- Each meme relates to my desired topic because it addresses how I have been talking about the desire to be in the military. All these memes are hilarious scenarios that seem far from the truth, but holds a little bit of pain in each. The first one describes a man lying to a little boy in order to get him “recruited”. This is a very common scenario that happens in the military all the time, where recruiters will recite things from movies and etc. Next, we just have a meme of a person in a troubling situation. This is intended for my target audience of those who are already in the military, we like to blame every situation on our recruiters. Lastly, this meme is similar to the first one. All of these memes are funny to those who are interested and are already in the military. Do not take these offensively.
- What does Davidson mean by memes possessing a component of “ideals“? In his excerpt, “The Language of Internet Memes”, he writes, “The ideal of a meme is the concept or idea conveyed. The ideal dictates the behavior, which in turn creates the manifestation. If the manifestation is a funny image of a cat and the behavior is using software to make it, then the ideal is something like “cats are funny”(Davidson, pg. 5)”. The ideal of these memes is that getting recruited was a mistake. Not a costly mistake, but something that you can reflect on and say ‘wow, was I dumb’.
- Also described in Davidson’s article, the behavior is the action taken by an individual in service of the meme. Davidson also gives another example of a behavior being biological or learned. In this instance, the behaviors of this meme are learned through experiences that my target audience have already gone through. Then, these ideas are spread through the internet or to friends that go through similar experiences(i.e. other military members).
- So the manifestations of a meme is its observable, external phenomena. For the military, I think dark humor is the observable, external phenomena that one can take out of these memes. Although they aren’t supposed to invoke bad memories, they somehow do in a light hearted way. This is how many military members cope with stressful and anxiety filling moments with a little bit of laughter.
- In the end, I think the specific manifestations that one can take away from these memes are; don’t take everything so seriously, laugh a little, and make the smart decision when joining the military. Don’t be the epitome of the characters in this meme! Everyone will always relate to these in sort shape or form, it is my duty to deter that from happening!
Military Memes
Published
A Reservist's Journey 