Memes that proliferate in our text messages, emails and social networks are “digital DIY,” summarizes Débora Krischke Leitão from the sociology department at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). “It started in the 2010s with the idea of a culture of mixing, that is, putting together content that comes from different sources, like a photo that comes from one place with a sentence that comes from another.” »
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The social anthropology doctor gives the example of a woman yelling at a cat, first posted on Twitter in 2019. “The popular meme of a woman pointing at a cat was changed so many times that it became part of the meme.” Gag. These are two images that were combined but were not originally together. They are removed from their context and a new context emerges. As a creative practice, it’s fairly new. It’s about appropriating digital material to create something different. »
According to Dani Rudnicka-Lavoie, who studied feminist memes during her master’s degree at UQAM, “Memes have become a means of communication in the way we use social media applications.” “We will send a meme to our friend to say, ‘This is how I feel’.” […] They also have cultural, humorous and artistic value. Writers spend a lot of time creating content and publishing it online, and then they essentially do this work for free. »
“Meme” Constance Massicotte agrees. “For me it’s like an art. Every little detail is thought of. It doesn’t look like it will be done very quickly, but I want them to be perfect and fun. »
IMAGE FROM INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @CONSTANCEMASSICOTTE
IMAGE FROM INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @CONSTANCEMASSICOTTE
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“It’s like a cartoon, but with a lot more aspects of popular culture,” says Louis of the Instagram account Québécois Normal (formerly FLQueer). It is the repetition and recycling of ideas. We created meme cooperatives. We share our formats, our content and our ideas. »
The power of numbers
Quebec actually has communities of memes – and their followers. Friendships developed. Even small rivalries. But contrary to what we see all too often on social media, the climate is healthy.
It may seem surprising, but I never get bad comments. People can understand that I’m not serious and that these are just jokes.
Fabrice Poirier, member behind Skedoo Sled, whose accounts have more than 70,000 subscribers
“Since I started making memes, people have been nicer to me. When I used to go out, I wasn’t spoken to as much, now I’m like a little star,” Constance Massicotte adds with a laugh. His Instagram page, which bears his name, is followed by 7,400 people.
“We have a very open-minded and committed community,” says Vincent Houde from Fruiter. […] We do tests and if there is enthusiasm, we join in. A while ago I made a simple statement to say that people who climb often like to tell their friends about it, but those who don’t don’t care. A lot of people were tagging themselves in the comments and I thought I was onto something. So I did that. Memes with Dyson vacuum cleaners also work very well. »
IMAGE FROM @MEMESFRUITER INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
IMAGE FROM @MEMESFRUITER INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
IMAGE FROM @MEMESFRUITER INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
IMAGE FROM @MEMESFRUITER INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
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Last April, various members from Quebec collaborated to produce a series of memes featuring singer Émile Bilodeau. “In a podcast he said he was a clone. Someone wrote that in our discussion, then we decided to make a day of memes suggesting that Émile Bilodeau was a clone,” says Louis, whose Instagram page Québécois Normal has more than 1,300 subscribers after a year of existence has.
PHOTO FROM INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @QUEBECOIS_NORMAL
This kind of relentlessness is not uncommon. “At one point we decided to post a Marc Labrèche meme every hour for 24 hours. They weren’t very thoughtful, they just showered the world with Marc Labrèche memes, recalls Thierry Hardy-Lachance of the trio behind Lynternait, the Quebec meme pioneer. I remember on Halloween we made a meme with Marc Labrèche’s face and then said, “Make a mask out of it and wear it to school.” The teenagers were really into it. It’s nice to have the opportunity to start movements on the Internet. »
PHOTO FROM LYNTERNAIT’S FACEBOOK PAGE
At Lynternait’s suggestion, many young people wore a Marc Labrèche mask for Halloween 2016.
Thierry Hardy-Lachance speaks in the past tense because the Facebook page Lynternait, which just turned 10 years old, has not been active since 2017. Despite everything, 82,000 people are still subscribers. The Instagram account still posts sporadically for its 25,000 followers.
“In the early 2010s it was young people who were on Facebook. Now it’s my parents and baby boomers. There was such an overlap in the mid-2010s when both age groups were on Facebook, and then chaos reigned. We could just laugh and make fun of it [dans nos mèmes] “, he remembers.
Absurd, hidden or committed
Since then, memes have been using Instagram and sometimes TikTok. The styles have also changed. The satire has given way to the absurd and more niche approaches have emerged.
Lynternait’s ironic humor got a little marketing-related. The new guys get around this by making jokes that can’t be used for commercial purposes.
Thierry Hardy-Lachance, meme
There is so-called shit-posting, a currently popular discipline. “It’s humor, very absurd, very light-hearted. » For Louis, creator of the Instagram page Québécois Normal, posting shit is tantamount to “playing with ridicule.” “It is a more colorful way of writing and communicating, but remains a little absurd. »
IMAGE FROM INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT @QUEBECOIS_NORMAL
“More niches and more dedicated creators will be disruptive [perturber] the culture of the more normative meme, such as [le compte] FuckJerry. They react to this culture with which they do not identify and at the same time create an object that also criticizes the surrounding society,” explains Dani Rudnicka-Lavoie.
The number of followers of the FuckJerry Instagram account is 17 million, making it an important business tool. Several other very popular accounts have grown into small media empires that generate significant amounts of money. No Quebec meme creator makes a living doing this work, but some manage to snag a few contracts.
“We partner with companies that want us to get their brand noticed. “Most of the time it goes very well and people are receptive because they feel like it’s not too intrusive,” says Fruiter’s Vincent Houde, who spends about 30 minutes a day creating memes.
“I have worked with Robin des Bas, Poches & Fils and Pizza Salvatore. It’s fun, but the income isn’t enough to live on. I’m not an influencer,” adds Fabrice Poirier.