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yvannairie) wrote2020-03-01 11:21 am
Speaking of oblique language communicating a variety of things, not all of them intended
From a using-language-for-communication perspective, I've always hated memes.
I'm not being hyperbolic; my first exposure to what is now a proper "meme culture" (blech) was just as another form of referential speech, used to build community between those in the know and those -- like me -- who weren't. Memes have always had the same effect as jokes (in that if you don't get the punch line, you're automatically excluded) except they also didn't have structural or vocabulary rules, so there was not even a way to make peace with them and understand that something was a meme from context like the way you can with jokes. They stress me out, and for the longest time I though there was zero legitimate reason to engage in memetic speech.
(And this is where the linguists who follow me are like "that's not how it works", and I feel your pain -- I'd use a better word for this whole fucking nonsense but "meme" is the one internet chose so now we all get to be mad about how that's so imprecise as to be useless.)
Internet memes are the ultimate example of the tendency of people to substitute common ground for real communication, and refusing to clarify whether they're speaking metaphorically or not. It's a nuance I'm not capable of picking up on my own in any instance, and it's also a nuance that is lost between groups -- a problem I solve by being as straightforward and as exact as I possibly can, which has historically opened me up to a lot of mockery. People say laughing brings us together, but what with how specific humour is to a group, jokes aren't integrative unless you're willing to explain them.
And, like, ngl, it made me feel like a freak even by ND standards, because almost every other ND I know loves the shit out of memery.
I don't get it. On an emotional level, I just don't get it.
However on a practical level, I've come to accept that a) for some people, the ability to signal themselves as a part of a group is important and b) memes are a super easy socially acceptable way to scratch the echolalia itch. Combine that with absurdism coming easily to ND folks whose brains are already wired for pattern-recognition, and it makes sense to me that so many ND love memes.
But I still really fucking hate them. I hate the way anything can be a meme, and that anything can become a meme.I hate the way language gets sloganeered, which makes discussing things harder, especially when it happens to generic concepts. I get so frustrated with peopple who rely on repeating memes and their emotional cache, without seemingly understanding that their reliance on this uncommon "common code" immediately makes them incomprehensible and offputting for people who do not speak in that code. It insulates them from people who don't already think like them, watch all the same media, hang out in the same ever-constricting social circles.
I feel like a lot of wank persists entirely because people keep repeating the language they picked up when they first saw it, creating a memetic association to the topic, and not once think that by changing the language, they change the discussion. Like, my latest rage about people entirely unthinkingly repeating anti rhetoric is a really nice nutshell about why this is a problem. Not to mention, for me someone speaking in meme-laden language is someone who's just sending out powerful signals of "I'm desperate to belong and will do anything to fit in" -- and at this point, I find that a pretty fucking unsafe feature in a person.
And even if a part of me accepts that using memes well is just like using allegory well -- it can condense complicated ideas, bypass literal understanding to speak directly to the unique experience someone may have -- I refuse to believe that "meme culture" (blech) is truly anything but another elaborate surface level of easy us-vs-them distinction, and I resent being forced to engage in it.
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I understand what you're saying about this and why you dislike it, and I can sympathize to a certain extent even if I don't have the same total aversion.
But I think the tendency to create memes is a natural and inherent human tendency, like the tendency to create in-jokes (or simply to refer to shared knowledge and events as a shorthand or simply as an appeal to solidarity... which is possibly all that in-jokes are) - and memes are like in-jokes, although they have a notable quality of jumping from group to group, often without (wholly) retaining their original meanings and contexts. So 'meme culture' is really a feature of every culture, in one way or another, and one which tends to grow into a subculture because of the power of signs and symbols.
I don't say these tendencies are pure or even value-neutral or that they have to be accepted with equanimity, of course. Just that they're an unfortunate but fundamental feature of human nature and that they come from the combination of social behavior (how people go about forming themselves into groups and sub-groups and how those connections are used) and communication behavior: namely, as you noted, the fact that a lot of people's ability to communicate is limited by a lack of critical analysis so they don't realize (or know why they should care) that they're being inexact about what they mean, and often don't even realize how full of memes (slang, cliches, references) their communication is in the first place, let alone that the level of imitation is related to group membership and their desire to belong.
It is a constant source of frustration, to me and you and many other people, that these problems with communication can't really be gotten around because they essentially arise from how the brain works, and that this deficit in critical analysis on the part of most people most of the time, and all people much of the time, is similarly ineradicable, and causes plenty of other problems besides lazy and inexact speech patterns (and bland unselfconscious prose that's just a regurgitated stew of half-digested clichés and pathetically thin imitations of well-known canons... if we are focusing on the facet of poor communication that irritates ME the most often).
And the human tendencies to Us-vs-Them are really so sinister that calling them a 'source of frustration' would really be an insulting level of understatement. It's a fundamental species characteristic, evidently, though, tied to our most powerful instincts, and IMO is right up there in the list of The Species' Worst Flaws with the notable pattern of adult humans preying on and recreationally killing juvenile humans (at least this is not a UNIQUE human flaw since, for example, brown bears and polar bears share it, and I think adult male walruses kill juvenile walruses frequently although more from carelessness than for fun).
I am not sure if my ultimate point is that you shouldn't feel bad for being annoyed by these forces because you're right about them, or that you shouldn't waste too much emotional energy railing against them because they are so powerful. The latter is probably pointless anyway, given I never take advice of that type myself since I'm incapable of stopping being angry about something that really pisses me off (although I definitely dutifully tell myself to whenever it would be the logical course).
I do want to point out that there is a glimmer of light in that social engineering can successfully (with varying degrees of success) compensate for flaws in human behavior, and since it sometimes manages to clarify communications and reduce inter-group explosions, there's no reason to assume it couldn't affect meme usage.
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