Opinion
Impact of Meme culture
31-May-2021

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Within the last decade, the rise of social media has brought about an influx of meme culture, which has streamlined across generations. Once memes were just an aspect of the internet which people would find amusing. However, in recent times memes have become such an integral part of people's lives that they often get quoted even outside of the internet.
As we all know, a meme is an image that has a caption that relates to a specific topic or phrase. Usually, these memes have a humorous or satirical tone. Meme culture has become an internet culture that continues to globally entertain people of various ages. Nowadays, the quickest way to put a remark on something be it political, economical, social news is through the medium of memes. Since memes are often discussed and it seems to be very famous in today’s time some downside of memes also must be talked about.
Some memes are funny, some are intelligent, while many of them are sexist, racist, problematic, and entertain other negative things. But we don't pay much attention to it and we often do not think that they need to be viewed and critiqued as these memes are most of the time presented in a light-hearted manner. Us as viewers consume the memes without putting much thought into it but little do we know that our subconscious mind gets affected by those controversial content.
The need to be concerned about the downside of the meme culture is because memes are leaving a footprint in a large number of audiences due to its rapid pace of spread. Some memes are very dangerous and can threaten the privacy of people, while others are just plain hateful. And not to forget, memes also play a huge role in keeping the social stereotypes alive.
But on the positive note there are also many upsides of the memeculture as memes are helping anti-fascist and feminist movements spread their messages. And yes memes which do not trigger anybody and just provide pure humour also exists.
The main point to consider is that, while we are enjoying humour, it is important that we are aware of the dangers that are out there and not allow ourselves to be influenced by them.
All in all, there are always going to be a few bad apples in the bunch when it comes to meme culture, but it seems that it's here to stay as meme culture has become a very big part of Internet culture.
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