One  early example of this are the motivational posters, a parody of motivational posters that were commonly hung in office and cubicle walls in the 1990s. In the early 2000s these posters could be emulated and parodied using  extensively common software such as Microsoft PowerPoint®, to be  printed or forwarded in email spam chains. About 10 years later, the same format of poster was still circulating in the early days of  Facebook®, or in meme specialized websites such as 9Gag®. While analyzing the meme as an internet phenomena, one could easily fall into the trap of assuming that memes are merely digital collages or comics, having no significant differences with their analogue counterparts from the 20th century. There is a fundamental difference between the paper and ink comics and collages from the 20th century and the 21st century internet memes, even though they  were immensely influenced by their ancestors, a difference that if properly understood, can offer great insight into contemporary matters that vary from culture and art to psychology and politics. Memes differentiate themselves from most previous media by a simple factor: the amount of audience participation. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu defends that the main difference between popular and bourgeois entertainment resides in how much the audience is allowed to interfere in the spectacle:
 

"The most radical difference between popular entertainments-from Punch and Judy shows, wrestling or circuses, or even the old neighborhood cinema, to soccer matches-and bourgeois entertainments is found in audience participation. In one case it is constant, manifest (boos, whistles), sometimes direct (pitch or playing-field, invasions); in the other it is intermittent, distant, highly ritualized, with obligatory applause, and even shouts of enthusiasm, at the end,

or even perfectly silent (concerts in churches). Jazz, a bourgeois entertainment which mimics popular entertainment, is only an apparent exception: the signs of participation (hand-clapping or foot-tapping) are limited to a silent sketch of the gesture (at least in free jazz). " (Bourdieu,2010,p. 490)

 

Considering the amount of audience participation the main factor differentiating popular and bourgeois entertainment, internet memes are far more popular than  traditional comics, collages and political cartoons, that have a classic, unidirectional way of publication and consumption in each an author creates creates and distributes their work, under the risk of never getting any feedback besides that of their peers or professional editors. When a meme is made, probably not by a trained artist, it can immediately be seen by millions of people around the globe who can  view, give  minor digital feedbacks such  as likes, upvotes or comments, and the viewer, that consumes the image in a device very similar to that of the creator, can immediately download the meme, edit it, and repost it in their favorite digital space, where it will be exposed to a potential legion of other consumer-editor-producers that are able to  repeat this cycle  of remixing and editing to exhaustion. The legendary quote attributed, most likely falsely , to  American artist Andy Warhol  mentioning  the possibility of fifteen minutes of fame to any person, can be seen as an exaggeration in the late 20th century. However, in the 21st century anybody with a computer or similar portable device and internet connection, can produce digital content that might actually be seen , admired, hated or laughed at by millions or even billions of people. 

 

Memes, that  can be  vaguely defined as viral images that circulate on the world wide web, have only grown in relevance since their popularization as medium for communication and entertainment. They became, especially after 2014, a part of  everyday life for most owners of  devices with internet connection, there  is an untraceable amount of memes  made, posted, edited and reposted every second, referring to almost every subject imaginable, sports, politics, relationships, there are memes about memes, and every odd or uncommon event that takes place in the news , the television or the internet itself can be instantly  recorded or screenshot and combined with text and other images. This immense, constant flux of information can not possibly be tracked or measured in a clear, consistent way. The amount of memes posted per day is just as incalculable as the possible editions that they may suffer.  Memes are everywhere. Despite being frequently  underestimated, the meme phenomena has a huge influence both online and offline, there have been at least two presidential elections in major democracies  in which memes and social media played a crucial role and  affected  the final result: USA in 2016, when a campaign  promoted by American  media executive Steve Bannon, heavily targeted at algorithmic profiling  and selective posting on social media  helped to elect Donald Trump (Cadwalladr,2018), and Brazil, 2018, when a massive campaign of misinformation using the chat application WhatsApp® profoundly affected the opposing candidate Fernando Haddad, contributing to the victory of  the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro (Isaac,2018). Memes and social media are doubtlessly one of the most influential means of communication in the twenty-first century, a form of art and communication that can go viral and generate global  behavior trends in a matter of seconds may even not be understood by everyone, but it cannot go ignored. Hopefully, in the following chapters and through the usage of the Meme Studies webpage, the reader might come to  better understand the structure, behavior and language of this new medium that has taken the digital world by storm.