Memes are the New Hieroglyphs

There are many ways to communicate, we can either tell people about it by talking, but that’d be a specific case, for instance, there’s someone literally in front of you, or is present either physically or you’re connected with them via some other way of communication for instance, telecommunication, via phones, or social media. Telekinesis is another way of communication, which I doubt not many people might agree with, but it’s still there.

Hieroglyphs are pictures engraved on walls, and can be traced back to ancient Egyptian, Mayan, Mexican or other archeological sites of historical significance. They contain some message or relevance to a specific incident. Hieroglyphs are denotations of pharaohs, kings, or other ancient gods. So, it could be concluded that hieroglyphs are a form of communication.

Communication is a funny phenomenon. We communicate to tell about our needs, the way we feel, or it could be a random or specific expression. There are many ways to communicate, memes are one. Memes are precise, straight-up, and very concise. Memes are an efficient way to communicate, especially in this era of internet evolution. Memes and hieroglyphs share some common traits.

As per a BBC report, the first meme was published in 1921, in a satirical magazine called The Judge. The first meme was on the format “expectations vs reality”. The cartoon is being called as the first meme before the advent of social media or internet, as per the report, the first meme floated not on the internet but rather on a physically printed magazine.

The term meme was first coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book “The Selfish Gene”. Dawkins’ defines memes as “ideas that spread from brain to brain”.  In contemporary era, memes could be a denotation or a reference which might refer to movies, a situation, any incident, or some historical event. Memes are majorly multimedia (could be pictures, or videos) that indicate or refer to something, with a unique written description of it termed as caption. Which could be different for a different case. If we are to analyze Dawkins’ definition of it, memes are just ideas that travel from brain to brain, person to person, with their own understanding and perception of the thought. If anybody can sing, or dance, likewise, anybody can make a meme.

In the modern era of the internet, memes are being used by the nation-states for narrative building and by the corporate sector for marketing their products. Some of the governments have emphasized on the use of memes and utilizing them for their own vested interests, and some of the governments have imposed a ban on memes. The major impact of a meme is psychological. It could spark a movement. People related to the entertainment and showbiz industry also use memes to get viral. As they have the potency to hit the right nerve, and some of the artists deliberately seek attention or validation by using memes as a tool to build a consensus. Propaganda, narrative building, entertainment, and impact are some uses of memes.

Chaos theory and butterfly effect theory could be implied in the case of memes, as the impact is majorly psychological, and could initiate or inspire a thought. Like words, memes can also touch and leave a lasting effect, we even use memes in our daily life conversations too, and to some extent memes have changed the course of our conversations, most of us; particularly the youth of today refer to memes in real life conversations.

If I were to critically analyze memes, I’d describe a meme as a picture, or video, taken out of context. There’s subtext, and text added to it, but not context. That’s where it could turn dangerous. It could be used for negative purposes. No source of information or entertainment is created for destruction, it is us the humans that make it look bad, or use it for a negative cause, and thus pollute it with our own idea as per Richard Dawkins or our understanding on the subject.

Ancient civilizations perished and their remnants remained inscribed on walls. Undoubtedly everything happens for a reason: we can learn and understand about their lives through hieroglyphs, but what if, our globalized civilization washed away, there won’t be any hieroglyphs available for the generations to come, to understand our culture and history. This is one of the facts that makes me think and ponder, there’s no or very fewer physical proofs that might verify our existence, since everything is available one click away or via cloud service. It’s all perception and thought till it hits the fan.