The History of Meme
Limor Shifman
Internet memes have their own history in the world, from pictures of dancing hamsters to modern-day political memes. Even certain memes are banned in some countries. Limor Shifman in his book, 'Memes in Digital Culture', describes 'internet memes' as digital items. But not all forms of digital items are called memes. "Internet memes are digital items with similar characteristics of content, form, and/or stance, which are created with mutual awareness, and circulated, imitated, and/or modified via the internet by many users," Shifman wrote.
Memes in Digital Culture Book by Limor Shifman
Memes are attached to viral properties on the internet, it can be pictures or videos. However, not all viral content is a meme. Viral content only consists of one unit item and is reproduced, while internet memes don't just depend on one item unit, but are interwoven with each other.
The characteristics of video memes that are not just viral videos are that they contain humor, are simple, repetitive, and ridiculous. Do you still remember the song 'I don't know what possessed you' by ILIR& which was remixed by DJ Crow and uploaded on Youtube with a duration of up to 10 hours? It is a meme in the form of a video, it is repetitive (repeated), simple, funny, and ridiculous.
For meme images, Shifman points out that the main characteristics are the odd image placement and freezing motion. One condition is sometimes not followed by other conditions. But what is clear, memes are imperfect and ugly when judged at a glance. "Unfinished, rude, amateurish, even weird videos invite people to gather and fill in the gaps, or berate the creators," Shifman wrote.
The Beginning
Reported by The Conversation, the first meme on the internet was a sideways smiley created by Scott E. Fahlm ":)"an, a US computer scientist, on September 19, 1982.
However, there are those who disagree if it is said to be a meme. Will Fulton of Thrillist stated that the world's first meme was 'Dancing with the Baby', which is a GIF (movable) image, containing the image of a baby wearing a diaper dancing. This opinion is corroborated by the professor of the Internet Age from Syracuse University, Robert Thompson. The Dancing with the Baby GIF image was created in 1996 by designer Michael Girard. The image of the dancing baby later became famous and was included in the comedy-drama Ally McBeal and became the world's first meme. The meme of a baby dancing with Ally McBeal is not just a GIF image, it carries a message, namely the 'new era of the internet'
The meme as 'viral digital content' that emerged later was Hampster Dance (Hamster Joget) in 1998. This GIF-formatted meme is the work of Deidre Lacarte from Canada.
Entering the second millennium, the internet began to develop more widely. Founded an image-sharing site (imageboard) called 4chan in 2003. This site is instrumental in popularizing memes, from anime based to political nuances. Nick Douglas in the Journal of Visual Culture, Volume 13, explained that there is a distinctive style in 4chan memes, namely the ugliness of the internet' or 'internet ugly', the images seem edited, asymmetrical, grammatically wrong, simple, and looks amateurish. In 4chan, a conversation must involve images. An ongoing thread usually lasts only a few days, or even minutes. If an account user takes too long to take part in the conversation, then the thread may have been deleted before the drawing was prepared. So, the memes on 4chan are usually simple because the conditions force people to create images quickly.
From the internet forum on the Something Awful website, a new meme style emerged, namely SFW (Safe For Work) Porn. Actually, this is an obscene image that has been processed in such a way that the vulgar side of pornography is no longer visible, all that remains is a tickling impression. Since 2009, 4chan has been continued by the popular site Reddit with 15 million unique visitors per month. In the 'f7u12' forum on Reddit, a meme style called 'rage comic' appeared, which is a simple and short comic that is usually made with Microsoft Paint or similar simple software. Oftentimes, rage comics use popular meme characters and ready-made templates.
Over time, internet memes have become more and more cliché and lose their uniqueness. Nick Douglas explains memes that become mainstream is a kind of destiny, including being dragged into the realm of politics and business. “This is the destiny of many ugly internet memes: to be beautified and engrossed in commercial uses, products, and political agendas,” he wrote.
Starting in 2013, a meme character called Doge, which is an image of a dog, began to be used for the political ends of US Congressman Steve Stockman. He criticized Senator John Cornyn for supporting Obamacare and hating Rand Paul. Stockman has been criticized for destroying the image of the Doge character in the meme in order to look trendy on the internet. In 2016, political memes started buzzing in the US presidential election.
The Federal Service for the Protection of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media of Russia or Roskomnadzor on April 7, 2015 reminded the applicable law, its citizens may not create fake accounts on behalf of others, and may not falsify the identity of others for the purpose of professional and social activities concerned. If this is done, said Roskomnadzor, it could violate the law on personal data and discredit the honor of the person whose data was falsified.
By ordinary people, the Russian law is referred to as the 'meme ban'. Russian singer Valerie Syutkin has sued the popular cultural encyclopedia site for disrespect. You see, the site made a meme about him. The meme is in the style of 'image macro', which is a photo image accompanied by writing above or below. The writing is a song lyric that is not good enough from other singers. Russian sites are practically not allowed to post parody images of a person. Censorship in Russia can block all sites in the country if it violates the law.
The Washington Post wrote that Russia's policy could affect meme culture. You see, almost a third of the most popular memes in English-speaking countries use a photo of Vladimir Putin's face.
Be wise in using the internet, especially in the use of memes or other digital products because our country is a legal country where the use of digital products already has legal products that regulate it, namely Law no. 11 of 2008 and Law No. 19 of 2016 concerning Amendments to Law No. 11 of 2008 concerning Information.
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