Understanding Internet Memes

use jokes, mockery and humor as effective tools to convey a message. If you look at restrictive and oppressive governments, the first thing that is attacked and repressed are artists, entertainers and comedians.

We have seen this countless times, most recently in post-Mubarak Egypt. The comedian Bassem Youssef has been arrested and continually harassed for jokes against the military regime on his nightly talk show.23 Why is it that comedians and satirists are seen as such a threat? It is because jokes easily tear through social barriers and because of this can easily convey ideas and messages that in other settings might be less receptive.

A lot of the time the humorous element of an internet meme facilitates a message. This message is not always lofty or political (it can be something as simple as an emotion or cheap laugh) but that doesn’t negate the fact that humor is being used as a design tactic by the internet meme. It’s an element which a meme uses to convey its message.

The Dada movement provides another example of humor as a design tactic, a tool of intentional disruption.14 Dadaism evolved as an art movement Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century.

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