TO MEME OR NOT TO MEME
Shakespeare’s works are timeless. But why? It’s not just his use of language, or that three of his plays begin with the word ‘Now.’ It’s because the Bard explored universal ideas. The same ones we see in pop culture today.
Want to dig into Shakespeare’s themes? It’s all there in the memes.
THE ‘MAD WOMAN’
The trope of villainizing outspoken women and calling them ‘crazy?’ Still alive and kicking. Carole Baskin’s ex-husband? Not so much.
The Bard: “Dispute not with her, – she is lunatic.” (Richard III)
The Meme: “That b*tch Carole Baskin.”
THE POWER OF TIME
Time’s funny. One minute you’re wishing for a long weekend. The next you’re in lockdown running out of Netflix. Shakespeare got that.
The Bard: “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. For now hath time made me his numbering clock.” (Richard II)
The Meme: “Bored in the house and I’m in the house bored.”
THE LOVE OF GOSSIP
Apparently, Shakespeare repurposed the word ‘gossip.’ So you know he loved his tea. Kermit carries on this piping hot tradition.
The Bard: “With all my heart, I’ll gossip at this feast.” (The Comedy of Errors)
The Meme: “But that’s none of my business.”
HUMANITY AS THE PROBLEM
Billy loved to expose mankind’s flaws. And we’re quick to point fingers ourselves. Especially with a little irony and a wink to fake news.
The Bard: “What a piece of work is man.” (Hamlet)
The Meme: “Nature is healing. We are the virus.”
THE DUALITY OF WOMEN
In Shakespeare, a woman’s either angelic and pure, or pure evil. It’s shocking if she’s more than one ‘thing’ – an ideology that’s at the heart of this meme.
The Bard: “Though she be but little, she is fierce.” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
The Meme: “Get you a girl who can do both.”
BUT WHAT ABOUT DEATH?
It’s been noted on the internet that between climate change, a recession, and a world that feels more like an episode of Black Mirror, millennial humour has become rooted in a sense of ‘pointless dread’. And with heaps of memes circling since 2017 about death and wanting to die – it begs the question. Are we just living in one long, viral soliloquy?