You provide endless sources for inspiration and activities to have fun with!
Take the Harlem Shake phenomenon. I love seeing folks I have connections with spin their own take on a particular meme.
I have loved the various Shakes I’ve seen come from fellow Ukraine volunteers, their classes, and different community groups. This is one of my favorites. Libraries have done some great ones too!
Mostly I’m thinking of funny internet memes here, but I love the abstract idea of a meme and thinking about what ideas and behaviors we transmit to other people in our culture. How can we use this idea consciously? How can we transmit an idea or a particular behavior that we are passionate about?
And have fun with it! Capitalizing on what people are currently interested in is a great way to promote our important projects! Literacy! Take this awesome version of Gangnam Style to promote a read-a-thon:
The internet is agog with ideas and inspiration for easy ways to promote our passions. How about those flippant e-cards that float around the various social media websites? While someecards‘ terms of service prohibits advertising, promoting websites, and the like, it’s a cakewalk to create your own images for use.
- I really like Open Clip Art Library for clipart with no restrictions
- Set up your image in your photo-editing software, select the inverse space your image (I love the magnetic lasso for this!), and fill it in with a solid color of your choice
- Add your text using the Gill Sans font
- Boom, you’re done!
Not too shabby for 5 minutes in Photoshop!
Recently, A friend just posted a link to this current meme among Japanese youth where they take photos that appear to be releasing a huge ball of energy that sends their friends flying. Think jumping photos with a story. Here’s one of many examples:
Power level? It’s over 9,000!
Put a superhero with a book in their hands for the “power of reading” or maybe the gals would get behind “knowledge is drop-dead gorgeous”. I can just imagine bringing this meme to a tween or teen group to see what cool photos and captions they’d come up with for our libraries!
Memes don’t have to be just for youth services. Bacon brings in the adults. Zombies are good for both our older youth (zombie prom!) as well as adult audiences. Or host an event for both like a zombie walk or stage a “lock-in” and test survival skills for the zombie apocalypse! The only limit is your imagination…
If your social media feeds aren’t sparking your creative juices, head over to Know Your Meme and get the scoop on the latest around the internet as well as history on memes of yore. What’s inspiring you these days?
Reads In The Dark 