Memes In A Brave New World

Soma Project Memes have become extremely popular lately. Some memes are quite funny and inspirational. Unfortunately, some memes are very nasty and hurtful. Memes can be funny and help us forget about everyday issues, even if it’s only for a few minutes. We all need a little bit of laughter in our lives. Just as in A Brave New World, soma made the characters feel happy and not depressed. It made the pain and discomfort that they were going through disappear. Memes have become something most of us see everyday. We see them on Facebook and on other internet sites daily. Some of the inspirational memes help comfort and guide individuals when they are going through tough or rough times in their lives. In “Why Memes Are a Bad Idea”, a psychology
Thagard says, “I think memes and memetics are bad ideas because of the substantial differences between biological and cultural evolution” (paragraph 2). Basically, Thagard believes memes are bad for our development. The usage of memes as far as Thagard believes it neglects a variety of mental representations, such as emotions, images and beliefs. Thagard also states, “ The processes by which mental representations are generated and selected are very different from the ones that operate in biological revolution” (paragraph 2). So, Thagard believes our brain sees something, in this case a meme and our brain may analyze the meaning of the meme differently than what the meme is really trying to say. Thagard believes that how our mind works and how our cognitive and social mechanisms analyze the memes, that memes are not good. For example, “ A valuable new idea such as the ipad can spread to millions of people in a matter of days through communication mechanisms that are both cognitive and emotional” (paragraph 6). So, basically a meme is posted online and in no time at all, millions of people see and read the meme. Every person takes what the meme is saying in a different way. Their brain determines how
In this article, a meme helped a doctoral student who was suffering from depression and anxiety. Since the meme helped him, he shared the meme with others in hope that it would help them the same way it helped him through a tough time. Jonathan Sun, the doctoral student explains, “I make memes to explain my own feelings” (paragraph 3). Sun hopes that the memes he shares make people feel a little better. Unfortunately, memes as of lately are not all good. A lot of recent memes have to do with hatred and bigotry. Eadicicco wrote, “ Last year the Anti-Defamation League declared Pepe the Frog- a fringe comic book character- a “hate symbol” after alt right extremists started modifying his likeness with swastikas and Hitler mustaches” (paragraph 4). Something that started out fun quickly made a turn for the worse. However, in recent months, wholesome memes which aim to promote messages of empowerment have been spreading across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Eadicicco states, “Wholesome memes forum has attracted more than a half million subscribers since its September launch” (paragraph 5). So, as we can see from this article, there are good memes that can do a lot of good in the world. But, there are also people who take something funny and good and turn it into something mean and