The meme I posted above is the famous “Crying Jordan Meme.” The original picture was from Michael Jordan crying at his hall of fame induction speech. Since then, it has become a phenomenon to photoshop his face onto an athlete who lost a big game, in this case Cam Newton after he lost super bowl 50. It’s hard to explain why exactly a lot of people, including me, find these funny. Something about the perfect photoshop job combined with the confident way he’s dabbing, combined with the timing of the meme (right after he lost the super bowl) makes this meme and others like it funny. It kicks star athletes while they are down, like a form of trash talk. I guess people like laughing at other people’s expense, especially star athletes that are used to being on top.

This meme features a very famous scene from the movie The Dark Knight, a movie that a lot of people love. The text is an offshoot of what the joker says in the movie. Something about taking a really popular movie scene and changing the text to make it something relatable is why this meme and other memes featuring famous movies popular. The fact that you can take a famous scene and add any dialogue makes this type of meme reusable and popular.

This meme originates from a speech where Jimmy Mcmillan says “The rent is too damn high!” This meme is interesting and popular for similar reasons that the joker meme is popular, because you can take any relatable text you want and put it in there, and the meme will work. This meme along with the joker one allows anyone to get across a funny message that is a derivative of what Mcmillan originally said.

I think the function of memes in today’s society is to make jokes and be funny on social media and with your friends. Even if you do not exactly get the reference, you can still get the joke. The memes that I have chosen are mostly used for jokes, but I have also seen people use them to try to make political statements, although I try not to take those seriously, as I believe that memes are mainly used to be funny, not for a serious political statement.