Objective
My objective for the viral challenge was to create a meme that received at least 300 views on Imgur. I became inspired to create this meme after seeing other users on Twitter posting different texting conversations on this cartoon template:
I noticed that all the versions of the meme showing up on my feed alluded to everyday issues and stereotypical boy-girl interactions, but they did not acknowledge the biggest phenomena facing our society—Coronavirus. So, I decided to create a remix of this meme that made light of the difficult situation we all find ourselves in while taking into account the boy-girl, texting humor associated with the meme.
Analysis
+ What worked for my social media campaign is that it capitalized on timelines. When originally posted, this meme just started to become very popular on Twitter. At this time, we were early into the Coronavirus quarantine, and people were looking for the humor in it. This meme addressed timeliness in both the freshness of the meme template and its content. Additionally, I posted a detailed image description below the meme on Imgur. Some users noticed this, and I think they respected the inclusivity of the post.
— What did not work as well with this meme was that it may have been too targeted in its intended audience. Some people seemed to not understand it, commenting: “I don’t get it” and “Even with a full description, this makes no sense to me at all.” As mentioned, this meme was just starting to take off on Twitter when I posted it, so it may not have become as popular on other platforms, like Imgur. In order for this to be funny and shareable, people would likely need to been familiar with this template. Additionally, the meme’s humor relies on stereotypes around texting lingo and gender role humor, so people would need some knowledge of these to find it funny.
Results
Ultimately, this meme was viewed 640 times on Imgur. It received 12 up votes, seven down votes, and seven comments. As this meme was a remix of this existing template, I would not say any derivatives were spun off of this specific meme.