Delving into the niches of Twitter meme culture
Remember when there was an earthquake in New York City? If not, open Twitter, search “earthquake NYC,” and it’s guaranteed to jog your memory. On April 5th, 2024, thousands of memes flooded the platform. From figures of NYPD “on the scene” of the earthquake to pondering ways to rekindle a relationship, users on X (Twitter, which is what I’ll refer to for the rest of this article) vocalized their thoughts on what the hell had just happened, making light of a supposedly minor yet somewhat frightening natural “disaster.” It was a moment of solidarity, a universal experience that everyone on the East Coast collectively went through together. Yet for New Yorkers, the measly 4.8 magnitude was more of a joke if anything. What better way to encapsulate the experience than to make a meme out of it? Twitter users rushed to their devices and went right to work, as if challenged to outdo every meme that came before them.
Google’s definition of a meme constitutes the following: “an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations.” A common occurrence on Twitter, memes are digital artifacts of pop culture; they come about in multiple different formats that spread rapidly across the web, flooding dashboards with nuanced text posts and images every day. The affordances of the Internet allow these memes to travel across platforms quickly, asserting their influence on pop culture both online and offline. Like the earthquake incident, trends can go viral in moments and die just as quickly. But within this fast-paced world, the key is to always be two steps ahead—even when it comes to memes.
Memes often play on the quirks of local culture, overexaggerate effects of an incident, or use popular scenes from trending media to create a humorous context. It can be seen as a way for people to cope with the uncertainty and stress that can accompany events like this recent earthquake; people jokingly commented on how the week of April 5th was the most united that New York City had ever been in a long time. They also demonstrate the speed and creativity of Twitter users when reacting to newsworthy moments.
The appeal of these nuanced memes lies in their exclusivity and the sense of belonging they create among those who understand them, including moments where certain viral moments on Twitter are only found humorous to users with knowledge of past meme references. Exhibit A: Sue Sylvester from the TV show Glee saying “I am going to create an environment that is so toxic.” Weeks later after the original meme was posted, its circulation eventually led to different variations of the textpost. The result is a visual evolutionary masterpiece: completely out of context captions, blacking out certain words of the quote, adding new words or phrases to fit certain jokes, and more. This multimodal process of combining captions and the text inside the meme is compelling to observe, especially with how quickly these versions are reproduced and distributed to the masses.
Meme culture has always revolved around the semblance of varied mass reproduction and distribution across platforms, yet nothing holds a candle to Twitter’s rapid nature. Many media scholars have investigated the platform’s versatility, each examining a different sphere of the former bird app—one example being Black Twitter, and how as a cultural phenomenon it amplified the voices of millions of Black communities. Ranging from the simple mundane moments in life, to citizen journalists reporting live on socio-political events, Twitter’s relatively simple interface and wide diaspora of cross-cultural communities has made it a medium for sharing news, Consequently, this diffusion of communities distributed across a single platform has allowed for the creation of a unique digital culture—including the niche humor and jokes that can only be understood if you’re “in the loop.”
Despite Twitter’s exclusive and unique meme culture, many memes are often pulled directly from the platform and posted onto other social media sites, such as Instagram—and more recently, TikTok. When I was younger, I distinctly remembered seeing Instagram accounts dedicated to posting Twitter memes, distinguished by the simple text and/or captioned image format. I had no idea at the time that these screenshots were from Twitter; I actually thought people used a meme generator to create these posts (which says enough in regards to my digital literacy at the time). In retrospect, it inadvertently displayed the influential power of specifically Twitter memes—content so funny that it managed to travel off the platform and onto others. So despite Elon Musk’s takeover, the existing communities on Twitter have their heads held high; their screens are at their fingertips, ready to create the next best thing. And I will always love Twitter for that.
