The Memetic Vernacular: Everyday Argument in the Digital Age

This dissertation argues that viewing memes as a vernacular practice reveals how Internet users construct, circulate, and legitimate knowledge in their everyday communication online. Chapter 1 begins by asking a seemingly straightforward question---"why post a meme?"---and considering how memes function as a form of everyday argument enabled by the affordances of the digital age.;In Chapter 2, I argue that to answer this question scholars must look at Internet memes as a form of practice. This practice exemplifies a widespread form of everyday discourse online that uses recurring communicative genres to assert common knowledge and vernacular authority. Therefore, I define Internet memes as recurring generic practices in networked communication exhibiting variation and play as they are circulated informally between users, and I call this capacity for expression the memetic vernacular. Understanding Internet memes as a vernacular practice illuminates how the collaborative nature of memetic practice enables individual users to use memes to make arguments based on common knowledge and vernacular authority.;Chapter 3 traces the evolution of a single meme over a year on Reddit in order to argue that memetic communication practices gain vernacular authority as the result of aggregate volition. Chapter 4 looks at how Internet memes circulate, arguing that when assertions of everyday authority come into contact (and conflict) users appropriate existing memes as a form of counter-discourse. Chapter 5 looks at increasingly prevalent attempts by institutions to advertise using Internet memes. Centered on a memetic advertisement posted to Facebook by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this chapter discourages dismissing institutional attempts at vernacular speech and argues for a more nuanced understanding of why some memes fail while others succeed. Finally, the conclusion synthesizes these findings and applies them to the memetic practices of the alt-right during the 2016 United States presidential campaign. This conclusion explores not only how institutional agents might effectively leverage everyday communication practices but also how the memetic vernacular can help scholars understand emergent trends in digital communication.