Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a meme as "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture" as well as "an amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media." Memes have become a large part of internet culture today. They are a way of sharing information (typically in a comedic way) that allows people to connect over a shared sense of humor.
This digitally crafted image is a crossover between a popularized meme and a television show. The source is unknown, but the image carries an immense amount of information regardless. The person depicted is Parker Dinkleman, one of the two main characters featured on the television show "Mr. Meaty" which was aired on Nickelodeon from 2006 to 2009, composed of 20 total episodes.
The background of this image is taken from a popular meme that originated in 2014 from Lucky Luciano with the caption "You know I had to do it to em" This quickly became a source of humor, image manipulation, and inspiration for other works of art. People photoshopped all sorts of parodies of this pose and even traveled to the site to take pictures of themselves doing the same pose in the same place as this iconic photograph.
This digitally crafted cross over meme juxtaposes a photograph which Roland Barthes states in Image-Music-Text is a "message without code" with a coded representation of a person (Barthes 43). This collage of imagery is culturally significant in that it demonstrates the power of the internet to circulate seemingly abstract information in ways that allow for specific derivatives that only niche groups of people can fully appreciate. Parker's pose perfectly mimics that of Lucky's which furthers the concept of the internet's power to create new truths.
If this were to be shown in an art museum or gallery I think it would make sense to print it on a canvas and hang it with a large, intricate, dark stained wooden frame. The reason this makes sense to me is that it would legitimize the digitally crafted image as a form of art that can be admired in the same sense as the paintings and drawings that would presumably be shown in the same space.
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