A look at how memes can help people correct behaviors framed as unsavory or distasteful by tapping into more widely relatable emotions or experiences
Newly single, Jason Donahoe was perusing Tinder for the first time since it started integrating users' Instagram feeds. Tweets: @taylorlorenz , @rossdawson , and @verge Tweets: Taylor Lorenz / @taylorlorenz : I liked this @allieevolpe piece on memes as a tool for betterment. http://www.theverge.com/... Ross Dawson / @rossdawson : Intriguing idea: “Memes are incredibly efficient at guiding viewers toward socially acceptable group behavior” https://www.theverge.com/... The Verge / @verge : It's not all Pepes and trollfaces — memes can be a force for good http://www.theverge.com/... http://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This Verge feature lands at a moment when meme culture is being taken seriously as infrastructure rather than joke output: the site had recently profiled Know Your Meme's decade of documenting viral content, and creators were already stitching together multi-app workflows because no single tool could keep up with increasingly complex formats.
The argument that memes efficiently guide viewers toward socially acceptable group behavior also reframes what platforms are curating. Within a year, Instagram would move from purging meme accounts en masse to hiring a partnerships manager specifically for them — treating meme distribution as something worth managing, not just moderating.
First-order effects
- Meme creators gain a legitimizing frame: their work is positioned as social correction through relatable emotion, not just comedy, which raises the stakes of formats like the personal clip-art 'niche memes' teens post to close-knit followers.
Second-order effects
- Political actors already investing in this channel — deep-pocketed donors funding viral content studios to sway the masses — get a documented playbook showing that emotionally relatable memes can shift behavior, not just attention.
Third-order effects
- If memes reliably nudge group norms, then platform decisions about which meme accounts to purge, partner with, or amplify become de facto behavioral-engineering levers — pushing moderation and partnerships policy toward influence operations territory.
The trend: Memes are consolidating from disposable inside jokes into a recognized instrument of social and political influence that platforms increasingly curate on purpose.