Meme culture

Hopefully, everyone on the internet has seen at least one meme by now.

The definition of meme, I feel is probably very inclusive these days.

They range from real photos with funny (and factual) quotations to animated or drawn characters with funny (but created) sayings.

My personal favorites when it comes to memes are the cartoons, including the cartoons based primarily off of real photos.

The ones I use most commonly, which will pop up upon Google Image Search, are "super facepalm", the "really" meme, and the "Jackie Chan" meme.

The memes are used pretty much for humorous purposes. They primarily indicate without any words on the publisher's part the expression or feeling or thought the publisher is having at the moment.

For example, if I were to post the super facepalm, in which a cartoon character has hit himself on the forehead hard enough that his hand burst through his head (don't worry, no blood or gore), I'm basically expressing disbelief at the stupidity or ridiculousness of another post.

The Jackie Chan meme expresses somewhat of a WTF?! feel, if you get what I'm saying.

The "really" meme is one I find funny as well. It's just a drawing, but the facial expression says everything.

Anyway, the real purpose of this post was how interesting memes are. They add a whole new dynamic, like hashtags, to ways that people can communicate. Oftentimes I've actually seen people communicate using strictly memes. It's all about the right expression, the right phrase, and the right timing.

With the right meme, you can wordlessly (well, at least beyond the meme itself) express your feelings and thoughts and, most of the time, do so in a hilarious way.