Why Memes Are Great

I had so much fun with the SOTU speech last night, mainly because I waited for interesting rhetorical and visual moments and made some wonderful memes.

Memes are about the most effective persuasion tool out there. Humans by nature are visual creature, so when we see a simple message paired with an image that’s either humorous or poignant, it resonates with us, and sticks with us (which is why you see so many copycat memes. I’m going to officially declare the guy looking at the girl walking by while his girlfriend is pissed officially dead btw — stop making memes with that! It’s 2018’s Gene Wilder “So you’re saying…” meme at this point.). It’s that simple. Effectively wielding them can really turn you into a powerful persuader, even if you’re stealing memes like I did with the one above in this post.

But as Vox Day adeptly said this morning, the whole line itself was a stolen meme, and a brilliant move. It’s the only thing that will be remembered in the coming weeks. This is the power of memes. If you haven’t figured them out yet, it’s something to work on.

The reason memes work is the simplicity of it. I’ve seen a lot of people make common mistakes which are easy to avoid: 1. try to crowd too much text into memes — you can’t do this. simple is everything.  2. use a picture that’s no appropriate for the meme (or of yourself to try to make you into a meme) this is a no no.  3. Advertise or try to put a social media handle into a meme — again, defeats the point. let the message breathe. Anyone seeing advertising in a meme will be turned off by your meme.

Simple stuff to make your messaging in memes more effective. And we’ll have more great meme wars to come. 2016 was just the beginning.

If you like my memes, you’ll probably like my characters. Make sure you read my book, For Steam And Country, which is full of fun moments.