Associate marriage and family therapist Theodora Blanchfield says that even though memes get trivialized and disparaged, they're an important "social currency."
"These small, often funny pieces of content are important for their ability to share ideas quickly and succinctly as well as foster a sense of connection and feeling seen," she writes on Verywell Mind.
As a millennial therapist, Blanchfield found herself "weirdly excited" the first time a client sent her a meme.
"You never forget your firsts. It felt like an honor to me. As someone who considers humor and sarcasm her love language, I received the meme as a sign of trust," the therapist explains.
Blanchfield says, "Sharing a joke or having a similar sense of humor illustrates having a similar perspective, and this person was taking a gamble that I would think similarly to them about this being funny."
She made sure to write back in a way that clearly signalled she found the meme funny.
"Sometimes a meme from a friend will hit my inbox, and I'll feel a bit of surprise. 'Wait, you feel that way too?? I never would have guessed.' There are a few people in my life who have outwardly enviable lives, but the memes we exchange show me that their inner lives are not quite as desirable."
"Typically one might think that sharing memes about depression might be…depressing? And, perhaps, to people not dealing with those melancholic feelings, they might be," Blanchfield explains. "But research supports that memes which address typically difficult-to-communicate themes ... give people a safer—and even socially sanctioned—way to unload some of the burden of their heavy feelings. Also, finding the humor in tough situations can take some of the power away from these otherwise taboo feelings."
Researcher from Kansas City Eva M. Hernández Cuevas explored how psychological well-being (PWB) relates to the sharing of mental-health-related memes on social media among 249 Puerto Rican adults. Using validated measures—including a PWB scale, 'Mood Regulation' and 'Escape' subscales, and participants' responses to selected mental-health memes—the study revealed that individuals with lower PWB scores were significantly more likely to share memes to alleviate tension or distract themselves from personal problems. Statistical analyses confirmed that lower PWB correlated with greater tendencies both to use meme sharing as mood regulation/escape and to find such memes more humorous and relatable.
In other words, people who were feeling worse mentally were more likely to turn to memes as a way to cope, laugh, and connect with others.
Therapist Theodora Blanchfield agrees that memes feel particularly validating for the not-so-charitable moments.
"Sometimes, no matter how many ways I phrase something or ask something [of] a client, they still have a hard time wrapping their head around the fact that they’re not The Only Person Who Has Ever Felt That Way."
But while "each person's exact situation is different, feelings are largely universal. That is, while the exact grief of losing my ... mom, Carol, is not the carbon copy of your grief of losing your mom, we've probably had relatively similar feelings." So if you have chats with friends or other people that consist of nothing but memes, that doesn't mean they're superficial. Hopefully, this list will give you something to keep them fresh!
