The memefication of the Olympics

Social media virality increasingly positions the human user as a relay stations for memes rather than a source of original material—a disembodied avatar with a countable pair of eyeballs and a hand for clicking, for whom sharing is less and less distinguishable from creating.

Avery Trufelman compares this to the “random” humor of the ‘00s internet a... See more

To oversimplify, here’s where we ended up. The Internet really did bring new voices into a national discourse that, for too long, had been controlled by far too narrow a group. But it did not return our democratic culture and modes of thinking to pre-TV logocentrism. The brief renaissance of long blog arguments was short-lived (and, honestly, it wa... See more

Memes speak rich, collective truths. And in a time-crunched world, visual representations are quicker to summon and consume. They won’t be disappearing.