In an era of expanding digitization and accessible social media, the development of memes is an essential thing to fulfill creativity and bring depth to cyberspace conversing.
What is a meme?
Everyone has their own definition of memes. Giang, a 20-year-old university student, said: "Memes are an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means on the internet, often in a humorous way". And according to Mrs. Do Thanh Mai, a former deputy head of the Intercultural Communication Department of the University of Languages and International Studies, said: “Memes are used a lot on social networks and are communication tools that convey more meaning than a single paragraph text or lengthy explanations. It is used a lot by young people, in informal, even intimate situations, so memes do not have to be used in all interactive situations.”
From Twitter @misingegirl
Memes are generally photos and videos with amusing titles or sounds that are extensively shared on social media. Memes have a wide range of sources. Each meme has a unique genesis, which might range from famous people's words to a popular online occurrence and to convey certain meanings and contents.
Memes are now being used widely all around the world and for various purposes. Memes have evolved from being used for amusement to being an efficient marketing campaign. Many brands utilized memes, particularly Durex in recent times, to raise brand awareness.
Mr. Nguyen Duc Lam, admin of the page Chuyen Truong U, a page that was very successful by becoming viral in using memes to reach readers with more than 50,000 followers, and a co-founder of group "Trai tam than da ngon ngu 2.0" with more than 1 million members shared: “At first, I just did it for fun purposes, later gradually transformed into both reflecting and transmitting information”. His page is a concrete example of using memes to reach people and make the page viral by using memes.
By Minh Tam
Do you think that the above-mentioned purposes are all memes can do? No, memes can do more than we can imagine. Memes can also be used in teaching. Making memes require creativity, and to make a meme that makes people laugh and pay attention to it is really hard.
Mrs. Do Thanh Mai also shared in the interview: “Memes are considered as a communication tool, it conveys many meanings without having to explain at length. Therefore, it is used more on social networks. The creativity of memes is unlimited. With just one image or one simple drawing, the message of the meme also conveys a lot of meaning.”
Despite those benefits, memes are risky for those who use them inappropriately. There are many kinds of memes, and there is one thing called dark memes. Some memes, specifically dark memes, can be designed with the aim to attack, tolerate people in a specific group’s identity. A black-racism meme from a movie can be used for fun with another concept but it still hurts black people when they see it.
Meme is a kind of property to someone and it can be shared and even sold without permission of the owner. "The people who make memes also hope that everyone respects the copyright," as the VNU admin team shared in an interview.
Memes are a new kind of information transmission with creativity, politeness and have been used widely. As the admin of Chuyen Truong U page predicted: “The meme will definitely grow and more and more memes will be associated with time. Every time a new internet phenomenon occurs, it will be a huge source of ideas for meme creators to freely roam". It will develop continuously and become a big part of communication to get across message and laugh between people
The meme is widely used and highly appreciated by everyone. Recently, Hoa Lo Prison Relic has launched a meme creation contest, a contest called "READ THE TEXTBOOK BY YOUR WAY" with the hashtag #SGKChallege. The contest was launched on the official Facebook fanpage of Hoa Lo Prison Relic, and it is designed to help students learn historical knowledge through creative memes. Historical knowledge is still considered an arid subject, and you mustmemorize many long writings of historic events, however, through meme creation, you will be able to approach history in a more vivid way than ever. The Hoa Lo Prison Relic also has a very attractive prize structure. If you find it interesting, try to drop by and unleash your meme creation!
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