Rhetoric and Memes

 Are memes rhetorical texts?

I’ve heard some people say no—which makes some sense if you view rhetoric from a perspective like Aristotle’s. Usually, memes aren’t explicitly trying to persuade you of anything, so there’s no need for that “all the available means of persuasion” stuff. Others might say no if they view rhetoric as a wholly active process, meaning, you can’t do rhetoric accidentally or subconsciously. Memes seem pretty passive—creation is a bit more active, but sharing them is quick and often thoughtless. So, if you think rhetoric has to be a conscious decision, then sure, you may not recognize memes to be rhetorical.

That being said, I want to make an argument that they are--even by popular measures of what rhetoric is!

A meme that is frequently rhetorical even by Aristotle's framework. This meme usually has a political or philosophical message written in the second frame, so it asserts an actual argument, or at least a claim. 

I’m going to mostly focus on meme creation; I think sharing memes is also rhetorical, but that’s not what I want to consider here. Instead, let’s think only about the act of documenting—whether that be via text, image, audio, or video—an idea, usually a joke, which is then posted online.

My first observation is that memes always have an audience. Even if you make a meme just for yourself and you never post it online, that meme has been created for someone—just, in this case, it’s only you. Similarly, memes always have an author. Authorship is complicated, of course, for the whole point of a meme is that it references or copies something else. But, each individual file is created by someone. Also, memes have a message. There’s always something being communicated, even if it is nonsensical, humorous, or irrelevant.

Next, memes do not exist within a vacuum; memes always have context. In fact, for a meme to be a meme, it has to build on something previous. Or, to become a meme, like the Joker meme below, people must take something original and give it a new meaning or purpose. For example, the “Kilroy was here” joke—one of the first memes—started somewhere. I don’t know for certain (it appears no one does, based on its Wikipedia page), but I assume someone, somewhere drew the first cartoon. And from there, it became a meme. Even if the first meme was completely original, however, with no reference to popular culture, it was still contextual; the concept of graffiti, for example, guided its conception. Similarly, the image which frequently appears with the Kilroy memes, was created based upon the original author’s understanding of humor.

 

An example of a meme which took an original concept and altered it to create something new. This was originally an image from the Joker (2019) film; someone then edited the image to make the Joker much shorter. This image was used as a reaction image on Twitter quite a lot in 2019/early 2020. 

So, we now have a message, an audience, and author and a context… that sounds like the rhetorical situation to me! We can even observe the rhetorical condition if we consider the power dynamics seen in how memes are distributed. People with more followers can create memes which are seen by more people, creating a power differential. Further, companies can appropriate memes, which gives them a new meaning and can expose memes to a new audience. Further, they can steal memes created by specific internet communities—which are frequently Black internet users—and remove important context from them. (This is especially common with AAVE; brands using words like “bae” and “period” to try to appeal to younger internet users is a timely example of this cultural theft. Here is an article that goes into more detail about this common occurrence.) Another example of a power differential is access to meme creation software; for example, if someone cannot pay or does not know how to use video editing software, they lose access to an entire medium for meme creation, and thus cannot contribute to meme culture in this way.

One more concept I want to apply is the idea of identification. When we create and share memes—even if we do not seek to persuade—we try to find identification with others. There is a reason people share memes; sure, we find them funny, but we also find them relatable. Memes are a way, then, to relate to and find unity with one another. To do this, we have to make inferences about who our audiences are. We have to assume what our audience knows, what values they have, and what things they like or don’t like to create a useful or popular meme. So, sure, when I make a meme I may not be persuading my audience to do something in particular, but I am using assumptions about my audience to communicate and find identification with them. I think that’s rhetoric!

Good luck with finals everyone!