Emoji has become a necessary auxiliary tool for people to socialize in the mobile Internet era, and even through "doutu", it has become the dominant way of communication. As a generation of young people who grew up with the Internet, how do contemporary college students view memes? We interviewed seven students from Nanjing University, Sun Yat-sen University, Wuhan University, South Central University for Nationalities, South China University of Technology and other universities to see their cognition and thinking about memes.
● I use memes quite frequently, and 5 out of every 1 messages is a meme. I usually rarely search for and add emojis on my own, and I store them for others, because there are relatively few emojis that can really infect me, make me feel practical or bring me freshness. The memes I use now are suitable for most occasions.
Memes affect or change the chat atmosphere, can express content that words can't express, but can only mean the unspeakable, for example, my roommate and I will use each other's photos to make memes. However, these memes will only spread in a small area in our circle, because once they jump out of this circle, people will not be able to understand what these pictures mean. The emoji used on the virtual platform is a kind of "spice" for real life, and many content and emotions can be expressed through emoji, and save time and effort.
● Many emojis can only be used in specific situations, there are still many restrictions, rather than spending time and effort to find a very suitable emoji, it is better to directly type and send messages.
I usually post memes to people I don't know well, in order to show friendliness and shorten social distance, but every time I have to rummage for half a day to find the right meme, I feel a little tired. Because everyone I know offline understands me, only need words, and the other party can understand what I mean. In addition, I don't use memes to perfunctory or fool others, generally just don't reply directly, just end the conversation. Most of the memes I save are funny, and I have a strong desire to share these memes, and I hope to show them to my friends.
● I love to use memes, often with my peers, because elders have to delve into the content and meaning of memes, for example, if I send a kitten meme, they will think that this is a picture rather than an emoji.
Before high school, I communicated with people by texting or making phone calls. Posting a meme is similar to making a phone call. The former is to realize the emotional expression in virtual socialization, and the latter is to transmit emotional emotions through tone changes, both of which have the role of expressing emotions. But they are not the same, the phone call is an instant way of communication, there is no buffer time for thinking, and publishing a meme can give yourself enough time to think and choose. In the process of offline social networking, I will think of some memes that are very suitable for the current scene from time to time, but I can't suddenly send it to others, and in the end, a person silently carries out rich inner activities.
● Young people and older generations have different aesthetics for memes. Emoji are a sign of generation, and each generation has a specific representative meme. For example, the parents' generation likes to send colorful emojis containing peonies, lotuses, red wine, roses, thumbs, scissor hands and other elements, and their feelings are more sincere. And we like funny faces, memes such as the newly launched yellow beans on social platforms, and funny, and the feelings we express may be more inclined to the pursuit of entertainment.
● I am a painter who has designed memes for school clubs, and the character is a child wearing a panda hood and black-framed glasses. In order to increase the sense of intimacy, I drew it as a Q version of the little man when creating. I mainly rely on the emotions in my daily communication to determine the expression I want to present. I wanted to make the memes cute, so I used a lot of homophony. I also incorporated some elements of Wuhan University, like cherry blossoms. I also refer to a lot of WeChat emojis, such as line puppies and other pet comic emojis, widely used in various social situations, I usually make emojis for my own dogs, and even take a little picture of myself, of course, only among friends.
This set of memes adds a lot to our public account articles. For our fellow students, the presence of memes also enhances the relationship between members. When everyone chats with the same set of expressions, it can make the chat atmosphere more relaxed and enhance everyone's sense of identity and belonging to the community. Emoji give us more of a common language, and I guess that's the beauty of it.
● I am a "heavy user" of memes. A long time ago, my WeChat custom emoticons have reached the limit, which means that I have 999 emoticons in my WeChat, in addition to several sets of emoji albums. Chatting with memes is a lot of fun, especially after the other person posts a text, and I keep swiping through 999 emoticons and various emoji albums until the screen is crossed off. When I finally found the expression that perfectly matched the context and atmosphere, and both sides of the conversation could understand, and "throw" it out, the sense of achievement instantly "burst". Only when memes can't describe what I want to say is there no room for words to be replaced.
● One of the disadvantages of online virtual social networking is that we cannot use non-verbal behaviors, such as body movements, facial expressions, etc., to convey the information we want to express like offline face-to-face social interaction, resulting in sometimes emotional expression is not so accurate and sufficient. For example, when the other person replies "um" and "oh", I will worry about whether the other person is upset. Therefore, we need to use a greater degree and more exaggerated expression to make up for the lack of language expression. With the development of online networking, we are increasingly relying on this exaggerated expression. In the past, it was enough for everyone to chat online and send "haha", but now they want to send "hahahahaha", as long as you hit two "h", the input method will pop up a long list of "ha". The same is true for memes, in the past, it was enough to send a "sweaty soybean", now it is necessary to send a string of "sweaty soybeans", and even a giant "sweaty soybean" that can occupy half of the screen.
But this exaggerated expression of emotions wears out many real emotional experiences. Memes are like a social mask, wearing this mask, you can flexibly switch faces in front of others, exaggerate your expression, and create an ideal self-image. But over time, the mask becomes difficult to take off, making you forget the natural expression of true feelings.
(Compiled by Gu Shilan and Li Yizhan)