All of you have spoken about social media, its absolute immersion in the photographic/visual — many of you have referred to memes (something we’ve explored with varying intensity in my other classes), which definitely make use of the photographic, in explicit and more more subtle or insular ways.

First, for this project, I’d like everyone to post at least three memes that use the photographic (if you already used a meme for your curations, select fresh ones here).

Describe for each the context of the meme (what you believe it “means,” and how many layers of meanings it contains), how you first came across it, and how you have or still do use it (e.g. sharing it with clued-in friends as a canned response to certain situations).

If you create memes yourself, feel free to post your own meme-ing, in addition to the three selections that did not originate with you, and discuss in as much detail you feel comfortable with your own perspective & references points that inspired your own meme construction.

The Know-Your-Meme website (https://knowyourmeme.com/ (Links to an external site.)) is an excellent resource to dig further into the origin and amplification of popular memes. I’ll post a few links to case studies later this week.

Finally, consider the memes with which you are familiar, and develop, briefly, a typology for several of them…that is, do certain meme forms/structures emerge that create a type of meme class?

If so, what are some of these? How does the way in which the photographic is used inform that typology, if at all? Do certain types of photographs/images lend themselves more readily to certain meme classes? Why? How?