Project Description
Memes have always been part of my online conversations, but not just as jokes. They add warmth to the coldness of typing. When words alone feel flat, a single picture can express my mood, my state, or my small daily rituals like eating, sleeping, or reading. Memes become small emotional signals that help me feel more human in digital spaces. Reading Metahaven’s Can Jokes Bring Down Governments? helped me understand why this feeling is so strong. The book describes memes as “units of culture” that spread through imitation and carry shared meaning across communities. They are not just images; they are tiny packets of emotion, humor, and collective understanding. Metahaven explains how memes use “tacit knowledge,” the idea that I know that you know that I know a certain reference, as the basis for connection (page 5). That is exactly how I use memes, as shorthand for mood, identity, and belonging. The book also emphasizes how memes shift the boundaries of sense-making. By mixing nonsense, play, and shared references, memes can disrupt serious narratives and create alternative forms of expression (pages 5 to 6). For me, this resonates on a personal level because the lightness of a meme often expresses what feels too awkward, too intimate, or too complicated to type. This project, MeMes’ World, is built from that understanding. It creates a shared space where warmth, humor, and emotion circulate through images rather than text, a space where small visual expressions can say more than typed sentences. It treats everyday memes not as trivial content, but as meaningful cultural gestures that help us feel connected in the digital world.
