pictures of exaggerated facial expressions. In the s and early s, Phillips was one of a group of academics, activists, and intellectuals who studied memes, and promoted the idea of the web as a space of unfettered, anarchic creation.
The revolution would be user-generated. The founders of social networks—primarily young, carefree, middle-class white Americans—agreed. Okay, the argument went, this outpouring of creativity had its darker elements, but that was part of its countercultural charm. Sexism, racism, and other hatreds were being invoked for nothing more than shock value. It was ironic , duh. In , she attended a live show called Meme Factory, which aimed to explain this new language of the internet. Three young men sat in front of microphones, talking deliberately fast, occasionally projecting pictures onto the screen behind them.
The first Meme Factory show began with a disclaimer about its offensive content, delivered in front of a picture of a white cat captioned with what was a popular phrase at the time: Internet. Serious Business. Phillips remembers laughing until she cried at a repeat performance the next year. Phillips, an assistant communications professor at Syracuse University, now thinks she got it wrong.
By the time the decade ended, a certain kind of liberal was forced to accept that we had been far too complacent about how dark politics could get, and how the ironically awful parts of the internet helped that to happen. Many others have walked down the same path of recognition as Phillips. Watching the Meme Factory video again a decade later, what once seemed like consequence-free, playful transgression now looked toxic.
A ctual-bigotry-camouflaged-as-ironic-bigotry seems like a new phenomenon, perhaps even a quintessentially 21st-century one, dependent on a mashup of consumerism and pop culture and being Very Online. Modern extremism often comes with elements of silliness and ridiculousness. They are preparing for that eventuality by attending anti-lockdown protests and gun-rights rallies in jaunty Hawaiian shirts under stab vests, carrying assault weapons. Look at the extraordinary set of beliefs held by QAnon conspiracists, about sex-trafficking satanists operating in family restaurants.
Look at Pepe the cartoon frog, a symbol that white supremacists co-opted from its creator, who once shamefacedly explained that it was so named because it sounded like pee-pee. To misquote The Big Lebowski , say what you like about the tenets of national socialism, but at least the Nazis took themselves seriously. That comparison is also made by Robert Evans, a journalist with the investigative website Bellingcat.
He told me the story of Hans Litten, a Jewish lawyer who prosecuted Nazi paramilitaries for an attack on a dance hall in , and therefore had the chance to cross-examine Hitler. He questioned Hitler carefully , exposing his double-faced strategy: street violence to galvanize an army of thugs, overlaid with a veneer of plausible gentility to attract middle-class voters.
Litten embarrassed Hitler, but did not win the case. And as soon as Hitler came to power in , the lawyer was arrested.
After five years of torture and hard labor, Litten killed himself in Dachau. People are making masks out of fabric, sure, but also bra cups and giant, winged sanitary pads. In Australia, coronavirus panic has led to mass hoarding of toilet paper to the point where it has created a genuine shortage for some companies, which Aussies are already memetically mocking. Some memes are standard-issue internet fatalism , while others poke fun at the lengths people go to avoid someone coughing.
Some are just puns: Corona the beer is having a rough go of it this year, as virus memes have caused its stock prices to plummet. Others are just jokes. Of course, plenty of people do not appreciate people making light of a serious, deadly disease.
Public figures from Prince William to controversial celebrity YouTuber PewDiePie have faced online criticism for their coronavirus quips. The debate over jokes about the virus seems to be particularly heated on college campuses.
According to Lewis, coronavirus memes and jokes are as inevitable as the backlash against them. By Sara Harrison.
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