“Memes”: fun images to react on the Internet

Have you ever heard that the right image is worth a thousand words? Either to react to a funny comment from a friend to the victory of your football club or a crazy novelty, you will find on the Internet some fun images called “memes”.

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Did you know that “Meme” comes from the English word “mimic”, which means something like imitating?

You will find them mainly on social networks and in the applications to chat with your friends.

Their mission is to have fun and quickly spread on the Internet, so it could be used by a lot of people.

Part of the joke is precisely the fact that many people recognize them and the phrases that are said or written in them (catchphrases or buzzwords). Many are taken from comedy series, movies or even moments when both a complete stranger and your favourite celebrity were really funny (and sometimes without realizing it. Oops!)

There are several types of memes:

‍. A typical illustration or photograph that is accompanied by a funny phrase;

. A GIF, which is a very short sequence of moving images or a video, usually without sound. It can only come in the form of an image, but many are also accompanied by a fun phrase or word;

. It can also be a brief video with sound. Even with people caught up in news reports.

Not always the jokes you see in your favourite memes are images made with that purpose. Whoever creates them has a knack for comedy and makes up phrases or even manipulates images - as in the case of memes in which you see the illustration of sunglasses falling on someone's face, like someone who says "I'm the greatest!" At other times, as in the case of meme videos, the story behind them has nothing to do with the meaning we later give them on the Internet.