Internet Memes Research Articles

Unveiling the War and Constructing Identities: Exploring Memes in Ukrainian and Russian Social Media during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

The article examines the generation and deployment of visual narratives in Ukrainian and Russian digital participatory cultures, with a specific focus on internet memes in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It analyzes the form, content, and functions of these memes and highlights their similarity in mobilizing and conveying political messages despite variations in their visual components. The study indicates that Ukrainian memes are used not only to promote political agendas but also serve as trauma coping and collective identity construction mechanisms in times of crisis, helping to promote new war narratives that are engaged in the construction of the self and the other.

Is trypophobia real?

Approximately 10-18% of the adult population experience some form of anxiety when viewing clusters of small holes. 'Trypophobia' has been the subject of much discussion within the peer-reviewed literature, news outlets, health-related websites and social media. However, there is some scepticism surrounding the phenomenon. It is often stated that the condition is not recognised by the American Psychiatric Association, and not listed as a phobia in the DSM-5. It has also been claimed that trypophobia is no more than a particularly successful internet meme. In this editorial, I argue that such criticisms are misplaced. There is, for instance, no list of phobias in the DSM-5; only criteria that determine phobia classification. Using these criteria, as well as personal testimonials, trypophobia is clearly a phobia. Furthermore, the meme hypothesis cannot account for the fact that the phenomenon existed long before the internet.

How do consumers make behavioural decisions on social commerce platforms? The interaction effect between behaviour visibility and social needs

AbstractThe online phenomenon of social commerce (i.e., s‐commerce) platforms has emerged as a combination of online social networking and e‐commerce. On s‐commerce platforms, consumers can observe others' behavioural decisions and can distinguish those made by their friends from those made by their followees (i.e., the people a focal consumer follows but who do not follow that consumer back). Given this distinction, our study examines how consumers' behavioural decisions—regarding, for example, purchases, ratings, or “likes”—are made on s‐commerce platforms, with a focus on how they are influenced by prior decisions of friends and followees. Combining panel data from a large s‐commerce platform and two controlled experiments, we identify a strong normative social influence pattern in which consumers tend to follow others' prior decisions to gain social approval. Because the occurrence of normative social influence depends on both consumer behaviours with high public visibility and strong consumer needs to establish social ties, the unique information concerning behaviour visibility and consumers' social needs in the panel data allows us to identify normative social influence and to distinguish it from informational confounding mechanisms. Our panel data results show that on a friend network, where consumers' behavioural decisions are visible, females exhibit a greater tendency to follow others' prior decisions than males. We attribute this result to the stronger social needs of females. However, on a followee network, where behavioural decisions are invisible, these differences become less evident. Moreover, the two experiments demonstrate that making decision contexts private or activating social needs via a priming procedure can thwart (or even turn off) normative social influence. Our findings challenge prior research that identifies informational social influence as the predominant driver of conformity behaviours and thus have important implications for practice related to normative social influence, such as the development of techniques for satisfying consumers' different social needs depending on their gender or any other situational factors on s‐commerce platforms.

Internet Memes: A Cognitive Approach to the Issue of Semantic Translatability

Internet Memes: A Cognitive Approach to the Issue of Semantic Translatability

Peluang Dan Tantangan Dalam Membangun Bisnis Kerajinan Kulit Online Studi Kasus Koodoo Company

This research is based on the growth of the phenomenon of online shopping through Instagram social media which continues to increase from time to time. Entrepreneurs today are expected to utilize Instagram social media to promote their products, in accordance with the demands of the times. This research aims to identify opportunities and challenges in developing an online business with a case study on Koodoo Company. This research adopts a qualitative approach with a case study method to identify, investigate, and discuss issues in depth with the business owner. In this study, the findings show that there are various opportunities that can be utilized in building an online business, such as potential market growth and consumer penetration through digital platforms. The implications of this scientific work can provide deep insights for online business players, especially through a case study involving Koodoo Company. By understanding the opportunities that exist, companies can design more effective strategies to exploit the digital market.

DETERMINAN KEPUTUSAN PEMBELIAN SECARA ONLINE PENGGUNA APLIKASI SHOPEE

The phenomenon of online shopping at this time which continues to grow, it’s not surprising that business people need to pay attention to the importance of consumer reviews and also provide the best quality of electronic services so that customers can purchase products in the marketplace. This research aims to analyze the factors influencing consumer purchase decisions of Shopee aplication users. These factors include Islamic advertising etnics, consumer psychology and social environment. This research applies quantitative techniques and it is analyzed using IBM SPSS version 22. The sampling method used purposive sampling and the number of samples used in this study amounted to 110 respondents source was distribution of questionnaires to Shopee users in East Lombok by online via WhatsApp. Analysis was carried out by several tests such as validity test, realibility test, classic assumption test, linear regression analysis and coefficient of determination test. The results of this study indicate that the Islamic advertising etnics (X1) dan Consumer Psychology (X2) have a positive and significant effect on online purchasing decisions, while the social environment (X3) does not have affect on online purchasing decisions at Shopee (Y). The findings of this study can be reference uses as a reference for future researchers who will study similar problems. This research can also be a reference for companies to always be able to maintain aspects of Islamic advertising ethnics and consumer psychology in designing and determining effective and efficient markering policies.
 
 Key words: Purchase Decisions, Islamic Advertising Ethnics, Consumer Psychology, Social Environment

A comparative linguistic analysis of internet memes in English, Polish and Ukrainian: specifics, functions and language means

The present study centers on the examination of the structure and nuances of Internet memes as exemplars of verbal communication. Its objective is to depict and scrutinize Internet memes chosen by theme as linguistic manifestations of sociopolitical and cultural significance. Additionally, the paper aims to investigate the interrelation between the visual and textual elements within the meme. The principal hypothesis posits that Internet memes encompass a range of linguistic devices that aid in constructing the semantic framework of the message and ease the identification of embedded cultural cues. The research methodology is comprehensive, employing descriptive techniques, analysis and synthesis, tools from the comparative method, and surveys of respondents. The study's findings indicate that the structure of Internet memes is fragmented, yet adequate in forming a comprehensive array of meanings, which are also shaped through linguistic mechanisms. Furthermore, this assertion holds true across all three languages analyzed. Future investigations into the cultural and social components of memes, explored through verbal expression using metaphor theory and structural anthropology, can enhance our comprehension of meme creation dynamics and the foundation of its widespread appeal.

An Account of Humor in Covid-19 Internet Memes from the Perspective of Cognitive Relevance: A Contrastive Case Study

: In response to Covid-19 pandemic, online humor proliferated across social media platforms as a vital coping mechanism in dealing with the unendurable pandemic-related restrictions through creating a sense of bonding in the face of this calamity regardless of geographical area, nationality, ethnicity, or socio-political affiliations. This research is a cross-lingual case study of internet screenshot memes on Covid-19 in both Arabic and English languages. It explores differences and/or similarities in establishing cognitive relevance and instigating humorous incongruity. The paper uses a three-dimensional theoretical framework that integrates Relevance Theory (RT), as a communication theory in the field of cognitive cyber-pragmatics, with the theories of Intertextuality and Incongruity in humor. Qualitative descriptive analysis revealed a consensus to regard the mass reaction to the pandemic as exaggerated, to use an interplay of intertextuality and incongruity to achieve the rhetorical purpose of critically satirizing such reactions by instigating laughter at one’s silliness. The analysis demonstrated that humorous incongruity springs from the opposing scripts between the content of IMs and the social context surrounding the pandemic as well as a marked similarity in the sources used for establishing cognitive relevance such as background knowledge and logical and lexical information reflecting RT principles.

From Humor to Strategy: An Experimental Survey on Internet Memes in Social Media Marketing

Purpose: The paper addresses the issue of the use of Internet memes as a marketing communication tool in social media. The effectiveness of this type of communication is an important issue due to the large role of memes in digital culture, and at the same time the small number of studies on the use of memes in marketing communication. Design/methodology/approach: To verify the research hypotheses, a survey with an experimental design was conducted among 153 respondents. For the purposes of the study, effectiveness was understood as the ability of a message to induce the passage of the recipient through all stages of perception of the persuasive message, with the last stage being the acceptance of the sender’s outlook. Findings: The results of the study allowed us to draw conclusions about greater effectiveness of marketing communication using Internet memes in comparison to marketing communication without memes. The level of consumer interest in Internet memes turned out to be a differentiating factor in the perception of the form of marketing communication. Research limitations/implications: The main limitation of the study is the non-representativeness of the research sample. The practical implications of the study include guidance on the use of memes when conducting marketing communication on the Internet, taking into account preferences of the target group. Originality/value: This paper not only contributes importantly to the limited literature on Internet memes in marketing activities, but also turns the spotlight onto the characteristics of consumers who are the potential target group of such communication.

Those ‘funny’ internet memes: a study of misinformation retransmission and vaccine hesitancy

ABSTRACT Vocal vaccine opposition and hesitancy due to social media-based misinformation is a global threat to public health. This research seeks to investigate the influence of internet memes on misinformation retransmission in the context of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Two experimental-based studies have been conducted. The first study investigates the influence of internet memes (subjective versus objective) on vaccine hesitancy and retransmission. In addition, mediation of vaccine hesitancy on the relationship between meme types and retransmission is investigated. The second study investigates the moderation of social media virality metrics (high versus low) on the influence of internet memes. The results confirm objective memes lead to higher retransmission, and subjective memes lead to higher vaccine hesitancy. Further, mediation of vaccine hesitancy is significant. Additionally, the influence of subjective and objective memes alters due to the interaction effect with virality metrics. The finds offer essential insights into the nature of misinformation and retransmission behaviour. At an aggregate level, this understanding can help stakeholders closely monitor and immediately identify social media posts that may spread misinformation. The study unites meme type and virality metrics in observing misinformation retransmission and vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The “memeification” of sexual health communication on Instagram

ABSTRACT The lack of accurate and comprehensive sexual health education in the USA persists as a pressing public health issue. The Sex Wrap (TSW) is a multimedia sexual health podcast and social media presence that educates followers on sexual health and ancillary themes such as sexuality, relationships and communication. TSW’s Instagram account repackages the evidence-based sexual health information discussed during the podcast into Internet memes. We analysed the top-performing TSW posts from Jan 2019-Dec 2020 according to Instagram’s engagement metrics to determine what type of posts were most interesting to followers and begin to understand how social media helps drive interventions. The meme-based sexual health intervention via TSW’s Instagram increased engagement, improved reach, and converted followers to podcast listeners. Insight data demonstrates how social media can address the sexual health education disparities caused by the failure of abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) curricula. This case study exhibits how social media-based interventions can comprehensively fill existing gaps in sexual health education.

Towards Building an Open-Domain Dialogue System Incorporated With Internet Memes

In recent years, Internet memes have been widely used in online chatting. Compared with text-based communication, conversations become more expressive and attractive when Internet memes are incorporated. This paper presents our solutions for the Meme incorporated Open-domain Dialogue (MOD) Challenge of DSTC10, where three tasks are involved: text response modeling, meme retrieval, and meme emotion classification. Firstly, we leverage a large-scale pre-trained dialogue model for coherent and informative response generation. Secondly, based on interaction-based text-matching, our approach can retrieve appropriate memes with good generalization ability. Thirdly, we propose to model the emotion flow (EF) in conversations and introduce an auxiliary task of emotion description prediction (EDP) to boost the performance of meme emotion classification. Experimental results on the MOD dataset demonstrate that our methods can incorporate Internet memes into dialogue systems effectively.

What Do the Internet Memes About Physical Education Tell Us?

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the internet memes about physical education (PE) to understand how these digital artifacts represent the attitudes and perceptions toward PE. Method: Using the netnography approach, this is a qualitative study in nature. A total of 241 digital artifacts were collected from nine different digital platforms. A visual content analysis was implemented to understand the conveyed messages and meanings using the social cognitive theory as a framework, which emphasized that human behavior is determined by cognitive, situational, and behavioral factors. Results: Three main themes emerged along with their respective subthemes: “Behavioral Factor: Attitudes toward PE,” “Cognitive Factor: Attitudes toward PE Teacher,” and “Situational Factor: Social Climate in PE.” These findings provide insight into the varied perceptions and stereotypes surrounding PE in popular culture as reflected through internet memes. Discussion/Conclusions: Memetic communication has become an integral part of contemporary society, reproducing beliefs and attitudes. Internet memes can be considered as collective reflections of people on digital platforms, which may help to understand the joint online culture shaped around the attitudes toward PE.

“I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.” Internet memes as a medium of propagation of unconventional phraseological replies

Unconventional phraseological replies such as No, I’m expensive in response to the question Are you free? are a subtype of phraseological replies. Such phraseological replies are an inappropriate, usually humorous or absurd, response to a statement (the stimulus). So far, no extensive research on this type of expression has been found for Germanic and Romance languages with the exception of Norrick [1984, 1993, 2007] and a few English examples mentioned by Čermák [2007: 433] in the English chapter of his monograph. Humorous phraseological replies have been most systematically studied by Bondarenko [2009], who has also presented a dictionary of such expressions in Russian [Bondarenko 2013]. This type of phraseme has been called a humorous answer [Permyakov 1988: 89], intersubjective phraseme (Čermák [2007: 441]), answer formula (Dobrovol’skiy & Baranov [2003]), and dialogue idiom (Khairov [2019]). The use of these kinds of phrasemes is characteristic above all of private communication and spoken language (Dobrovol’skiy & Baranov [2003: 39-40]; Bondarenko [2009: 644]; Meterc & Pallay [2019: 171]). This makes it all the more important to carefully study the (relatively rare) examples of their use in written communication, which includes internet memes. The article analyzes the example of Leslie Nielson’s line “I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley”, which was originally a quote from the film Airplane! [1980]. The coinage of this unconventional phraseological reply is placed in the context of the particular manner in which the many gags in this film were created, described by the directors in an interview. The mechanisms for generating some of the gags in this film are compared with the typical mechanisms for establishing a link between the stimulus and the phraseological reply known so far from phraseological research (Bondarenko [2009]; Khairov [2019]; Meterc & Pallay [2019]). The article analyzes modifications of the original (cinematic) situation and the puns associated with this phraseological reply in the internet memes. It also discusses the use of this reply in some scenes from series The Office [2005-2013], showing further propagation of this phraseme with new propagating agents.

Plakátok diskurzusban. A 2015-ös bevándorlási hullám propagandaplakátjainak és ellenplakátjainak párbeszéde

The study presents the manipulation strategies of the government billboards created in connection with the immigration wave of 2015, the counter-posters created in response to them, and internet memes. The government billboards mainly tried to influence the receivers by means of communicating information without any communicative intent and masquerading as advertising for a social purpose, and used established methods of propaganda. Taking advantage of referential intertextuality, the counter-billboards took over the visual representation of national consultation works, and achieved surprise on the content level: with ironic texts, they intentionally violated the principles of ideal communication and the rules of arguments. Due to the circumstances of their reception, the memes that spread on the Internet used typological intertextuality, and in addition to verbal irony, word-based visual irony was also used to express a critical attitude.

Spreading Like a Virus: Conceptual Integration and Discourse Viewpoint in Internet Memes about the Covid-19 Pandemic

This paper analyzes internet memes pertaining to Covid-19. We analyzed more than 200 memes over nine months. By utilizing Blending Theory and Discourse Viewpoint, we attempt to explain the creative inner workings of memes as well as how meaning is negotiated on the internet. We were clearly able to detect memes synchronously following the actual development of Covid-19. We show that meme makers use visuals metonymically to address the current state of Covid-19 while the overall message of memes is driven by simile. As much as memes draw on the concept of Covid-19, they also feed back to it in a loop of self-reference. Along with their underlying metaphoric nature, memes convey a feels-like attitude with two main phases emerging from their usage, i.e., the Observer Phase and the Experiencer Phase. The former showed memes at a stage where Covid-19 was not yet a pandemic (but perceived through media coverage from elsewhere) while the latter, the Experiencer Phase, clearly showed that meme creators had experienced the virus themselves. As for the timeframe covered, however, we conclude that memes do not show full conceptual integration as Covid-19 was not yet fully entrenched.

Internet Memes In China: Cultural Image Macros of Code-Switching and Homonymy

Since China joined the Internet in the late 1980s, production and consumption of online cultural merchandise has been proliferating and permeating every section of society, exemplified by Internet literature, animation, comic and game. Meanwhile, there has emerged a veritable kaleidoscope of memes in China’s cyberspace, which are deployed on social media platforms to convey stances, emotions, humorousness, etc. Nonetheless, as a multi-faceted phenomenon, Internet memes fail to attain deserved academic scrutiny, so in this paper, I investigate one subcategory of memes in China’s cyberspace, viz. cultural memes, focusing on image macros that dynamically integrate visual effects and textual information. The text of cultural image macros can be generated via Chinese-English code-switching in the form of alphabetic words that are either idiomatic or related to Internet buzzwords. Alternatively, cultural image macros in China can be generated via homonymy: the vast majority of homonyms are homophones, while a small proportion of them are homographs. The corresponding images in the memes pertain to the inserted English words or constituents that are substituted, thereby complementing the text and strengthening humorous effects.

#VLADDYDADDY ON TIKTOK: IMAGINED INTIMACY AND MEMETIC PARTICIPATION IN TIMES OF WAR

#Vladdydaddy is a popular internet meme that emerged during the 2016 elections in the United States on 4chan and Twitter to characterize the perceived submissive behavior of Donald Trump towards Vladimir Putin. The meme re-emerged on TikTok in the days leading to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, gaining a new meaning. This paper is part of a larger research project with the objective of identifying and scrutinizing various forms of social media memetic participation in response to human tragedies, such as the Russia-Ukraine war. In this paper we focus on "DM memes" as a creative sub-meme of #Vladdydaddy. Drawing from theories of memetic participation (Milner, 2016) and imagined intimacy (Greenwood & Long, 2011) for the analysis. The findings suggest that the DMing Putin meme emerges as a collective coping mechanism to fulfill an emotional need through the construction of imagined intimacy. The strict censorship laws within Russian borders underscores the significance of exploring seemingly trivial online discursive practices as courageous in a political context that can carry grave consequences offline. In doing so, we bring to the forefront the global community of creators who take a firm stance towards the current political climate in Russia.

Approaches for Constructing Data for Developing an Internet Meme Translation System

Approaches for Constructing Data for Developing an Internet Meme Translation System

MEMES, MULTIMODALITIES, AND MACHINES: ASSEMBLING MULTIMODAL PATTERNS IN MEME CLASSIFICATION STUDY

Memes are an important facet of current online communication on social media, with rich social, political, and cultural significance and power. This present work focuses on developing computational frameworks to support textual and visual content analysis of online memes, assisting the profiling of the unique contents and interrelationships of different meme characteristics. The framework focusses on decomposing the multimodal subcomponents of online memes to support accurate sorting and classification of meme exploitable and other rich textual materials. We showcase the development of a multimodal meme classification toolbox with the capability to utilize more abundant information from those multimodal components, with a view towards bolstering and extending existing meme analysis methods for cultural and media studies.