The Universal Language of Memes

Meme culture has given rise to a language that transcends boundaries, both real and imaginary. Memes are part of a globally shared pool of memory we dip into when we want to convey an idea with nuances beyond text. They call upon a sense of familiarity and shared meaning that exists despite our many differences. 

A meme entails within it, a complex relationship between objects that make the meme, one that can be applied to explain a wide variety of phenomena and evoke appropriate reactions. Perhaps there is a deeper theory here of humor as a universal language that acts as firmware for humans.

Since memes allow for easy explanations and higher information density even for complex issues, I wanted to experiment with creating a memeified version of an article that dealt with a complex idea to see if the format was appealing and useful to a broad audience.

I recently finished reading this masterpiece called The Uruk Series by Lou Keep. It is a 12-part series that talks about a number of important big-picture themes. Read the introduction here. You should read it, if you find yourself interested in any of the following questions:

Why do state-backed schemes tend to fail? 
Why do we have discontent despite growing economic prosperity?
What do we mean when we say capitalism?
Why do mass movements become popular? What ends do they serve?
Why do we see the rise of narcissism in the modern world?

Of these articles, Part 2, titled “The Meridian of Her Greatness”, talks about the in vogue questions surrounding capitalism and its discontents. This is an important question and most of us seem to be missing the point entirely, falling squarely under the category of not-even-wrong. The article is a first step in creating the right scaffolding so we can have productive conversations around the topic. 

A memeified version of this article can be found here. 

You can find a tweetstorm style summary of this article here. I used some of the memes in conjunction with text to make explanations easier. 

Let me know if you have any thoughts on the format! Enjoy!