Sweet memes are made of these

Even if you’re not familiar with the word, you probably know what a meme is.

The term was coined by famed biologist Richard Dawkins, and while Dawkins originally used the word to describe brainy biology-type stuff, it eventually spread to the common vernacular. It now describes “an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture,” and in the context of internet culture, it describes something even more specific: Those pictures or graphics, usually smattered with “witty” captions, that pop up in your social media feed. The ones with frowning cats and sarcastic text reading, “Yeah, take a picture, that’s helpful.” Or a smiling politician in front of an American flag with a caption telling you you’re unpatriotic if you don’t like him/her.

People like these things, obviously, because liking them is precisely what causes them to spread. They’re sort of like chlamydia in that way, only more annoying and less avoidable.

On Facebook in particular, memes rule the day, with about half of them exploiting the country’s raw and divisive political bickerings, and half seeming to offer a mindless escape from all of that. Memes are a curious phenomenon in that they seem to be both the poison and the cure, the instigator and the diversion. It’s a peculiar feedback loop populated with google-eyed Tabbies, long-dead philosophers and cantankerous public officials with beaver-like combovers. And it’s made the social media landscape an increasingly unreal -- and unhealthy -- place to hang out.

Since I enjoy subjecting people to ridiculous fictional scenarios, consider the following. Rosario is hard at work in the local doll-making factory; it’s her job to screw heads on all the dolls, and it’s an enormously tedious task, involving no more than a conveyor belt, piles of plastic doll parts and the grim will to not go insane. A whistle blows to signal that it’s Rosario’s lunch break. Do whistles actually blow at these kinds of workplaces, or is that just “The Flintstones?” In any event, it’s time for her to go outside and eat something with tuna in it.

Rosario’s new to the whole dollmaking gig, so she hasn’t made a whole lot of friends at work yet. Rather than sitting around jawing about the weather, she whips out her phone and starts scrolling through her Facebook feed.

Within seconds, she encounters two memes. The first makes her smile. A disembodied lampshade is lying on its side in what looks like a carpeted living room, and through the hole in one end pokes the head of a small puppy. Pasted on the dog’s face is an endearing smile with the small red nub of a tongue sticking out, and below this picture is a caption that reads, “You can’t handle the cuteness.” Rosario is delighted. She loves puppies, because let’s face it, puppies are adorable, and she immediately taps the “like” option below the meme -- which in turn funnels the image onto her friends’ feeds, and so on and so forth until it’s been seen by half the tri-state area. Digital chlamydia. They never warned us about that in health class.

After riding this brief emotional high, the second meme slaps Rosario across the face, and hard. The photo is of a politician she vehemently despises. Senator X is standing with his hand over his heart and gazing into the middle distance, and below him reads, “If you don’t agree with Senator X that all puppies should be euthanized, then YOU’RE NOT A REAL AMERICAN.”

The meme was posted by Dirk Dipstick, an old high school friend of Rosario’s. Rosario has two thoughts. The first is, “That’s a shame. Dirk’s an idiot now.”

The second is: “Why?”

Why indeed. The Senator X meme provides no supporting evidence, no reasoned argument. And even if it did, it’s making its case in the most abrasive and confrontational fashion possible. It’s meant to provoke, not inspire thought or logical debate. Memes like this are the equivalent of a giant foam finger at a professional wrestling match -- a rallying cry based on emotion, and a primal desire for bloodsport.

Much has been made about the degradation of public discourse in this country, and naturally you can’t place that squarely on the shoulders of memes. They’re a symptom, not the cause. Still, they’ve become a disturbing manifestation of how people choose to express their views. They act as stand-ins for actual conversation, a way for people like Dirk to say, “Here’s what I think, world,” and then leave it at that. Only, in our current political and social climate, you can’t just leave it at that. Either we start talking to each other, or the things that divide us are simply going to rip us apart.

Social media is the ideal place for us to share photos of our Caribbean vacations, our dance recital videos and wry observations about yogurt. When it’s used as anything more than a receptacle for triviality, it loses its mission. There’s nothing inherently wrong with frivolous junk in small doses, but there needs to be a clear dividing line -- cat memes on one side, serious discourse on the other. Facebook is not the place for confronting our differences. That’s a job for debate stages, for city council and board of selectmen meetings, for newspapers’ letters to the editor and the unfairly denigrated media. It’s a job for real communities, not online ones.

Luckily for Rosario, she doesn’t spend much time perusing social media anymore. She met a friend at the dollmaking factory, a sweet and unpolitical fellow named Chip, and they spend their lunch breaks talking about ’80’s dance music and old episodes of “Hee-Haw.”

The best part? Chip loves puppies. He and Rosario make such a cute pair that they should probably have their own meme.