Some would say jokes are as old as communication itself, but the way they have been told has changed throughout the ages. They have been relayed using a multitude of modalities, but largely through voice, text, and imagery. The emergence of digital platforms and communication has created new types of literacy, and in-turn, a new modality for expressing human ideas.

The digital expression of these ideas is often referred to as a meme. The term “meme” was developed by Richard Dawkins in 1976, and is generally defined as “a piece of culture, typically a joke,which gains influence through online transmission”. Memes are often jokes, but can also be reflections, statements about current events or perspectives, and even confessions.

Memes began as images with text superimposed over them, but the last decade has seen a proliferation of what is considered a meme. They now include videos with audio,video loops(gifs), only text, and even song-based memes. Memes can be found on just about all social media platforms, websites have even been made for the creation of memes. A popular resource for learning about different memes and creating them is knowyourmeme.com, I recommend checking it out if they seem like a foreign concept.

The most interesting thing about memes to me is that they really are a form of literacy; it takes time and exposure to understand the general format, and there are multiple “tiers” of memes that require deeper knowledge or familiarity with multiple types of memes. Depending on how deep you go, things can get pretty cryptic, but I guess that is true of many types of literacy. They are also constantly changing: new memes and meme formats are being constantly developed and broadened in their application. A good example would be Greta Thunberg’s recent speech at the UN, there were both image-based and video memes all over the place within 24 hours of the speech.

If we believe that educators should relate course content in meaningful ways to learners, would including memes in our practice be meaningful? Would it just be cringey? I think that these thoughts are frequent among educators in considering how much to relate to learners without losing face as an authority figure.