Senior accounting and finance major
Nowadays, everything is a meme. Drop your food? There’s a meme for that. Wake up late? There’s a meme for that. Guy in front of you is wearing a yellow shirt? Meme. Spaghetti for dinner? Meme. Walking backwards on the third Thursday of October while wearing a silly hat? Meme.
For those who haven’t spent much of their lives hooked on Reddit and the rest of Web 2.0, a meme is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “an idea, behavior style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.” In other words, it’s something someone does, says or thinks that becomes so pervasive within culture that everyone starts doing, saying or thinking it. A classic example would be the spread of “Gangnam Style.” After the song’s release, millions watched its music video, and suddenly everyone knew about it. Memes are usually fun, short and strange; everyone finds them fun, but very few people know why.
In this memed-up world we live in, it’s no surprise that these memes have spread to politics. In the past, campaign coverage had some elements overplayed in media. Who can forget classics such as John Kerry’s three Purple Hearts, or Al Gore’s invention of the Internet? Even “King Andrew,” Henry Clay’s classic attack on President Jackson in 1832 gained media traction. These little things were blown way out of proportion, but they were limited to one or two a campaign: annoying, but ignorable.
In 2008, we had no such luck. The memes are everywhere. Look at the “birther” movement: Someone decided President Obama wasn’t born in America, and the theory spread. After four years, Donald Trump still won’t let it go. Then, there was the tea party movement, and the whole Wall Street/Main Street dichotomy — neither could live while the other survived. Then we had Sarah Palin, who could see Russia from her backyard. These things were nonissues with no effect on the candidates’ abilities to govern; but for many people, they were the deciding factors in the campaign.
It’s only gotten worse in 2012: “47 percent,” “binders full of women,” “you didn’t build that,” Romnesia, death panels, gaffes, Clint Eastwoood’s speech and Mitt Romney’s London fails. None of these things are real political issues, but they have made up much of the election coverage. Turn on a cable-news channel and watch for 10 minutes; policy will get about thirty seconds coverage, and the latest gaffe will get the rest.
As much as this is all the media’s fault, they really can’t be blamed. This is our doing. When we decided that images with funny captions were the optimal form of self-expression, the media ran with it. Our job is to decide what we want to see; their job is to abuse this information to make as much money as possible. They run the fake stories because the fake stories draw in public interest. We ask for the memes, and the memes we receive.
There’s nothing we can really do about it, now. It’s too late in the cycle to make a positive difference. What we can do, though, is choose to be better than that. We can choose not to let memes make our decisions. We can be the educated masses Thomas Jefferson called for all those years ago.
So the next time you see a political story, ask yourself, “Does this matter?” Chances are, it won’t. If so, change the channel. Eventually, you’ll find some real information, and enable yourself to make a good decision when you vote next week.
Ezra Fishman is a junior accounting and finance major. He can be reached at opinionumdbk@gmail.com.
