Internet Meme Creativity as Everyday Conversation

Abstract Internet memes are online fads or trends consisting of a combination of image, verbiage, audio, and video that are repeatedly altered by Internet users and shared on the Internet, often in a rapid, viral-like manner. The constant process of mutation that an Internet meme undergoes as it spreads across the Internet typically involves repetition, rhetorical play, pattern reformulation, and punning, among others—all characteristics that Ronald Carter has defined in his analysis of spoken conversation as examples of demotic and ordinary creativity. Drawing upon and extending Carter’s description of the everyday creativity of spoken language, this study seeks to systematically investigate and describe the creative and conversational characteristics of Internet memes and in doing so provide further insights into the nature of both Internet creativity and popular culture.