A Research Project by Dr. Heidi A. Campbell
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A Research Project by Dr. Heidi A. Campbell
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KEY THEMES
While a variety of stories were told by internet memes about the act of social distancing, there were three stories that were very prominent and promoted in these digital texts. Each saw the nature of social distancing and the primary influence it had on people’s lives in the early months of the pandemic in slightly different ways.
I. Social Distancing Creates New Social Behaviors
Memes featured the new ways people sought to incorporate social distancing in their everyday lives and the unique patterns and practices they created and embraced.
Social distancing created new norms, practices, and conduct promoted as best practices for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. These practices include keeping six feet of distance between oneself and others, quarantining, washing one’s hands more than usual and wearing masks in public. The result of these new practices were other adaptations of daily routines related to the home, store, public spaces and churches. For example memes often called into question the future of contact-based practices from "happy hours"" in pubs to "passing the peace" in churches. Memes became a playful response to such modifications, new boundaries, and social distancing behaviors . Memes also highlighted the knock-on impact of new required social distancing practices, such as "zoom fatigue" encountered by many who had their work moved online. Others poked fun at"bad masking" behavior from those who actively resisted wearing personal protective equipment or wore it incorrectly due their ignorance about safety protocol. Memes serves as sense-making tools for many, a way to make fun of, push against new social limitations and even call out unacceptable behaviors underlying the "new normal" of social distancing.
II. Social Distancing Impacts and Re-shapes Religious Practices
Memes showed in both serious and playful ways how religious groups sought to adapt to social distancing requirements.
A second story told was social distancing's impact on religious communities and their practices. Many memes focused on religion made reference to specific religious practices that had to be eliminated, such as face-to-face gatherings, and other rituals that had to be notably modified, such as baptisms and the act of communion. Certain memes concentrated on making sense of how faith can both persist and change in the midst of social distancing realities in local and global context. Other memes satirize or predict the future of various religious practices such as funerals and weddings. Still others highlighted both the positives and negatives of these changes, often providing scriptural justifications for changes to people’s actions in light of such shifts. Humor provides an ironic juxtaposition of known practices and traditional behaviors taken out of their usual context and held up for examination. Memes explored the meanings behind accepted religious rituals and teachings or teachers that uphold them. In this way meme allowed people to playfully question the how and why religious groups perform different rituals and the implications to their identity when social distancing forces their modification or elimination for regular religious practice.
III. Humor is a Key Coping Mechanism for Social Distancing
Memes stressed that humor was an important tool used by many people seeking to cope with the stresses and changes required by new social distancing practices.
While humor is present in all memes, in one way or another, the third story emphasized humor is not only a useful device for commenting on new social phenomena or behaviors . For many humor became an essential tool for helping them dealing with the dynamic social changes brought on by the COVID-19. Meme humor focused on making fun of new social realities like masking and lock-downs served as a catharsis to cope with the stress anxiety and uncertainty experience in most people’s personal and family lives. In many instances, "Humor as a Coping Mechanism” emerged as the common underlying theme support meme stock character choices and narratives offered by meme creators. This storyline was crafted to assuage fears, calm insecurities, and promote health conscious behaviors. Such meme also often intermingled religious and/or secular messaging in ways that supported best practices for physical, mental, and spiritual health.
© SD MEMES 2020
This project was made possible through a COVID-19 Micro-grant from the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research based at Texas A&M University.