KOCHI: ‘Little’ did Zeddie Little, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, imagine that his run in this year’s edition of the Cooper Bridge River Run, on March 31, in his hometown, would catapult him to fame overnight as the “Ridiculously Photogenic Guy” (RPG).Over 100 pictures from the marathon were posted on social networking sites by computer programmer Will King but the picture of a certain Mr. Little, smiling at the camera, proved to be his passport to stardom and a community page in his name on Facebook has 81, 469 ‘likes’ to this date. Little is the ‘man everybody loves’ on the Internet and his name is plastered on women’s hearts in the virtual space.Little’s fame is a product of the phenomenon of memes, Internet memes in particular, that are proving to be the flavour of the season on networking domains and is fueling the art of ‘sharing’ like never before.With its Greek etymological roots, meme (pronounced as meem) is derived from ‘mimeme’, which translates into that which is imitated. Akin to the gene, which is the fundamental unit of heredity, memes are basic units of information. Quintessentially, memes are ideas in the form of pictures, videos, websites and hyperlinks that are transferred from person to person through social networking sites, websites, blogs and e-mail.Purely an Internet spectacle, a meme’s popularity is determined by the number of views it begets and the times it multiplies - through sharing. Websites like 9GAG, Reddit and Something Awful are home to thousands of comical memes and users can vote to decide what a meme’s worth or contribute to collections. Dafaq, Bit** Please and That Embarassing Moment When are notorious memes that boast of a large fan base and the names themselves are in vogue as they are redefining language on public domains.While humour and satire generally underline memes, they also express displeasure and disgust. Retired professional basket player, Yao Ming finds his face adorning a much sought-after range of memes. A comic-style drawing of Ming’s face, sporting a hearty smile, is used to convey a dismissive attitude towards statements made on the Web.Know Your Meme, a web database of memes, offers information on the origins of memes and is a good place to start if one is looking to trace the history of a meme or find its cultural connotations before it became an Internet sensation. Web-based services like Quick Meme and Meme Generator allow users to create their own custom-made memes.In a nutshell, memes are revolutionising communication avenues and are fast becoming a cult. Since they draw heavily from life experiences, users are able to relate to these and soon tend to adopt them as a means of self-expression.People are increasingly using memes to promote themselves and the potential of memes as weapons of guerilla marketing is being harvested by business conglomerates through subliminal advertising messages in memes. However, the most favoured memes are those that involve editing of images or contain pop culture references.Create it, like it, veto it, share it - meme’s the word.
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