Tag: caricature

Memes on SM walls win polls in India.

It’s election time, as you all know. 

When you walk in the street and happen to look at a poster (no walls are wasted, all pasted!) on the wall which has an image of the actor, director and producer Sandhana Bharathi, but the message is about Indian HM Amit Shah, you have just seen a good meme. That makes everyone laugh.

A meme is a humorous and satirical way of conveying a message or an idea into an easily translatable format. 

Social media nowadays are awash with memes. Images, videos and GIFs have all got memes as content.

Do you know how old a meme is?

The meme is as old as 1953, when the New York Times used the word in a Crossword Puzzle. The clue was; “Same:French.” (The term has a French origin).

It appeared again on the crossword in 2021, with the clue now hinting; “something that gets passed around a lot”. 

People share memes on social media and good memes can go viral in a second.

The British evolutionary biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins was the first to use the term in his 1976 book, “The Selfish Gene.”

He said in his book that he needed a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation.

He was actually talking about genes replicating through generations.

He wanted a name that sounded like “gene.”  And that was how the word ‘meme’ was born.

People live in a fast-paced social media world. They have little time for reading and images in the form of memes help positively influence people’s minds.

Memes form part of today’s marketing content too. Products sell faster through memes.

The popular meme creator who has a three million following on Instagram, Saint Hoax says memes are basically editorial cartoons for the internet age.

“Messages in a meme format catch your eye, and most of them can be read and understood within seconds,” says Samir Mezrahi, the deputy director of social media at BuzzFeed.

But there’s a flip side to a meme.

Some of them might just negatively impact your business and make your potential customers think twice before buying your services.

So be cautious when creating a meme and try rolling it out for circulation on social media.

Fart, a sport and loads of laughter thereafter.

What makes you laugh?

When we were young, we imagined animals were ferocious. And they killed other animals for food. 

But when we watched the cartoon characters such as Tom and Jerry on Disney, we were so humbled. 

Alex, the lion, from the Madagascar series’ Escape to Africa movie, was a captive, pals with other animals, dancing and entertaining. Hilarious!

The King of the Jungle was shown a laughingstock as Alex stood a complete joker in the movie with a fruit-hat. 

That just makes one laugh.

The same is the case with people we see every day in our life. 

We laugh when big people cry at the doctor’s clinics. We laughed when we saw George Galloway, the MP from Bethnal Green dressed as a cat crawling on all fours at the Celebrity Big Brother show in 2006.

Have a personal story to tell. 

I used to coach my 8-year-old cousin Sindhu. I had just finished college and my parents told me to teach her civics, history and science.

She had many friends, and they treated me with respect. I felt I was like a professor emeritus.

The girls often played with a skipping rope. 

One day, Sindhu asked me during break if I could beat one of her friends, Akila, in a skipping game. Her friends said she was a sport, and she held the record for most jumps.

I said, oh yes. Why not? Throw the rope. We gathered in the driveway in front of her house.

Akila first started. By the time I got into a pair of track pants, she had already finished 50. She was seriously an athlete. 

She gave me the rope after finishing 70. At a stretch, without a break. I was really worried. The other girls clapped. It’s my turn now.

My uncle, aunt and the maid have all gathered now to see the challenge. Loads of audience, waiting. Interesting!

I picked up the rope and started jumping. I quickly counted 20 and was just racing. I thought it was so easy.

When I reached 35, I felt something wasn’t alright. My stomach was giving me some discomfort.

Oh! God, no! Not now!

By the time I reached 40, I ripped one out so loud. Thrrrrrrrrrrrreppp! 

A fart in the middle of a sport wasn’t so nice. The girls giggled.

48, 49, 50 and this time it was long.  Frrrrt… Frrrrrrrrrt!

I could hear Sindhu, Akila and friends bursting out into a roaring laugh. 

I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. My pride was at stake. I kept jumping.

The fart now had got worse. It sounded wet. So serious.

57, 58, 59. I saw my uncle, aunt and the maid getting up and running inside the house laughing out loud. The place had suddenly become a circus.

I couldn’t continue beyond 63 and gave up. 

Fart played a spoil-sport. I couldn’t help but join in their laughter. 

I laughed, they laughed, and did you have a laugh?

Laughter, ultimately, was the winner.