Understanding Memes In Human Genes

The anti-bigotry group said "racists and haters" had "taken a popular internet meme and twisted it".

Memes in today 's society are used to mock things and often are satire. For my project I choose the memes of Willy Wonka and ‘I don’t always... but when I do I’. These are used to mock morality and the triviality of the upper class and privileged respectively. These are both issues that we face in society.

Recently, the world-renowned Harvard University was in the news. However, they made headlines not for a ground-breaking study as they often have, but rather for kicking ten incoming students out. These ten students were kicked out for posting inappropriate memes in a Facebook group chat. For the uninitiated, a meme is a funny picture posted online. Memes have various formats, and there were several different “types” of memes shared through this group chat. These memes contained various tasteless themes such as anti-Semitism, pedophilia, and racism, among others. These memes were offensive enough to result in the university revoking the students’ offers of admission. While these students are likely bright enough to attend another

People have so much pride in them that they try to show everyone else, and try to make other people believe what they believe or see what they see in other people. It does not have to be true, but if they make a “good” point, and the other people can understand what the other person is talking about, and that thought is in their mind, and they will think of it when they see a picture or even a person. The idea is small, but the idea grows and so do the feelings associated with them. An example of this is again, is the 1900’s when people started fighting for rights. People discriminated because they were different, they thought African Americans were non-human beings and treated them as such.

“The term hate crime was coined in the 1980s by journalists and policy advocates who were attempting to describe a series of incidents directed at Jews, Asians and African-Americans. The Federal Bureau of Investigation defines hate crime (also known as bias crime) as "a criminal offense committed against a person, property, or society that is motivated, in whole or in part, by the offender 's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin.(National Institute of justice, Paragraph 1, December 22, 2010.)”

In today 's society, politics has become the uproar of many citizens ' daily lives. Many would ask how has hate become such an issue in the United States. Moreover, how does hate and politics are similar to each other. The article “Vandalized by Speech” states “America 's future depends on how well we learn to manage our diversity. Yet when it comes to hate speech, we pretty much adhere to the advice we give elementary school students to defend themselves against bullies”. However, the author Gregory Rodriguez informs how giving a speech can over turn onto a hate approach. Mr. Rodriguez also quotes Jeremy Waldron a New York University political philosopher that “racist rhetoric is a slow-acting poison”. Additionally this causes those who have a positive outlook on society to become difficult to be good hearted people (Jeremy Waldron). Negative views on certain situations such as judging one of its nationality of being criminals depresses the political participation of citizens. Such cases can trigger signs of those who may have a disorder.

In their article, Polemic of Hate: How Mainstream Political Discourse Fueled the Growth in White Supremacy 2007-2012, authors Hicks and Hicks set out to show how the hate-filled political rhetoric during the election and presidency of President Obama increase the memberships to white supremacy groups. Hicks and hicks also bring attention to how their [white supremacy group’s] increase popularity allows them to make donations to political parties and campaigns, furthering their membership expansion. This article covers the various groups that have contribute to far right-wing campaigns thought to take over the political climate by inciting the public, creating smear campaigns, and using scare tactics to get the masses against our first biracial

Freedom of speech is one of the most important rights that an American possesses. Satire should not be censored until it crosses the line into hate speech. Hate speech is aggressive and negative language directed towards a group of people due to something such as race, religion, or culture. Kuruvilla details recent issues with hate speech by writing, “recent prosecutions include a white supremacist convicted of sending a threatening anti-Semitic tweet to a lawmaker.” Hate speech, unfortunately, is not a rare occurrence. It is seen on social media, such as Twitter, and anti-Islamic hate in particular has become a recent issue. It is important to understand where satire ends and where hateful speech begins.

A meme’s ability to reinforce norms within a group can also polarize the group’s ideas in dangerous ways. In the “It Gets Better” example, participants of the meme were seen to unintentionally replicate heteronormative ideas and hegemonic norms as they created their own versions of the original video (1700). However, in a social group that mostly consists of young White men who already benefit from hegemonic norms, memes may push their ideas to the extreme. The echoes meme is used in association with Trump not just because neo-Nazis support his xenophobic policies, but because they think that he can make their threats against the Jewish community a reality. This is seen in one tweet that states that angering Trump will cause him to “fire up the ovens” (Fleishman and Smith). Asserting the intellectual superiority of Nazis also insinuates that their targets, members of the Jewish community, are inherently less intelligent people and perhaps deserve to be destroyed for this reason. However, although memes are now used to spread dangerous ideologies, many still do not take the dangerous potential of memes seriously due to their innocuous origins. Although Fleishman and Smith do not undermine the danger of the echoes symbol, they still said that their staff “got off easy” when targeted by anti-Semites because all they received was “just a flood of memes”, indicating that they do not view memes as a dangerous form of harassment. The use of memes by

A person's hatred of others is created by lies in over exaggerations. America has been known as the land of the free,home of the brave,and the great melting pot of the world. With mixes here and there or so it seems. In reality the streets of America were divided. Italians here, Greeks over there, Blacks here, Asians there. It was always us against them mindset that has plagued the American society causing people to label those not like them as dark and evil. The power of the news, radio, and movies seeded the hatred and fear toward those who “were not American” meaning immigrants, second generations, and or African-Americans. Propaganda is what it was called the spread of exaggerated news which played an intrical part in people's daily life.

Racism occurs when one ethnic group or race discriminates, dominates, excludes or attempts to eliminate a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior. It has been one of the most common issues in humanity. racism is the root of hate crime. Racism has been around since before the United States of America was established. Although historical events such as slavery, Columbus discovering the Americas, the tragic Holocaust led by Hitler and the 911 terrorist attacks have all been influential to racism and hate crime the most important and recent cause of the rise of hate crime in the United States has been the election of Donald Trump as president.

Gladwell stated, “When the sit-in movement spread from Greensboro throughout the South, it did not spread indiscriminately. It spread to those cities which had pre-existing ‘movement center’--a core of dedicated and trained activists ready to turn the ‘fever’ into action” (139). Besides following the hierarchy organization which was the reason behind the movement becoming a success in those specific cities, it was also the fact similar movements had spread around those areas before. This movement contrasts towards Blackmore’s claim about memes spreading indiscriminately, and it does not care how people will be affected whether it be positive, neutral, or negative effect. Blackmore suggests that memes spread themselves with no peculiar reason and rather it acts out random, while Gladwell implies that memes without a peculiar target would not appear compelling.

Racism has shaped America into what it is today. Without racism, people would not be as strong as they are today, with thicker skin for words. Comparing people’s treatment of now to the treatment of who endured racism, the negativity is nowhere near as harsh. Racism has also caused many people to love themselves even more. There is currently a new trend of people becoming excited by their “haters;” and instead of allowing it to hurt them, they use it for motivation.

Internet meme spreads in the form of an image or a video. It can be a word or a phrase. Memes have the power to shape the culture, change our living styles, and continually evolve with changing society. The widespread adoption of social media as a common component of everyday life has completely altered the ways we communicate and allowed memes to spread and become part of the popular cultural framework for many different populations (Shifman, 2013).

Our communication process or the way we attribute symbolic meanings to words and gestures, in order to express ourselves is shaped by the society in which we evolve. This shared use of codes within a given group of persons, also leads to a common philosophy of life, ideas or