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Meme Buffet

You’ve seen them all over your social media account feeds or maybe on some blogs. They’re images, animated gifs, videos and the content is viral.  Some can be funny, others offensive (or even brutally honest). In the Web 2.0 Test Kitchen, we’re looking at memes and customizing them for educational purposes. So, pile it on because it’s all you can eat at the meme buffet. You do realize by now, I have no friends.


The message in a meme moves Internet fast. That’s like really fast, guys.  There is a specific weaponized meme employed among trolls, the image macro.  Unlike animated gifs and video, they’re static and have textual content overlaid on some ridiculous satirical image culled from the Web and pop culture zeitgeist. The content is based on pointing out an epic fail or reflecting the meme creator’s perspective. Its purpose is to efficiently communicate a message without any wordiness.


In an effort to bring some educational context to using memes, I decided to redirect the message and its application. We’re not going to offend or bum anyone out with our  image macro. Instead, we’ll apply some no-nonsense facts as text and contrast that against the image for some ironically awesome edu-fun.

There are a ton of meme generators online. For this particular set of image macros, I used Meme Dad and Imgflip. I decided to mash it up with STEAM-based (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) knowledge in the form of did-you-know trivia. So, let's get to the STEAM-Ed Memes...I know, too much.

Science


Technology


Engineering


Arts


Mathematics

I hope this helps you think of new ways to have fun repurposing memes for education on your blogs or social media platforms.

Comments

  1. Oh geez. These are the memes that make my students groan in Public Administration lol. But yes, memes are an eye catcher to a lot of people, and can raise some interesting conversations depending on the subject!

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