Meems, anyone?


LET’S talk about memes for a change.  In the advent of social media, fake news and fake websites, memes (pronounced ‘meems’) is defined as an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture – often with the aim of conveying a particular phenomenon, theme or meaning represented by the meme.


There are a lot of websites that carry this online phenomenon and one cannot help but think that memes are slowly, but surely, shaping the thinking of this generation of so-called millenials.

I’ve read a lot of memes, since I’ve been visiting a site that carries memes, and there are also sites that propagate meme-generating, especially when people have something to say on current events and some other personal stuff.

What I have observed, however, is the fact that the youth today convey their messages using memes, which are usually one-liners or a punch-line that involves jokes and some other witty comebacks.

It’s okay to use memes in expressing opinions, but what it does, really, to the youth today is that it teaches shortcuts in grammar that sometimes affect the way they converse with others. The beauty of a perfect sentence gets lost in translation of the memes and it just propagates what I call ‘jejemonic’ response.

A ‘jejemonic’ response, ladies and gentlemen, is the evolution of the text generation. It’s like a progression from the famous “Hu u?” or “Wer na U? D2 na me” or “W8 lng” to the now “Weh, di nga?” and the expression “Pak ganern!”

Memes are not bad per se, because it offers a chance for readers to smile or laugh, but it sends the wrong idea to our youth today that it’s okay not to study correct grammar since memes can convey the same meaning with fewer – and sometimes senseless — words.

This should not be. It’s an insult to the great writers our nations have produced over the years. Whatever happened to our prose and poetry?

Wala na. Meme na lang. Pak ganern.