The Academic Treasure Trove of the Internet Meme

'An Internet meme is a hijacking of the original idea. Instead of mutating by random change and spreading by a form of Darwinian selection, Internet memes are altered deliberately by human creativity. There is no attempt at accuracy of copying, as with genes - and as with memes in their original version'- Richard Dawkins, 2013

Something strange happened in England recently. As temperatures soar dramatically the nation prepared itself for the arrival of the continuously moronic Donald Trump whilst the government imploded upon itself dramatically and spectacularly. Events like these took a back seat for the moment as there was something even more extraordinary happening. Even with a nappy-wearing Trump balloon prepared to hover over Parliament Square when POTUS arrived in the capital on Friday, there was a more serious matter to attend to. It is one that has happened only twice before, and is one that nobody expected to happen. England were in the semi-finals of the World Cup, and were two victories away from winning the whole thing. Croatia eventually triumphed 2-1 over the English lads on Wednesday night, but there was no shame in defeat. My bracket may be ruined, but my mood is not dampened by this due to the feeling that, for a few weeks, football may have just been 'coming home'.

I got my eyes on you...

Our nation is somewhat famous for its impeccable sense of humour, as we can happily rip into our own shortcomings and have a good laugh about queuing, the weather and our obsession over a nice cup of tea. Getting carried away with sporting triumphs is something else the English do well, even if it is, to take one example, mooching off the success of our pre-dominantly Scottish curling team representing Great Britain at the Winter Olympics. When the international football tournaments come around, suddenly the plastic flags are on cars and all of use dream of ending the drought that has been going on since 1966. Yet when Gareth 'I Look Fantastic in a Waistcoat' Southgate picked a youthful squad lacking international experience, we all lowered our estimations and just wished the lads luck in a very curious way. We played on our reputation of getting carried away and, as is the way of the Internet nowadays, started making memes about how 'it's coming home'.

The song Three Lions by The Lightning Seeds, released for the European Championships being hosted by England in 1996, has become the unexpected tune of the summer. The repeated lyrics of 'it's coming home... football's coming home' has become the slogan of the English football faithful. Any small bit of positive play in the first game against Tunisia was met with cries about the return of football to the shores of England, multiplied by Harry Kane's last minute winner. Thrashing Panama 6-1 broke the record of most goals scored by England at a World Cup, and a narrow loss to Belgium's backup squad didn't stop the enthusiasm. After winning their first ever World Cup penalty shootout against Colombia, the well-disciplined Swedes were tossed aside with ease to set up a semi-final against Croatia. Yet the experience of the Croats came out on top, and England would finish their tournament by finishing 4th after the Belgians put on a rather decent display. No shame in losing though- we did better than the Germans at least.

We'll always have Colombia

Nobody can seem to escape this meme. It fills our Facebook timelines, our Twitter feeds and has even made its way onto the news to show the world how gripped with 'World Cup Fever' England is. Companies have started to incorporate it into advertisement campaigns, as they look to cash in on the fact that the only thing that has been stuck in our heads for the last few weeks has been 'it's coming home, it's coming home, it's coming, FOOTBALL'S COMING HOME!' I have been swept up in the euphoria of England playing somewhat decent football, and am guilty of collecting as many examples of this meme as is humanly possible. But actually, I love memes in general. There appears to be memes relevant for every situation, meaning that they rank jointly with hydrogen in being the most abundant element in the universe. We live in times of plentiful memes, as they are adapted to fit in with whatever pop culture reference everyone is making. They are unstoppable, and only the complete and utter collapse of the Internet can put a stop to them. People will still find a way to make/send memes though; humanity can be pretty creative at times.

Yet I've been thinking. No, not just about the prospect of football coming home but about memes in general. My thoughts have been about how future historians look back at this particular period in time. The world we live in is a strange one, with a reality TV star sitting in the White House and British politics being contested by a woman who looks like either a bird or Gru from Despicable Me, and a democratic socialist who spends his time sitting on the floor of trains. When historical research is conducted about the 21st century, there are plenty of sources to draw arguments and inferences from. Memoirs, news articles and artifacts will still form the backbone of research, but omitting the funny pictures that people tag each other in while they're on the toilet would certainly be a missed opportunity. The fact that there are so many memes out there means that they are, in a depressing but also remarkable sort of way, an integral group of primary sources. They are an integral insight into social history, even if they are based around cartoons from the 1990s or marijuana.

See what I mean?

It would be wise to, first of all, define what a primary source is. Basically, it's something created at the time of a period of study. For example, a picture of Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle walking down the Champs-Élysées in 1944 is a primary source as it was taken at that moment. Diaries, artifacts, manuscripts and the like all fall under this category as well, and there are so many other examples that no historian is never really starved of information. Unless it's ancient history of course, then a lot of sources have been lost/ deteriorated over time and we mostly have to go off translations or someone else's word- that's when the fun really starts! Historians then engage in vigorous debate and I'm sure at least one debate has moved from a civilised manner of discussing who the first king of England truly was (Athelstan, obviously) to whose mother is the most adventurous in bed. Once the two academics have been pulled apart and the blood has been mopped up, the question would still remain open; thus, the cycle starts again. Regardless, we have our primary source definition, so now it would be wise to define what a 'meme' actually is.

A meme can be defined as an idea that passes from person to person to convey a certain theme. Adapted from the Greek word mimeme ('to imitate'), it was actually first coined be everyone's favourite militant atheist Richard Dawkins, in his book The Selfish Gene, published in 1976. Dawkins argued that the 'meme' was a unit of cultural transmission, similar to genes in biological evolution, in that both are self-replicating. The evolution of culture meant that memes thrive, while natural selection and biological evolution allow genes to survive. Much like with genes, memes that are successful remain and continue to spread, while the poorer memes are eventually phased out. So what we have here is a very serious area of study (it is known as memetics) which sprang up from a man passionate to the cause of disproving the existence of God. Essentially, the people who create the best Internet memes are talented pseudoscientists skilled in the knowledge of how to spread a cultural entity from person to person. Next time someone moans at you for spending too much time making memes, just say you're doing it for science!

Hooray for science!

'Internet memes' first entered our lives through the simple email chain, as friends/ co-workers would come across a funny picture or video and send it out to whoever else would find it funny. Seems pretty primitive now compared to social media and our multiple message groups on Facebook and WhatsApp, but Rome wasn't built in a day. Message boards and online forums allowed communities to come together to share information with each other quickly, allowing the spread of memes to continue. Internet memes survive as they are adapted to take into account current events or pop culture references. Take the 'One Does Not Simple Walk into Mordor' meme, for example. Boromir's (Sean Bean) famous quote from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring soon became synonymous with describing a situation that is usually frustrating or complex. Its evolution can be charted alongside cultural changes; the earliest ones may describe something like 'One Does Not Simply Eat One Dorito', and over time examples such as 'One Does Not Simply Watch One Episode on Netflix' start popping up. This particular meme has survived due to altering to what is currently popular and relevant, increasing its longevity.

Thank you Sean for the wise words

The popularity of memes hasn't escaped the attention of both academics and marketeers. From an academic standpoint, researchers will study the evolution of a certain meme and predict which ones will survive and spread across the Internet. If that doesn't sound like your dream job, then you need to get new life goals. Marketing teams will try and utilise memes in viral advertisement campaigns on social media platforms. Known simply as 'memetic marketing', it is a cheap form of marketing that can create hype for a certain product or service. If one meme is extremely popular at a certain point in time, then marketing teams will look to exploit that popularity. In February 2012, Virgin Media created billboards with the copy 'Tim just realised his parents get HD channels at no extra cost' with a mirrored image of the 'Success Kid/ I Hate Sandcastles' meme. Some adverts have even become memes in themselves. Dos Equis, a Mexican beer company, ran adverts from 2006-2016 with their character 'The Most Interesting Man In The World' (Jonathan Goldsmith), who would remark that 'I don't always drink beer, but when I do, it's Dos Equis'. It became a meme about how a well-groomed man had a taste for the finer things in life, and Dos Equis lapped up the popularity. In 2009, sales of imported beer in the US were down by 4% according to Information Resources Inc. (IRI), yet Doe Equis sales were up by 22%. Dan Wandel of IRI attributed their success due to their advertisements- it was 'nothing short of remarkable'.

Come on, we are all guilty of doing it

So we have our meme lore; from a very serious argument on mapping out human genetics to making funny pictures and videos of a unicycling frog ('here come that boi!'), conspiracy theories about how former Presidential candidate Ted Cruz is/ was the Zodiac Killer and, of course, Kermit sipping some tea since no obscure event was 'none of [his] business]. Does it show how far humanity has sunk in regards to intellectually stimulating content? Hell no, memes are great! Not only are they sources of entertainment, but they also act as conversation starters between groups of friends since a good meme always brings a rousing reception from all recipients in the group chat. Their ability to be manipulated for any situation, whether political, historical or based around the most mundane of everyday tasks, shows their strength to always be relevant. We even have the massive subgenre of 'dank' memes, as marijuana smokers lent their word for high-quality weed to the most ironic of meme genres. They make absolutely no sense, as air horns blare loudly and Illuminati symbols flood the screen. Why they are funny needs a whole line of academic study all on its own, but I guess since they are so random and played-out that they just are. We certainly live in strange times...

The historians of the future will certainly look back at this period in time and be amazed that the amount of visual materials based around Chuck Norris, a grumpy looking cat called 'Tardar Sauce' and that damn dress from 2015 (it was white and gold, right?). Yet while some historians struggle to find primary sources for ancient periods in history, the Internet is an archive of epic proportions, and results are ready at a moments' notice. Rather than searching through record collections or libraries, all the historians of '21st Century Studies' will need is an Internet connection and a search engine. Suddenly, looking for sources on the Pepsi advert in which Kendall Jenner solves all of society's problems with a carbonated beverage yields 633,000 Google results in 0.5 seconds (I checked- I am dedicated to meme research). While some sources have become digitised and copies of important noteworthy documents are still in circulation, these scholars of the future will be overwhelmed from the sources they can use as part of their research. Imagine the inferences they can make.

Such an inspiration

As was drummed into us at school, an inference is a conclusion that can be drawn from background knowledge and evidence from resources. For example, if I notice that the floor is wet, I can infer that perhaps the floor has just been cleaned, or that the fridge is leaking and my eggs are in serious danger. To put it in an historical context, say you are asked to assess the government of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia from a written source. The source cites how by 1917 soldiers were deserting, poorly trained and refusing to obey orders. This suggests that discipline and morale were low, meaning that the government had likely lost control of the situation regarding Russian involvement in the First World War. See, not too difficult. While this would probably score you 1,000,000 marks on your GCSE paper, you would be mocked by fellow academics for your simplification of a very complex and serious issue that would change the course of human history forever. It would be wise, therefore, to ironically move away from hilarious medium that are memes and put them under a more historical and academic microscope.

Their usefulness in marketing campaigns have already been mentioned, and the advertisement campaigns from both Virgin Media and Dos Equis both serve as primary sources in regards to this hypothesis. Yet besides their worth in selling you fast broadband or alcohol, it is their value when researching the social history of the 21st century that will see memes be utilised to their full potential. They will show the academics of tomorrow what our generation found funny, whether it was our pets dressed as people doing 'people things' or a cartoon character with a clenched fist (Arthur is, and always will be, a great show, which is still being made to this day by the way). Humour changes over time, so it is unlikely that the researchers of this time period will understand how images like these could be so popular. Much like how only a decent knowledge of the Shakespearean language can guide you through one of William Shakespeare's plays, I presume these intellectuals will need plenty of background knowledge to understand every meme they come across.

Never forget

Indeed, the history and evolution of memes themselves are a topic that could well be covered in the future. Through my own research, the birth of the 'Internet meme' can be traced to autumn 1996. Autodesk employees Michael Girard and Robert Lurye designed an animated baby doing a series of cha-cha moves in order to show off their software 'Character Studio'. The file was sent to other animated companies, and once it reached Ron Lussier of LucasArts he gave it a slight tweak. Lussier turned it into a GIF and sent it to coworkers through their own email chain. Soon it began to spread, and later on in the year a web developer named John Woodell turned it into a highly compressed animated GIF and released it onto the Internet. Now everyone could use the 'Dancing Baby' to their own desires, as proved by the baby's appearances on Ally McBeal. The baby would appear in hallucinations, and in one instance danced to the intro of Blue Suede's 'Hooked on a Feeling'. This Internet phenomenon had escaped from the confines of the computer and made it onto mainstream media. Soon the 'Dancing Baby' was being parodied and incorporated into other TV shows, as Homer Simpson did with his 'Dancing Jesus' website on The Simpsons episode The Computer Wore Menace Shoes. This creepy infant is one of the first Internet celebrities, and another prime example of how companies could cash in on the popularity of memes.

God damn, that's creepy 

The spread of memes themselves tell a story of how information was shared in the Internet age, whether through email chains or social media. Both can be put side by side to chart how, as the Internet developed, the means of sharing materials developed as well. Communication became more instant, and software became more sophisticated in that more ambitious projects could be utilised. No more would faxes be sent between companies; instant messaging services would phase out the clunky machines, and would soon be a key app on the smart phones that we all cherish nowadays. Technology has certainly come a long way, and much like how Johannes Gutenberg's metal moveable-type printing press gave Europe the opportunity to mass-produce pamphlets and Bibles, the Internet gave people the chance to share information at an incredibly fast rate. Then our generation got their hands on the Internet, and our warped sense of humour turned it into a system of meme creation and sharing. Is it a gross misuse of the marvellous creation of Tim Berners-Lee? Best not dwell on that thought for too long.

Historians of the future will probably be able to create timelines of the events of the 21st century based around memes. They probably wouldn't even need to trawl through newspaper archives to find out that, on 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union due to the traffic of memes based around how the older generation may have just screwed over the next. While it may seem a tad ambitious to perfectly chart human history with memes, the fact that there are literally billions of memes out there means that future historians won't need to exert themselves too much to find memes based on certain topics. To think that, one day, theories and doctorates could well be based on the evolution of a certain meme and their appropriation to events and certain demographics, whether it's based around SpongeBob SquarePants or a crying Michael Jordan. Social historians will be overwhelmed with the amount of information at their fingertips, as the spread of Internet phenomena shows how socialising has changed dramatically in the age of technology. Hopefully I live long enough into the future to conduct my own research into memes.

Even Otto von Bismarck could not escape memes 

So let's just sum this all up then. Memes will probably be critical primary sources as future generations try to unravel the dangerous world of the 21st century. As the planet got warmer and everyone kept fighting each other, people still found time to make funny pictures and videos and share them to millions of people across the globe. These academics will look on with confusion as to why eating a whole pack of Doritos and smoking weed was so funny, inferring that the youths of the day were idiots. The development of instant messaging wasn't just used to plot important business ventures or discuss matters of national security, but was also used to make groups to exchange memes and revel in their hilarity. It was the new way of socialising, even though people would still congregate to the pub or the cinema, but inevitably someone pulls out their phone and shows them a funny cat meme they saw on Facebook while going through their 8 AM bowel movement. The staying power behind memes will surely be examined from a psychological point of view, i.e. why they spread so quickly from person to person, or whether someone famous making a meme, or featuring in one, gives it more credibility. There are certainly plenty of ways to look at memes, whether they are simple images, videos or challenges that consist of dumping buckets of ice water over your head. Man, now I'm slightly worried that the next generation WILL definitely see us as idiots.

But hey, that's life! Better still, if you are worried about how future humans will rate our society, then just make a meme about it and share with your friends so you can all partake in the pain together. Well look at that, another aspect that can be studied in the field of 'Internet memetics'- sharing in each other's misfortunes through memes. Seriously, we need more doctorates and dissertations on memes. 'Hello, I'm Doctor Ben Goscomb, an expert in the field of memes'. That has a good ring to it, right? Perhaps my first piece of academic literature will centre on how the 'it's coming home' meme united the country at a time when leading Parliamentary ministers resigned and the heat slowly cooked us alive. Now that right there is social history. Intellectuals of the future, cite me as the pioneer of 'Internet memetics'- just make sure you get the correct address when sending out those royalty cheques.

Never before has meme been so perfect to describe a situation

Ben G 😁 xo

P.S. Football did come home, but not in trophy form. Our pride in our team has been restored after some terrible performances in the last few major tournaments. It's been one hell of a ride, and this is surely the start of something great.

Thank you for reminding us all how to believe 

P.P.S. Mother and I went to London on Thursday to marvel at the 'Monet and Architecture' exhibition at the National Gallery. Sadly, I was not able to meet the President, but I'm sure I will at some point.

Leicester Square in London looking lovely