Meme-tastic!

She has the ability to scare young children… and that is ok.

What makes a meme?  Better yet, who here knows what a meme actually is?  For the interwebz impaired, a meme is an image that becomes viral.  Usually they have a quirky joke to go along with the image, which aids its viral nature.  Several popular memes include Philosoraptor, Socially Awkward Penguin, Annoying Facebook Girl, The Most Interesting Man in the World, and others.  I’ve written on memes before for my Writing and Digital Media class, so if you want to know more about the Socially Awkward Penguin meme, feel free to check out the post.

So what is this post about?

My sister has decided to become a meme.  We think that we have started a revolution with a photo of her with a very disgusted look on her face.  Some of her friends thought the photo amusing–as do I–so we decided to go on memegenerator.net to make her image into a meme.  If you want to read them all, or make your own Extremely Attractive Jordan meme, feel free to do so!  We’d love to get this to the point where Meme Generator will add it to its search.

Yes, I did this one. #shamelessplug

Meme Research: Socially Awkward Penguin

Meme by GoGoGidget on Memebase.com

Socially Awkward Penguin is a image-macro meme that captures the essence of being socially awkward.  I personally relate to this particular meme because, well, I have a tendency to be socially awkward.  I’m apparently not the only socially awkward person since the meme is relatively popular.

Basic Layout:
The meme’s general layout consists of a picture of a starry-eyed penguin on top of a two-toned blue background with a quirky message involving some awkward event at the top and bottom of the image.  The blue color seems to have a calm, mild-mannered effect, which suits the theme of the meme.  Plus, blue is an icy color, it blends well with the penguin for obvious reasons.  The fact that the penguin has a star-struck look seems to have an awkward effect as well.  The penguin’s eyes seem to look at the audience and not look at it at the same time.  The penguin looks awkward and wants to shy away from the viewer, but is stuck for some reason.  Rather than looking straight at the viewer, the penguin is turned to its side while looking to the left.  These cues definitely work in the meme’s favor as they are awkward and makes the penguin look vulnerable, which makes the text more effective.

Audience:
The thing that appeals readers to Socially Awkward Penguin is that many people relate to it.  Also, the general (emphasis on general) view about computer nerds, who are a large audience for memes, is that they are socially awkward.  Keeping this in mind, most of the scenarios depicted in the meme’s text are easy to relate to.  As in the case of the example in the top-left corner, I have tried to search for people or pages on facebook and nearly submitted it as a status.  The meme is likeable.  Even though you may have a couple of them that don’t make sense, most of which do.  There is no need for a recognizable character for viewers to understand the joke.  You don’t have to watch a particular movie or TV show to get the reference.  I’m not a movie buff, so a lot of meme references go over my head.  However, Socially Awkward Penguin is simple to understand.

Variations:
I have seen some strange variations to the color, with the background being red or green.  Neither of which work like the blue coloring.  In these variations, the penguin faces the opposite direction as the penguin in the usual blue meme.  Also, there are variations involving text.  Most macro image memes use impact font, sometimes bolded.  This works because it captures the attention of the reader.  However, some users use arial font, mostly because it is the default font that they are used to.  Personally, I find using this font on a meme useless.  The meme becomes bland and makes the creator of the meme look clueless on how the meme works.  The text doesn’t have the impact (pun semi-intended) as it should have, since text is a large key to the meme.