HISTORICAL FACTS: Slightly twisted memes - Caught on Camera

Initially, the term ‘meme’ was coined in the 1970s by renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. However, memes aren’t a modern ‘invention.’ It’s an anthropological concept that describes behaviors or ideas that—and this is key here—pass among groups.

CNN states that memes end up evolving and adapting over time as they’re shared among people. These days, memes are commonly associated with internet humor, even though as a vague concept they’ve existed since the dawn of humankind.

The BBC notes that memes will probably be here to stay as a format of communication, as they’re a stable way of expressing both your individuality, as well as your relationship with your community.

However, their format might change. For instance, in recent years, there’s been a boom in video memes. As a mode of communication, memes are neutral. They’re a tool with which we can do what we want, whether that’s something positive or negative.

The ‘Slightly Twisted’ page has been a mainstay of Facebook for a very long while. Originally created in late October 2016, over the years, the page has grown by leaps and bounds.

Now, it boasts an impressive following on the social network, having garnered 524k followers from all corners of the globe. We’ve reached out to the team curating the page to hear more about their project and perspective on memes.

A big part of attracting such a large following, whether you’re neck-deep into internet memes or doing something else entirely, is being consistent with your posting. It doesn’t quite matter how often you post content so much as having a schedule that you stick to.

You might post a few (dozen) times a day, once every couple of days, or once a week. But once you’ve found what works for you and your audience, stick to it. That way, your followers will know what to expect.

However, consistency alone won’t get you anywhere if you don’t have a clear vision of what exactly it is that you’re doing. In other words, you need to ‘find your voice,’ so to speak. Filter things out and settle on a specific niche of content.

Trying to do everything is tantamount to doing nothing, and your content can easily get lost in the noise. Ideally, you’ll land on something that not only resonates with social media users but that you enjoy, too, on a deeper than superficial level.

If you hope to create and (re)share internet content for years and years, you won’t be able to keep it up unless you’re passionate about what you’re doing. Doing things just for likes, views, and engagement isn’t sustainable and you’ll probably end up getting pretty burned out fairly quickly.

The secret to sustainable growth on social media is authenticity. It’s all about building a community, interacting with your fans, and looking beyond making a quick buck.

Memes can’t be considered (successful) memes if they don’t spread. Their entire essence, so to speak, revolves around being shared and reshared. Memes definitely don’t have to be humorous. Like, at all. But humor certainly helps to make them relatable.

And it’s a content creator’s ability to relate to their audience that makes their memes go viral. No matter how broad or narrow a niche you’ve decided on for your content, you definitely need to find a way to relate to other internet users. At least on some level!

There are tons of content creators and meme-smiths on social media. Whether you mean to or not, if you’re sharing memes, you’re directly competing with them for internet users’ attention.

So, if your goal is to grow a following (alongside having fun), you have to look for ways to stand out from the crowd. You could try experimenting with new meme formats and designs, for example. Even adjusting currently popular memes a tiny bit could put you ahead of the curve.

Meanwhile, visual clarity is utterly essential in this day and age. If you’re using wonky and weird formats, low-quality pictures, and walls of text, you’re going to push a lot of internet users away. Unless you’re purposely sharing ‘cursed,’ no-context, or post-ironic memes, you want to put yourself in your audience’s shoes and think about what would make their experience more pleasant.

Empathy might not be something you’d immediately associate with making memes, but it really does make a difference when you try to connect with your target audience through the content, as well as the format.

So, Pandas, which of these memes did you enjoy the most? What types of memes do you personally enjoy the most and why? How often do your friends send you memes?

On the flip side, how often do you send memes to your friends? Feel free to tell us what you think in the comments!