The meme that I chose to analyze is “Left Exit 12 Off Ramp”. This meme created in 2017 was photo shopped based off of a YouTube video titled “How to exit the freeway highway like a boss”. YouTuber Fredrik Sørlie shows a video of a car drifting into an off ramp on the highway, but there is no highway sign on the off ramp giving it great potential for it to become a meme. This video has received more than 97,000 views in four and a half years.
How did this video become a meme you may ask? The meme was first posted in December of 2017 by HiddenLOL. The person who posted it titled the post “made a template, don’t know if it has potential, template in comments.” His meme creation shows a car with the Swedish flag on it swerving away from the highway exit which reads “Continue being a stable first world country” and taking the exit for “Mass uncontrolled migration from third world nations.” When this meme was shared by Redditor, it generated more than 275 points in less than one week.
And from then on, people began to make their own versions of memes using this template. This meme is categorized an exploitable. Exploitable memes are image templates that are missing a defining characteristic and easy to edit, dying to be filled with your wit & candor [1]. These types of memes are characterized by a template. These mems are very popular because of how easy they are modified due to the fact that they don’t need much editing when it comes to making the meme. Like I said, this meme can be easily modified due to the exit sign already being blank. So when it comes to the modifications of this meme there really isn’t many issues. I even found a website that lets you generate your own meme from this template all for free. This could also have been a factor for this meme being so widely spread because of how simple it is to recreate it. Looking at the motivations behind this meme, I think that this meme can be used in a variety of ways. The layout of the meme allows it to be used in various ways. With that being said, everyone can use this meme in a different way. Whether it be used to express political statement, to promote awareness, to spread messages, or just for the fun of it this meme is overall universal. For example, a meme with political humor attached to it can virally spread awareness of an issue, or can help to reinforce growing attitudes and prejudices [2]. In earlier classes we looked at using memes within the political elections actually helped engage millennials.
This meme has been used like that, again showing how universal it is. Memes shape the mindsets, forms of behavior, and actions of social groups (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007). This attribute is highly compatible to the way culture is formed in the so‐called era of Web 2.0, which is marked by application platforms for facilitating user‐generated content [3]. After reading that statement and relating it back to the “Left Exit 12 Off Ramp” meme, I realized how people used this meme to express so many different feelings. This meme has been seen all over various social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. In my experience on social media I have seen this meme being used multiple times. Most times I have seen this meme it was being used in a funny, but also inappropriate way. But that’s what our generation enjoys seeing. I think that memes that are able to be used so universally are the ones that have the potential of being so successful. Anyone can use this meme whether it be for being serious, or just wanting to be funny.
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