Cover not available
Part of
The Pragmatics of Internet Memes
Edited by Chaoqun Xie
[Benjamins Current Topics 120] 2022
► pp. 7–35

Internet memes we live by (and die by)

| Zhejiang International Studies University

In the internet age, memes are at once products and driving forces of social practices. A meme contains a memetic message and a meme output, and boasts, if guided by a pragmatic way of thinking, several features, including, but not limited to, salience, frequency, adaptability, argumentativity, sociality, embeddedness, embodiedness, locality, relativity, emotionality and dynamicity. The current global COVID-19 pandemic serves as a fitting and timely touchstone to testify how human beings are surrounded by numerous good and evil memes in the online world, and how internet memes, as can be seen from the illustration of two specific memes, namely, the ‘stay home, stay safe’ meme and the ‘wear a mask’ meme, are impacting human life-worlds, online and offline, with their transformative power, be it constructive or destructive. Moreover, researching how memes plays a decisive part in internet-mediated interaction provides a lens of insight through which ‘deep states’ of human nature of both self and others can be uncovered and through which what Nietzsche (2002, 2017) called “a revaluation of values” is possible.

Keywords: internet memes, memetic message, meme output, misinformation, infodemic, COVID-19, face mask, transformative power, self-knowledge, other-knowledge, human nature
Article outline
  • 1.What’s in an (internet) meme?
  • 2.Internet memes are in!
    • 2.1The COVID-19 pandemic
    • 2.2The ‘stay home, stay safe’ meme
    • 2.3The ‘wear a mask’ meme
  • 3.We are in internet memes!
  • 4.Concluding remarks: Internet memes we die by?
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.120.02xie
References
Adler, Alfred
2013 Understanding Human Nature. Hove: Routledge.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah
1958 The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago University.Google Scholar
Aristotle
2013 Poetics (trans. by Anthony Kenny). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ask, Kristine, and Crystal Abidin
2018 “My life is a mess: Self-deprecating relatability and collective identities in the memification of student issues.” Information, Communication & Society 21(6): 834–850. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aunger, Robert
(ed.) 2000 Darwinizing Culture: The Status of Memetics as a Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barrett, William
1958 Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company.Google Scholar
Beerling, Reinier Franciscus
1955 “Power and human nature.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 16(2): 214–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blackmore, Susan
1999 The Meme Machine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2001 “Evolution and memes: The human brain as a selective imitation device.” Cybernetics and Systems 32: 225–255. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “Dangerous memes; or, what the Pandorans let loose.” In Cosmos and Culture: Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context, ed. by Steven J. Dick, and Mark L. Lupisella, 297–318. Washington, DC: NASA.Google Scholar
Brodie, Richard
1996 Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme. Seattle: Integral Press.Google Scholar
Cassirer, Ernst
1944 An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Nature. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Chesterman, Andrew
1997 Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Mary E.
2002 In Search of Human Nature. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Costall, Alan
1991 “The ‘meme’ meme.” Cultural Dynamics 4: 321–335. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cua, Antonio S.
1982 “Morality and human nature.” Philosophy East and West 32(3): 279–294. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dawkins, Richard
1976 The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
1982 The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
1999 The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (revised edn.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2016 The Selfish Gene (40th anniversary edn.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
De Mente, Boyé Lafayette
2008 The Chinese Mind: Understanding Traditional Chinese Beliefs and Their Influence on Contemporary Culture. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.Google Scholar
Dennett, Daniel C.
1991 Consciousness Explained. New York: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company.Google Scholar
Dewey, John
1922 Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to Social Psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company.Google Scholar
Diedrichsen, Elke
2013 “Constructions as memes – Interactional function as cultural convention beyond the words.” In Beyond Words: Content, Context, and Inference, ed. by Frank Liedtke, and Cornelia Schulze, 283–305. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Distin, Kate
2005 The Selfish Meme: A Critical Reassessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Dynel, Marta
2016 “ ‘I has seen Image Macros!’: Advice Animals memes as visual-verbal jokes.” International Journal of Communication 10: 660–688.Google Scholar
Feibleman, James K.
1979 “Technology and human nature.” The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy 10(1): 35–41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fix, Alan G.
1978 “Genocentric social theory.” Contemporary Sociology 7(6): 705–706. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greene, Penelope J.
1978 “From genes to memes?” Contemporary Sociology 7(6): 706–709. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grundlingh, L.
2018 “Memes as speech acts.” Social Semiotics 28(2): 147–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Peter Michael Stephan
2007 Human nature: The Categorial Framework. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hahner, Leslie A.
2013 “The riot kiss: Framing memes as visual argument.” Argumentation and Advocacy 49: 151–166. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, William Donald
1977 “The play by nature.” Science 196 (4291): 757–759. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holdcroft, David, and Harry Lewis
2000 “Memes, minds and evolution.” Philosophy 75(292): 161–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hong, Yingming
2003 菜根谭 [ Tending the Roots of Wisdom ] (Chinese-English, trans. by Paul White). Beijing: New World Press.Google Scholar
Horton, Keith
1999 “The limits of human nature.” The Philosophical Quarterly 49(197): 452–470. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hume, David
2007 A Treatise of Human Nature: A Critical Edition (2, vols. ed. by David Fate Norton, and Mary J. Norton). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hurley, Susan, and Nick Chater
(eds.) 2005 Perspectives on Imitation: From Neuroscience to Social Science, vol. 1, Mechanisms of Imitation and Imitation in Animals. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ibrahim, Yasmin
2021 Digital Icons: Memes, Martyrs and Avatars. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jan, Steven B.
2016 The Memetics of Music: A Neo-Darwinian View of Musical Structure and Culture. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jaworska, Sylvia
2020 “Is the war rhetoric around Covid-19 an Anglo-American thing?” [URL] (accessed 20 April 2020).
Jenkins, Eric S.
2014 “The modes of visual rhetoric: Circulating memes as expressions.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 100(4): 442–466. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kanai, Akane
2016 “Sociality and classification: Reading gender, race, and class in a humorous meme.” Social Media + Society 2(4): 1–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kavey, Rae-Ellen W., and Allison B. Kavey
2021 Viral Pandemics: From Smallpox to COVID-19. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kien, Grant
2019 Communicating with Memes: Consequences in Post-truth Civilization. Lanham: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Knobel, Michele, and Colin Lankshear
2007 “Online memes, affinities and cultural production.” In A New Literacies Sampler, ed. by Michele Knobel, and Colin Lankshear, 199–227. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Kronfeldner, Maria
2011 Darwinian Creativity and Memetics. Durham: Acumen.Google Scholar
Laland, Kevin N., and Patrick Bateson
2001 “The mechanisms of imitation.” Cybernetics and Systems 32(1–2): 195–224. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lin, Yutang
1948 The Wisdom of Laotse. New York: The Random House.Google Scholar
Lu, Ying, and Jan Blommaert
2020 “Understanding memes on Chinese social media: Biaoqing .” Chinese Language and Discourse 11(2): 226–260. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marcus, Olivia Rose, and Merrill Singer
2017 “Loving Ebola-chan: Internet memes in an epidemic.” Media, Culture & Society 39(3): 341–356. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meltzoff, Andrew N., and Wolfgang Prinz
(eds.) 2002 The Imitative Mind: Development, Evolution, and Brain Bases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Milner, Ryan M.
2016 The World Made Meme: Public Conversations and Participatory Media. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moody-Ramirez, Mia, and Andrew B. Church
2019 “Analysis of Facebook meme groups used during the 2016 US presidential election.” Social Media + Society 5(1): 1–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
1996 Human, All Too Human (trans. by R. J. Hollingdale). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 Beyond Good and Evil (ed. by Rolf-Peter Horstmann, and Judith Norman, and trans. by Judith Norman). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2007 Twilight of the Idols (trans. by Antony M. Ludovici). Ware: Wordsworth Editions.Google Scholar
2017 ‘On the Genealogy of Morality’ and Other Writings (3rd edn., ed. by Keith Ansell-Pearson and trans. by Carol Diethe). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Paton, Bernadette
2020 “Social change and linguistic change: The language of Covid-19.” [URL] (accessed 12 April 2020).
Perez Salazar, Gabriel
2019 “The internet meme as a digital text: Characterization and social uses in electoral processes.” Texto Livre: Linguagem e Tecnologia 12(1): 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plato
2000 The Republic (ed. by G. R. F. Ferrari and trans. by Tom Griffith). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rabadan, Raul
2020 Understanding Coronavirus. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rutakirwa, Tonny
2020 Understanding Corona Virus (COVID-19): The Only Manual You Will Need. London: Tonniez Publishing Press.Google Scholar
Scruton, Roger
2017 On Human Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Searle, John R.
1997 The Mystery of Consciousness. New York: The New York Review of Books.Google Scholar
Shifman, Limor
2014 Memes in Digital Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sun-tzu
1994 The Art of War (translated, with introductions and commentary by Ralph D. Sawyer). Colorado: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Taecharungroj, Viriya, and Pitchanut Nueangjamnong
2015 “Humour 2.0: Styles and types of humour and virality of memes on Facebook.” Journal of Creative Communications 10(3): 288–302. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tay, Geniesa
2014 “Binders full of LOLitics: Political humour, internet memes, and play in the 2012 US Presidential Election (and beyond).” The European Journal of Humour Research 2(4): 46–73. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Varis, Piia, and Jan Blommaert
2015 “Conviviality and collectives on social media: Virality, memes, and new social structures.” Multilingual Margins 2(1):31–45.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
1961 Notebooks 1914–1916 (ed. by G. H. von Wright, and G. E. M. Anscombe; trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
2009 Philosophical Investigations (trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte; revised fourth edition by P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte). Chichester: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Woods, Heather Suzanne, and Leslie A. Hahner
2019 Make America Meme Again: The Rhetoric of the Alt-Right. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Xie, Chaoqun
2007 “Controversies about politeness.” In Traditions of Controversy, ed. by Marcelo Dascal, and Han-liang Chang, 249–266. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xie, Chaoqun
2011 礼貌与模因:语用哲学思考 [Politeness and Memes: Philosophizing Pragmatics]. Fuzhou: Fujian People’s Publishing House.Google Scholar
Xie, Chaoqun, and Ying Tong
2019 “Constructing ‘ordinariness’: An analysis of Jack Ma’s narrative identities on Sina Weibo.” In The Construction of ‘Ordinariness’ across Media Genres, ed. by Anita Fetzer, and Elda Weizman, 179–205. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xie, Chaoqun, Ying Tong, and Francisco Yus
2020 “Bonding across Chinese social media: The pragmatics of language play in ‘精(sang) 彩(xin) 有(bing) 趣(kuang)’ construction.” Pragmatics 30(3): 431–457. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yus
2019 “Multimodality in memes: A cyberpragmatic approach.” In Analyzing Digital Discourse: New Insights and Future Directions, ed. by Patricia Bou-Franch, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 105–131. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zimmer, Ben
2020 “ ‘Virtual’: A way to be present without being there.” The Wall Street Journal 11 April. [URL] (accessed 11 April 2020).