My new biggest fear in life is having something dramatically embarrassing happen to me and it somehow falls into the hands of the internet. I mean, I know there are way worse things that can happen to a person, but these days? In 2014? Don’t let somebody screenshot you with a funny caption before your picture/video becomes viral within a day. Oh, the joys of social media.
Sometimes, we just don’t think it through before we post our photos. You ever see a kid sneak pictures of people they see on the bus who fell asleep with their mouth wide open, or when they’re walking behind a woman with her skirt stuck inside her underwear? They just post it for a couple retweets and laughs, but to who’s expense? I would be so embarrassed if anything like that happened to me because I’m pretty sensitive. And what about Martin Baker? I know you guys know who I’m talking about.
Yes. THAT guy. I know that man has got to be all sorts of upset. Anytime I see his face I already start cracking up no matter what the meme says. He wasn’t even doing anything, the camera just so happened to catch him at a bad time, Twitter folks got a hold of it and that was a wrap for him. Poor guy. If you just Google him, hundreds of different memes pop up with this same picture and if that were me, I’d be mortified. Imagine walking down the street and people recognize you, then start laughing at your face just because you are a meme. THAT’S mean, but that’s the point I’m getting at here. Some people may be able to handle that well cause they simply don’t care, but I doubt I’m one of them. Some consider social networks a place to just make jokes and laugh at stuff. I didn’t have a problem with that until I almost became a meme. A picture of me got hundreds of retweets within seconds with such nasty comments and “LOL”s, I deleted it ASAP to try and stomp it out before it became a full-force “thing” because I refused to allow myself to become a meme. It probably sounds like such a shallow fear, and my friends asked me why I cared so much but that’s not really something I could explain. I just did. I rely on social media so much to run my business, so yes, I do care about how I’m portrayed and perceived on here. There was nothing I could do about the strangers who said the things they did, but I was most upset at my ‘friends’ who encouraged it. When asked why, all they could offer me was, “It could have been anybody, and we would have still laughed. It just so happened to be you. Get over it.”
I did get over it. Eventually. After blabbering on for hours to my “friends” about how I felt, I thought, “…..Did I just get cyberbullied? What was that? What just happened? Or am I just being overly sensitive?” I concluded that I was just being sensitive, but that didn’t erase my feelings from being hurt. Once I moved on, I reminded myself that if I choose to be active on social media, I have to be prepared for the backlash I may receive and I also have to prepare myself to be judged. Everybody has an opinion, I’m not here to stop people from having thoughts. I’m also not here to like, ban laughter. All I learned from that experience was to be more careful about the things I post online, and as cliche as it sounds, who my “real friends” are. I’m not saying I became a hardcore advocate for cyberbullying though because my case wasn’t extreme at all, nor am I trying to banish memes or anything. I still laugh at ones I find funny, I just choose to not do so all over the internet at the expense of someone else.
Unruly Bodies 
I’ve been thinking a lot about disembodiment (big surprise) and how that effects the way that we’re perceived by the world, and I think the Internet is a really fascinating site for the study of bodies–the way that our bodies are sometimes able to interface with the world in a way that is wholly separate from our actual selves. Memes are the prime example of this. When you become a meme, you are reduced to a photograph–your personality and thoughts are no longer relevant to the way you are perceived (or at least, your meme is perceived) by the world. You become an image that people can mold into whatever they want; that people feel comfortable dehumanizing and laughing at; a picture, instead of a person. Bodies are subject to constant policing in real life, but I think that the idea of actually having to interface with the subject of your ridicule can help curb these cruel tendencies. In real life, the person has the ability to react: they could be hurt, (hopefully) making you feel guilty, or they could confront you about your cruelty. When you steal someone’s picture and make it a meme, you’re robbing that person not only of their agency in terms of their self-presentation, but also their ability to react to you. The anonymity of the Internet also makes the repercussions of your douchebaggery almost non-existent. And I think it is exactly this lack of “real world” repercussions, as well as the ability to just completely dehumanize the subject of your cruelty, that has made memes such a widespread phenomena.
Consent is really tricky on the internet when it comes to photos. I remember about a year ago someone on twitter with a large fan following posted a picture of a women wearing booty shorts. He captioned the image as “they don’t fit, love!” and proceeded to make fun of her butt, which hung out the bottom of the shorts. As critiques of his behavior rolled in, he protest that because he didn’t know her, and because her face wasn’t in the shot, consent wasn’t an issue. This is such a harmful mindset, and the fact that memes of people’s faces without out their consent is very disturbing when you step back and look at it from a different standpoint.