By Haley
Let's talk about memes again. What are they used for? Some memes want to amuse you, others serve as a shorthand for human interaction (easier to post a happy birthday pic than to type out all those annoying letters). Some serve to illustrate a point or convey a message.
But many, many memes exist to make the poster feel better about themselves through useless nonsense.
Here is a good example.
First off, note the classic meme tactic of random capitalization and punctuation. The sentences don't even end or begin on the same lines. Also, the graphic (which appears to be bridal themed?) that has nothing to do directly with the text. Of course we also have our obvious and obnoxious promo blurb on the pic- always a gamble. Will it direct you to the best case scenario or to the worst case? Worst case being some virus riddled "meet singles in your area" internet hellhole, best being a page full of similarly shitty memes.
But what about the message? Based on the content- the beauty is on the inside stuff, the prayer bit at the end- this is is a meme for ugly passive aggressive religious women*. I added on the passive aggressive part because I have never seen/heard/experienced anyone saying that they would pray for the people who don't them in a non-passive aggressive way (the word "sweetie" tends to get thrown around in those situations a lot also, as I have noticed).
Moving away from the religious part, I just want to reiterate how icky this meme makes me feel overall. The message here is smug and self-serving for anyone who posts it- the subtext of a post like this is always " . . . and I am this kind of beautiful, me, right here, the poster of this meme." Plus, if it's posted by a conventionally attractive woman then it is doubly self serving because it's pretty easy to preach the gospel of inner beauty when you have already experienced the benefits of outer beauty. It's kind of like people with rich parents talking about pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. I guess I just think that some of the power behind turning the other cheek is removed when the other cheek is just as perfectly contoured as the first.
So this is a shitty meme and you need to help out here because of it. Do your part: don't pass this kind of crap around and don't encourage those who do. Positive OR negative reinforcement for people who post this stuff will not help (because boy, do religious people love negative reinforcement- "hell" and all that). And, if you are a religious person reading this, please send a little prayer out for the artist or clip art designer who made the graphic that ended up on this dumb meme. They are probably really hungry and sad right now and could use all the help they can get.
* This is a joke. Don't get mad at me uggos, for I am one of you.
