The Phenomenon of the Internet Memes as a Manifestation of Communication of Visual Society - Research of the Most Popular and the Most Common Types

Abstract

The society of the 21st century is a society of visual communication that mainly takes place on the Internet. Of the many forms of visual expression on the Internet among the most widespread and most expressive are the Memes. Internet Memes are the most common video and photo content on the Internet, which convey or send a specific (often humorous) message, whose codes and meanings are well-grounded in the global culture.The aim of work is to define, explain, historical displays, classify and highlight the features of the internet memes, as well as to detect which type of memes are most often and/or the most popular and what are its characteristics. The basic hypothesis claims: The most common types of Internet memes appear in the form of photographs, they have humorous characteristics in a function of entertainment and they are the most popular because they are parodying the most popular series and movies form. The study was conducted by quantitative and qualitative analysis of the 150 most popular Memes in the period from 22 to 24 of May 2019, on the site 9gag.com. The collected data are classified and compared by statistical analysis in the program called the SPSS 20.0. The results indicate that the most numerous among the popular memes are those in the form of photos or images, that are mostly comically character and in the function of entertainment, and the most popular among them are dealing with phenomena and epiphanies common to all people. Also is noticed the increasing popularity of memes in the form of moving pictures and in a neutral context in relation to those who are the most numerous (in the form of pictures or photos and comedic contexts). The only common and invariant feature and the widest number of memes, as well as those who are the most popular, is that they are in the function of entertainment.