How To Make A Meme (Beginner)

OK, lets talk about memes with a bit more finesse.

Memes are wonderful - through visuals they can utilise any and all of: irony, character references, shock, wordplay, references, parody, analogy, misplaced focus, subversion and metahumour.

Almost all of the things in that list are what Scott Dikkers describes as funny filters in his book How to Write Funny. Dikkers was one of the founders of The Onion - has has spent his entire career essentially writing jokes.

Writing a joke, if you haven’t tried to do it before, can seem like an absurd thing to do. Most people are funny by context and happenstance - to sit down, devoid of immediate social input and command your brain to “write something funny” can lead to an immediate “does not compute” feeling.

As Dikkers notes - many people can write dramatically, succinctly, academically - but comedically? That’s extremely difficult.

Memes change the game here - they offer everyone an accessible way to essentially write jokes - and more broadly, a vehicle to understand humour.

Lets take a look at the most upvoted meme of all time on the subreddit /r/memes - posted by u/theonlymexicanman:

Lets break down all the things going on here, using ideas from Dikkers.

We’ve got an immediate reference - The Office US - one of the most beloved sitcoms of our generation. Check

We’ve got character with Michael Scott within this.

We’ve got slapstick - the physical comedy of the scene.

Beyond this, we’ve got elements of irony, parody, and in a sense misplaced focus as obviously this is, in the grand scheme of things of the coronavirus story, a policy story in a small European country.

Almost all of the elements it draws together are deeply accessible too - everyone is aware of the sitcom, the story it references, and the needed context is given at the start of the meme which makes it funny. It’s non-offensive, and gives a laugh that’s not at anyone’s expense in a dire situation.

It’s, kind of perfect?

It’s also worth pointing out that many of the other top memes of all time on the subreddit also tap into these same huge cultural references:

This one fits nicely with the idea that a lot of humour is essentially a reaction to seeing things from a new perspective - a result of being given almost absurd new information — This one fits nicely with the idea that a lot of humour is essentially a reaction to seeing things from a new perspective - a result of being given almost absurd *new information*

Memes work because often the bulk of the work is done for you.

There’s already going to be an element of at least one of character, reference, slapstick etc. You just need to add a sprinkle of context or observation and you’ve got yourself a compelling, hilarious meme. The picture can capture so much information that we process so quickly, which leads to an efficient packet of comedy maximally charged to be reposted on the internet.

Which you probably already knew, at least subconsciously.

If you’ve never made a meme before, I really recommend giving it a go, at least once - it’s a legitimately interesting process to go through adapting some sort of structure and contextualising it to some situation that you know. A nice way to start (as outlined in the video) is searching on a website like imgflip and seeing the various use of templates that they have there.

Beyond this, if you’re even vaguely interested in comedic writing, I can’t recommend Dikkers’ book enough. He doesn’t talk about memes at all in the book - but he offers one of the best insights on why things are funny that I’ve read. I don’t think he captures everything, he’s explicitly concerned with writing jokes - but it’s a great place to start.