Memes at an exhibition: consumer interpretations of internet memes

Abstract

Have you ever participated a virtual exhibition that is made up of memes? If not, it is high time. Our research subjects put together virtual exhibitions of memes and their explanations as guides. Our projective exploratory research focused on internet-literate consumers’ choices and interpretations of internet memes. We recorded 95 respondents’ narratives about 125 different memes, altogether 281 memes. Our article takes the metaphor of an exhibition tour, where memes are the reframed pictures of the exhibition. This is Mussorgsky’s Pictures of an Exhibition reloaded in Bakhtin’s approach to folk culture of laughter.