How memes have become the youth's language

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh; otherwise, they'll kill you. This famous statement was quoted by the renowned Irish poet and Playwright Oscar Wilde, who understood the nerve of society. In the middle of 2021, a Bangladeshi Furniture Brand 'Kakoli Furniture' took over social media with its hilarious advertisement policy and product tagline "Dame kom mane valo, Kakoli furniture" (quality products at a lower price). Soon it became fodder for the meme artists. When Dhallywood actor Zayed Khan shared his fashion secrets, like his suits were sponsored by Royal Malabar Fashion House exclusively for him or his Rolex 26mm Automatic 18k Gold watch, it made the netizens laugh out loud.

A young boy named Rafi Rahman suddenly found interesting news about former US President Donald Trump, added a funny line with dual meaning to a screenshot of that news, and posted it on a popular page, 'Normie Memes.' Within half an hour, it reached thousands of reactions, comments, and shares on social media.

On the internet, memes have become one of the most popular forms of communication. Memes have entered modern culture in an almost meta way, whether your favourite artist, relative, or politician is sharing them. Even humans can become memes; if you're extremely fortunate, being a meme may make you a celebrity!

Memes are becoming more prevalent in popular culture at the same time as social media and the internet since they provide viewers with fleeting euphoria for anywhere between five seconds and thirty minutes.

Craze of memes

In the past, memes were quite self-explanatory. A meme nowadays is widely regarded as a joke on the internet that is typically covered with a coating of irony, sarcasm, or self-deprecation. As memes moved from 4chan to Facebook and Reddit, they underwent many development stages.

However, in Bangladesh, the genre was overrepresented by actors like Mosharraf Karim, who made bizarre faces, and Ananta Jalil, who performed whatever he could. No one can say with certainty when it occurred, but we were all aware. We all stopped at some point, turned around, and discovered that the internet saw a boom of memes. Like Christopher Nolan's films, memes are intriguing, but not everyone can understand them. We all care for them, but none of us has a solid theory about why things are how they are.

History points to a trend. Earlier, people wrote satires, mock-epic poems, and prosaic to depict what was happening in society. Even Graffiti was a popular form of visual communication created in public places before and during the Covid 19. People of Dhaka have seen the character 'Subodh tui paliye ja' holding a cage, the sun inside it, or 'Bibek Kothay' pointing to a sitting bird. However, as the pandemic has made the internet a crying need for most people, they usually look for entertaining, informative, and humorous templates within the shortest possible time, like Tik Tok.

A first-year American International University Bangladesh honours student, Prokity Biswash, said, "I love to follow meme pages as they are relatable, funny and most importantly, less time-consuming."

Memes can be made up of text, images, or videos and can be copied, published, or reinterpreted by others to convey a completely different rhetorical meaning. In the same way, memes are easy-going and offer humour instantly.

"Anyone may see it while waiting for a bus, sitting at a desk in an office, or listening to a lecture and get a nice chuckle," said Shamim Al Mamum, a Dhaka University graduate. 

A meme template emerges from the darkest recesses of the internet, gets laughed at, overused, becomes boring, and is then forgotten. Not only that, memes have profound social and political ramifications embroiled with deeper, darker meanings that help us deal with society's trends.

Memes have gone from a somewhat underground form of casual humour to an everyday part of social interaction. Preferences for memes can also vary regarding age, educational background, and social condition. School and college goings students generally tend to follow mems with adult content, popular series, movies, celebrities, sports, and technology memes.

On the flip side, most university students and job holders share memes on national and international politics, social issues, and other movies, series, and sports. During the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Rodrigo De Paul as Lionel Messi's 'bodyguard' was one of the most viral memes.

"When Liton Das was scoring low at the consecutive matches, several restaurants and online business platforms offered discounts based on his batting score," remembered Hasibur Rahman, a sports analyst.

Political ramifications

Memes have found a way to represent various human emotions, including happiness, disgust, boredom, excitement, and frustration. There have been instances when memes have given rise to the greatest catchphrases ever. When people share their emotions in meme forms, they get more validity and appreciation from the netizens. Whether it's a comedic response to a politician's tweet or a post calling for awareness on an issue, political statements have increasingly reached people in an unlikely form, memes.

During the 2016 US election, Donald Trump, with his controversial statements and celebrity feuds, competing with Hillary Clinton's more traditional political style was gold for meme makers. In Bangladesh, memes have always been mostly about laughs or pointing out severe societal flaws.

Also, political memes are less riskier than directly sharing statements on social media or in real life. A popular meme page Earki shared a meme where we can see the soybean oil should be named Shona (gold) bean oil for its ever-increasing prices and colour. On another popular meme page, Dekho meme shared that poultry farms are portrayed as exotic date places for couples due to their skyrocketing prices.

A meme artist, Rahat Monjur, said, "In a world with constrained freedom of speech, memes can sugar-coat a serious topic and deliver it with satirical connotation." According to the artist, it works as a medium of protest. Popular meme pages in Bangladesh like eraki.com, Shusil Smajik memes, and Bengali Trifling have created quite a craze among the young generations regarding this matter.

Wind of social changes

Every meme reflects a certain cultural context and is typically based on some kind of worldview. Some memes sprout in response to certain publications, musical releases, or cultural occasions like the Oscars.

In Bangladesh, a popular meme page named 'Bangla Sahitter meme posting' tries to represent many historical and literary facts like poems, biography of authors, and catharsis in front of young generations in an entertaining way.

Mithila Rahman, a college student, shared, 'I have learned a lot of interesting facts about Bengali literature through this meme page, and it inspires me to read more books to relate to the memes."

There have been moments when memes have overshadowed lectures and lengthy conversations. The '#10years challenge' memes are evidence of it. To observe how you had changed over the years, you had to composite a photo of your current self with one from 10 years prior. This task quickly became a meme subject. Comparative images of the Amazon revealed a startling decline in greenery during the previous ten years. In the case of Bangladesh, Sundarbans is saving us from all the devastating cyclones is also portrayed by memes where Sundarbans has been demonstrated as a superhero.

The flip side

One of the setbacks of memes is there are no certain topics for memes. If you have the humour in you, anything can be a meme matter. It seems evident that we are gradually entering a new era, albeit whether this transformation is positive or negative is up for debate.

Memes are no different. A meme could be the source of logical errors, personal attacks, or online disparagement. Significant issues like the collapse of the submarine Titan and the accidental death of the tourists in it have also become a matter of memes in social media, whereas death is not a matter of jokes. The First Chief Heat Officer of Bangladesh, Bushra Afreen, faced many sexually offensive contents because of her gender is another example.

"Some of the memes have vulgar adult content, which makes me feel awkward when I see my friends talking about them, laughing at them, and sharing them in private groups, and social media accounts," remarked Nowshin Taj, a college student.

Memes will continue to evolve and expand, just as they always have. The methods in which they're consumed may change, and the ability of some to remain relevant may decrease, but given that they've taken a foothold in the public's consciousness, memes are here to stay.

saptaparna.cbga@gmail.com