Introduction
If you’ve seen the George Floyd statue meme on social media, you probably know the story behind it. In the summer of 1996, a white police officer pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for nine minutes. While the incident may seem trivial to you, it sparked a national protest and ultimately led to the removal of the statues. Not only did the statues disappear, but they also spurred real police reform and overdue reparations for Black Americans.
The Origins of the Meme
Memes have been around since the early days of the internet. Their popularity skyrocketed when message boards and social networks started to flourish. The meme format is a set of similar items created with a common purpose in mind. Memes have become the most common form of digital communication, and are used for advertising, self-expression, and even religious reasons. Here are some examples of internet memes.
The emergence of the Mount Rushmore meme highlighted the darkest side of our history. While many associated the monument with the KKK, this was untrue. The monument was not funded by the KKK, but it was made on stolen land and features the faces of slave owners. Moreover, the racist past of the United States has been a constant source of controversy and the Mount Rushmore meme has only highlighted that.
Memes have existed since before the internet. There are examples of memes as early as 79 AD in ruins in Pompeii and as recent as the 1970s in graffiti. One of the oldest known memes is the Sator Square, which is a palindrome of five Latin words. It can be read upside-down or backwards. Throughout history, the meme has gained popularity.
The origins of memes are both academic and popular. Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book The Selfish Gene described how ideas, or memes, could replicate themselves and enter popular culture. A meme is an image that has been widely circulated on the Internet, and it is the vehicle of political and religious messages. Some memes are racist, inflammatory, and even inciting hatred.
Memes are not only the product of human creativity and innovation. They are also a product of social and cultural evolution. Essentially, memes are cultural units that can be passed on to other people through imitation. The definition of a meme is similar to that of a gene, which evolves through natural selection. The modern form of memes grew out of the Internet. And as with genes, memes evolve with time as well.
Memes are ideas that catch on and are reproduced by millions of people. They can be anything from catchphrases to clothing fashions. The human mind is a vast creative resource, and memes are no exception. Memes spread through the internet and even change the face of pop culture. Almost anything can be turned into a meme, and you can become a celebrity by becoming a meme!
George Frederick and the Statue Meme
So, what exactly is this george floyd statue meme all about, and how can we decode it? This article aims to do just that. We will look at the different interpretations and see what they actually mean. Let’s start with a brief analysis of the statue itself, as well as the different interpretations of the meme. Once we have that, we can move on to discuss the implications.
A Final Thought on the Meme and Its Importance
Social movements can act as laboratories for the meme-with-force. These movements’ insurgents rely on memes to mobilize large numbers of people against the status quo. Whether it is a black bloc or a car caravan, these movements’ memes are seized by groups for their own reasons, even if they resonate with broader forms of social violence. As such, the memes that spread from one place to another are rarely universal.
Memes can also serve as a way to sidestep social problems. They can absorb anger from diverse individuals, coordinate it without canalization through institutions, and expose social contradictions. In the United States, for example, memes have helped highlight the logic of class dominance and racial abjection. Such memes can be repurposed into machine parts for a combative formation.
