Fig. 1. Bad Luck Brian. From: @solidbadluck, Facebook.​

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The reproduced image

To be able to fully understand how memes got to be what they are today, I will first explore the concept of the reproduced image. This is important to understand the context of the image macro.

            The concept of repetition is something that frequently has been a topic of discussion among postmodern cultural theorists such as Fredric Jameson, Roland Barthes and Ferdinand de Saussure. In his chapter ‘The Digital image in “the Age of the Signifier”’, Andrew Darley uses these theories to reflect on repetition in visual digital culture. He writes about repetition as a cultural phenomenon from a capitalist society with a commodity culture. The production system is based on repetition and replication: all commodities should be the same, there is no uniqueness in them (125). Darley argues that this repetition is reflected in the aestheticism of digital visual culture of the late 20th century, for example in the possibility of television and film image reproduction (126). This pattern of reproduced images can also be seen in the 21st century’s online culture, specifically in the phenomenon of Internet memes.

            The concept of repetition also plays a big part in Richard Dawkins chapter ‘Memes: The New Replicators’. He introduces the concept of a meme, which is based on the concept of the gene. Every living creature has genes, of which the main goal is to replicate. During that process, genes evolve (191). Dawkins argues that this way of replicating is not only visible in living creatures in a biological sense, but also in human culture:

‘Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping form body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping form brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation’ (192).

In culture, there are things that are constantly being replicated by imitation in the brains of people, such as the idea of God, but also fashionable shoe wear, recognisable tunes, architecture, et cetera. Some memes have a higher survival value than others. There are three qualities that make for high survival value among memes: longevity, referring to the amount of time a meme will exist in a culture; fecundity, having to do with how quickly the meme spreads; and copying-fidelity, which refers to how the meme can be altered to fit a new meaning. Dawkins emphasises that one meme can last longer than another. For example, the God meme has existed for a very long time, while the meme of fashionable shoe wear will only exist for about a year (194). The fashionable shoe will be mass produced for a short period of time, until it gets out of fashion. This works the same way with the meme subcategory of Internet memes. Internet memes often have a high fecundity and copying-fidelity. They are very popular on the Internet for a short period of time, until the joke gets old and people stop recreating and reposting the image (Davison 123).

Image macros

In their chapter, Zenner and Geeraerts make a Cognitive Linguistic analysis of wordplay in image macros, a specific form of Internet memes. I will mainly use the text to explore what the image macro is and how the Bad Luck Brain meme can be seen as one. Zenner and Geeraerts define the image macro as follows:

‘An image macro consists of text superimposed on an image. Whereas the image and discursive theme are typically fairly consistent in the replication process, the text of image macros is particularly open to the online “remix culture” that characterizes Internet memes’ (171).

The image of the image macro is almost always the same, while the texts differ in every version of the meme. Every individual can make a new joke with the same visual image by adding a creative, surprising or funny text. Though, only those adaptations of the image that are original enough, will be spread by others on the Internet (172). Put in Dawkins words: only the memes with high survival value will survive.

            As Zenner and Geeraerts describe, there are three stable elements in an image macro. The first is that it has text and that text is typically presented in the font ‘Impact’, which can be seen in figure 2. The second crucial element is the image itself, specifically what is in the image. Often, the image depicts a stock image, a famous person or a still from a television series or film (176). Depending on what kind of image is used, the meme has to be interpreted in different ways. Certain images have certain connotations that the viewer has to know of to understand the image and the relation of the image to the text (177). For example, one has to know that the Back Luck Brian image relates to the idea of a teenager that always has bad luck. If the viewer understands this connotation, it is easier to interpret the image macro. The third element of a prototypical image macro concerns the verbal element: ‘[…] a top and a bottom text are typically present, with a clear juxtaposition between both; where the top text sets the scene, the bottom text functions analogously to the punchline of traditional jokes’ (179). This can also be exemplified with the Bad Luck Brain meme of figure 2. The top text always describes a certain situation and the bottom text always somehow ‘ruins’ the situation of the top text. It is the punch line that describes the bad luck: even though Brian is home schooled, he still gets bullied.

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