We reached out to the team running the 'Introverts World Wide' Instagram page and Marija, the curator of the project, was happy to answer our questions.
Bored Panda asked Marija about the inspiration behind the page. "I have always been an introvert," she revealed to us.
"The thing that inspired me most is that in this way I can communicate indirectly with other introverts," she said.
We were curious to get the curator's thoughts on why her audience relates so much to the content that she chooses to share.
"The memes resonate with so many of my followers because I can understand how the introverted person feels and acts," the founder explained to us.
"A sign of a great meme is an interesting, non-offensive, witty meme that makes you laugh and tries not to offend you (even though that is not easy nowadays)," she gave some practical advice for anyone hoping to make a meme that not only makes a splash but also stays relevant for a long time.
"My advice is to be persistent," she told anyone who plans on making and sharing memes online. "That is the most important thing."
The ‘Introverts World Wide’ account has 184k followers on Instagram and has been sharing memes on the social media network since April 2020. However, despite the name of the account, the content that gets featured isn’t focused mainly on introverted people. The memes are extremely relatable no matter who you are or what part of the world you’re currently in.
After all, many of us have had moments when we’re hangry, but our moods change in a fraction of a second when we finally get our mitts on some fries. Not to mention how many of us daydream about going back to bed while we’re supposed to be working or studying.
Dr. Richard Clay, a professor of Digital Cultures at Newcastle University, explained to the BBC that context can drive a lot of meme creation. "You get an upsurge in meme production when people are particularly intense about their feelings and their thoughts about what's going on at the time," he told Newsbeat.
"It's a kind of steam valve that releases the pressure and the tension and allows people to calm down. That's what satirical humor has always done,” Dr. Clay explained the role that memes play in society.
"There's a really interesting, huge body of evidence that's being produced daily worldwide that gives us an insight into what's going on right now,” he said.
According to the professor of Digital Culture, the barrier to entry for meme creation is practically non-existent. “Pretty much anybody can leave a mark which future generations will be able to find,” he explained that through memes, practically anyone can comment on important current events.
The mark we leave on the internet in the form of memes can also have a long-lasting impact. "In 50 years' time, historians will be looking at the memes that were being produced during Brexit or the Trump campaign and they'll be using it as evidence to give us an insight into how people thought about these struggles at the time,” the professor mused.
Whether or not a meme will stand the test of time depends on a lot of factors. But one of them is, unavoidably, something you can’t really control—luck. No matter how much experience in meme-crafting you have or data you collect and analyze, you cannot ever be 100% certain that a meme will go viral or that it’ll stay on people’s radar in the years and decades to come. You can only ever make semi-reliable predictions based on past events.
