Mematic Warfare
The invasion of Ukraine brings social media memes under fire
In the early days of social media, it mainly revolved around messaging friends, posting pictures, and marketing products. However, as time has marched forward, our society has seen a cultural shift surrounding social media. Now the lines between our real lives and our lives online have begun to bleed together. This shift has caused us to use social media to discuss and post about everything going on in our lives and the world around us constantly. When you scroll through your social feed, in between seeing videos of cute dogs and pictures of your friend’s birthday party, you may see photos and videos from news outlets of bombs raining down on Ukrainian civilians paired with captions about the conflict. Social media has become a source of news for many with 48% of U.S. adults saying that they “often” or “sometimes” get news from online platforms according to a study done by Pew Research Center. It is important to ask the question: is engaging in conversations around current events on social media responsible?
