I brought in memes for my appropriation show and tell – specifically Twitter memes that mix text describing relatable scenarios or cultural narratives with seemingly unrelated videos as examples or reactions.
I really enjoy these memes because of the endless possibilities of humor and weirdness that it opens up. This meme/reaction video in particular has been used in SO many tweets, it’s incredibly versatile.
I also love this one because it speaks to the usage of cultural narratives with this phenomena and also ascribing funny context-less videos with a Bible story which is one of the most universal mythos in our society.
This one is also Very Choice because both the text and video are varying levels of absurd/bizarre but it is also very relatable?? Lots of these memes mix absurdism and hyperbole with relatable, everyday things (the first thing that comes to mind when I think about that version in particular is those tweets with a video of explosions or someone being electrocuted that are captioned “that first sip of McDonalds Sprite”.)
This one is somewhat derivative of this kind of meme because the video has been edited to serve the purpose of the tweet but still uses a video ripped from it’s context (and therefore still gives off the same feeling as the others). It’s also an example of the “relatable scenario” component of the meme.
Honestly this meme trend and weird or hyperbolic videos as relatable content in general are (in my opinion) so much more relatable than earlier memes that are essentially “That feeling when you go to school (pic of grumpy cat)”. A lot of Millennial/Generation Z humor and culture is centered around hyperbole, absurdism, and appropriating media content – so it’s not surprising that it’s so popular online.