What’s in a Meme?

I love memes. Maybe we can blame that on an early love for the Robin Williams movie Flubber (seriously, his robot Weebo totally invented meme and gif culture!) But here I am, ten months or so into quarantine life, and my friends and I communicate almost entirely by sending each other memes. I use this one a lot:

from Imgflip Meme Generator

from Imgflip Meme Generator

The Bernie Sanders meme took off after Wednesday’s inauguration and it may be my favorite one yet. I love Bernie, I love his awesome upcycled mittens, I love that he dressed for the weather. Seriously, regardless of the event, DC is COLD in January.

Bernie has responded to it pretty well, too. He made his viral meme into a sweatshirt on his website, with 100% of the proceeds going to Meals on Wheels Vermont.

Which made me revisit a question that’s been on my mind ever since “meme culture” took over the Internet…

What if you were made into a meme?

I actually researched this pretty heavily when I was writing Any Second Chance, the second book of the Time Wrecker Trilogy. In the early chapters, a picture of Mara goes viral after she and Will are named in the time wrecker leak. Never mind that Mara herself has just discovered that she was once a time traveler. Now the entire world is sharing an image of her shocked and tear-stained face. One of the most painful moments of her life is now being mocked and endlessly recaptioned. To put it mildly, Mara does not take it well.

Shame Nation: The Global Epidemic of Online Hate

By Scheff, Sue, Schorr, Melissa

Buy on Amazon

That happens, too. As much as I loved reading the positive stories that come out of some of these suddenly-viral memes, like Bad Luck Brian and Success Kid, there are some really ugly tales of lives turned upside down. I won’t name them here. For those that want to separate themselves from their sudden online stardom, it seems like the kindest thing to do is to…not keep talking about them on the Internet. I would recommend reading Shame Nation by Sue Scheff and Melissa Schorr. It’s a really in-depth look at the effects of “going viral” and what happens when it becomes a tool for cyberbullying and online shaming. Link is here (affiliate):

I grew up with the Internet. Around the same time I was starting to do research reports in middle school, the miracle of dial-up made it possible to find information online… in only twice as much time as it would’ve taken to walk to the library! It did get better, thankfully. By high school, people exchanged email addresses more than phone numbers. By college, the stigma of “meeting someone online” had faded—which is fortunate, because that’s how I met my husband. I know all the weird and wonderful ways the Internet can change our lives (to be clear: the Internet research is weird. The aforementioned husband is wonderful.) Over the past year, we’ve managed to keep some of the isolation at bay by bringing our real-life connections online. Thank goodness for that.

Now that we’ve been basically quarantined for the better part of a year, I’m especially grateful for the sheer variety the Internet has to offer. Livestreamed celebrations. Long video chats. Virtual visits. And hundreds upon hundreds of silly memes.

Writing Millennial Characters: A Look Back on 2011

Writing contemporary fiction feels like it shouldn't require a lot of research. My current novel takes place in 2011--a year I remember pretty well, since it was only six years ago! On the other hand, as I've been editing Every Last Minute, little questions keep popping up:

• When did people start using smart phones instead of flip phones?
• When did people start texting more than instant messaging?
• Who invented the term #YOLO? And why'd we all start saying it, anyway?

Here's some of the research I dug up on my little trip down memory lane. Enjoy!

Top Ten Songs of 2011:

1. Rolling in the Deep- Adele
2. Party Rock Anthem- LMFAO
3. Firework- Katy Perry
4. E.T.- Katy Perry
5. Give Me Everything- Pitbull
6. Grenade- Bruno Mars
7. F**ck You (Forget You)- Cee Lo Green
8. Super Bass- Nicki Minaj
9. Moves Like Jagger- Maroon 5
10. Just Can't Get Enough- The Black Eyed Peas

Most Popular Movies Released in 2011:

1. Fast Five
2. Thor
3. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
4. X-Men: First Class
5. Sucker Punch
6. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
7. Drive
8. Captain America: The First Avenger
9. The Help
10. I Am Number Four

Bestselling Adult Fiction Books in 2011:

1. “The Help” Kathryn Stockett
2. “The Help” (Movie Tie-In Edition) Kathryn Stockett
3. “Water For Elephants” Sara Gruen
4. “Cutting For Stone” Abraham Verghese
5. “A Dance With Dragons” George R. R. Martin
6. “The Confession” John Grisham
7. “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” Stieg Larsson
8. “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest” Stieg Larsson
9. “The Litigators” John Grisham
10. “Room” Emma Donoghue

Trends and Current Events in 2011:

1. Top 10 Twitter Trends of 2011 by Mashable
2. Top 10 Fashion Trends of 2011 by LA Times
3. Technology Trends of 2011 by the Telegraph
4. What Was Your Top News Story of 2011? by CNN

Wow. Life in 2011 wasn't so far removed than life now on 2017. I say this as someone who typically types on a tablet, still watches the Duchess of Cambridge for fashion trends, and remembers watching the last Harry Potter movie as if it was just yesterday. 

At the same time, 2011 was very different from the year we're living in now. Obama was halfway through his first term as President. The Occupy Wall Street movement was just beginning, but it was two years before the Black Lives Matter movement began.

Even in contemporary lit, life varies a lot from year to year. It's fun to do the research and see what has (and hasn't) changed. 

10 Quotes from Influential Millennials

We all know the tired rhetoric about the millennial generation. We're entitled. Lazy. Spoiled. Obsessed with taking selfies and ignorant about the rest of the world.

As I said last week, millennials may have a bad reputation in our youth (just like all the generations before us), but that's not the whole story. We connect with each other constantly, which means we're aware of social issues that affect us around the globe. We've struggled to find work during the recession, which means we've taken on second jobs, side hustles, and even started our own businesses. We're well-informed, conscientious, and very, very hard-working.

Here are ten quotes from influencers that show us what it means to be a millennial:

(Click on the image below to move through the slideshow. Enjoy!)

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What Does It Mean To Be A Millennial?

Growing up, I heard my generation described by a number of different labels: New Boomers, Generation Y, and Generation Wired, just to name a few. Now that we've stumbled our way into our twenties and thirties, we finally seem to have settled on one label: Millennial.

I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about what it meant to be a millennial myself until I started writing Every Last Minute, my current work in progress. The main characters, Will and Mara, are about one or two years older than I am. Like me, they were in their twenties during the three years in which their story takes place: 2011, 2006, and 2015.

Do all these similarities mean that I can skip the research and write Will and Mara's story based off my own experience? Of course not. I'm far too Type A for that. :) Part of the pre-writing for this story meant researching what it meant for Will and Mara to grow up in the Millennial generation.

My preliminary research did not inspire a lot of confidence. At first glance, it seemed that millennials had a pretty bad reputation. Here's the gist:

Millennials are lazy.

We're entitled.

We're obsessed with ourselves, our social media, and our tech gadgets.

We require constant praise and can't handle correction.

No one knows how to work with us, market to us, or kick our free-loading selves out of their basements.

Yowch. All that said, I'd hardly say we're any more despised than previous generations were in their heyday. This quote about "kids these days" was written over two thousand years ago:

“They [Young People] have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations; moreover, their hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great things — and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather do noble deeds than useful ones: Their lives are regulated more by moral feeling than by reasoning — all their mistakes are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently. They overdo everything — they love too much, hate too much, and the same with everything else. ”

— Aristotle

So if the young people of today are full of idealistic extremists with illusions of grandeur, then it seems we're right on track, historically speaking.

Personally, I think it's been pretty interesting to grow up in this generation: while the Internet was coming of age and taking on the world, we were, too. I was in third grade when the school librarian showed us how the school computer could connect to another school's computer through the miracle of the World Wide Web. I remember sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor of the library, listening to the extremely long dial-up sequence and thinking, "Ugh, this is taking forever. Nobody's going to want to sit through this more than once."

Boy, was I wrong.

Technology aside, there are a few more traits that set the millennial generation apart. Here's what else I found while doing research for my millennial characters:

Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open To Change.

I like stats, so I thought this article from the PEW Research Center had some interesting details about millennial demographics. Here are just a few:

• 37% of 18- to 29-year-olds are unemployed or out of the workforce
• About one-in-eight older Millennials (ages 22 and older) say they’ve “boomeranged” back to a parent’s home because of the recession.
• One-in-four are unaffiliated with any religion
• Only about six-in-ten were raised by both parents
• About a third of millennials are parents themselves
• One-in-five millennials are currently married

This tracks with a lot of what I've seen in my own life and with my character's lives too. We graduated during the Great Recession, after all: it's no wonder so many of us are unemployed, underemployed, or currently living with friends or family.

So what are millennials doing while we're waiting for our ships to come in? Well, most of us aren't waiting, actually:

Millennials are the True Entrepreneur Generation

When I was growing up, I pictured "having a job" to mean living the 9-5 life. I figured I would have a boss, a biweekly paycheck, and regular work hours. At the beginning of my adult life, I actualy did: I was a special education teacher for several years. Then I went in a new direction and branched out on my own as a freelance writer, editor, and author. I work from home, contract with individual clients, and work a somewhat flexible schedule. My work life looks nothing like I pictured growing up, but it looks a lot like many of my peers'.

Interestingly, both main characters in my work-in-progress work 9-to-5 jobs. Will is a middle school music teacher and Mara has a new job as a research assistant. Emphasis on new: when the story begins, Mara has been unemployed for several years. She's a millennial, after all, and finding a job in the recession is no easy feat.

Millennials: The Cause Generation

Studies are finding that our generation is plugged in to humanitarian and social issues around the world--and we're doing something about it, too. This article from YouCaring shows that 84% of millennials (those of us with jobs, anyway) made a charitable donation in 2015. I'd say we're also pretty likely to take up calls to action we find online, such as making donations through websites, signing online petitions, and sharing news and calls for help on social media.

This was a lot of fun to research, since Will and Mara's story centers around a fictional social issue. In my story, timeline rectifications are available for rehabilitated criminals. In short, a repentant offender can agree to go back in time and undo his or her crime. The new timeline will pick up from there, ensuring that no one will even have a memory of the original crime.

The catch? The victims of the crime have to agree to the rectification. When Mara and Will discover the shooter that nearly took their lives could go back in time, the social issue of timeline rectification becomes less theoretical and all too real. The premise of the story may be science fiction, but the feelings of these two characters as they take on this issue? Not too removed from real life. 

If millennials are particularly involved in social justice or other causes, it's often because we have a personal connection. Maybe something as simple as seeing a good friend posting about an issue makes us want to join in the cause. Maybe our own experiences with unemployment or even poverty make us empathetic to those who have even greater needs. Or maybe, like Will and Mara, a cause involves us personally, and we have to decide where we stand.

So...what does it mean to be a millennial?

Whatever we choose.