ON MEMES & CHARACTER PSYCHOLOGY: USING MEME FORMATS TO ESTABLISH INNER CONFLICT by Marisa Crane
If you, like me, are an Extremely Online person who can’t find a way to be Extremely Offline, chances are you’re familiar with just about every meme in existence and you’re always one of the first to join in when a new format arises. Twitter is the hellsite I love to hate because of the pure ferocity with which both textual and visual memes spread on there. And while many memes have a predictably short life cycle, some live on as evergreen frameworks we can return to time and time again when we’re looking for a quick dopamine hit. But memes are good for more than just a few likes and retweets. They can help writers to jumpstart story and create conflict.
Generally speaking, an internet meme is an image, video, sound, or text that represents a certain idea or concept that is copied (and often altered) and spread rapidly on the internet. The term “meme,” (which comes from the Greek word mimeme, an imitated thing) was originally coined by Richard Dawkins, and it referred to an ever-evolving cultural idea that is passed from individual to individual by replication and imitation. Some examples include melodies, catchphrases, and fashion trends, so it’s easy to see the natural progression to internet memes. The beauty of internet memes is that they reflect human behavior and psychology in real-time. And they are created and perpetuated, to some extent, because they elicit such strong emotional reactions. In using these types of memes to establish a character’s inner conflict, you’re setting the groundwork for emotional depth, tension, and psychological discomfort in your story.
Consider our dear old friend, the “Me, Also Me” meme. For this meme to work—“work,” at the bare minimum, meaning you’ve managed to correctly follow the meme format—the statement that follows “Also me:” must contradict the statement following “Me.” And it also has to be funny and relatable. Extra points if it’s timely.
A few weeks ago, I was watching Aquarius with my wife. If you haven’t seen it, it features David Duchovny as a Los Angeles detective during the rise of Charles Manson and his family. And while David’s cop haircut is absolutely atrocious, I forgive him because he is David Duchovny. And despite being one of the gayest of the gay, there is something I still find so pathetically attractive about David. So much so, that I took to Twitter and used a meme to make my point.
Me: Sigh, everyone is always losing their shit over mediocre white men.
Also me: I would die for this man.
It wasn’t particularly funny or timely, so it didn’t perform too well (35 likes, not my best work), but it got me thinking about using this meme template as a jumping-off point for a short story. Or even—gasp—a novel. This is because cognitive dissonance, arguably the crux of human nature, is baked into the “Me, Also Me” meme. Cognitive dissonance refers to the psychological distress a person experiences at holding contradictory beliefs, thoughts, or values. (Most likely, it is this very psychological distress that drives us to express ourselves via memes in the first place, as internet memes can reduce depression and anxiety.) Cognitive dissonance is so painful for us because we spend our lives creating a sense of self—I am a good person, I am kind, I am loyal, I am hard-working—and when we behave in a way that contradicts our values or self-image, we grow uncomfortable, anxious, ashamed, depressed, and so on.
It is in our very nature to correct this dissonance, to restore consonance, which is why we will justify thoughts and behaviors in order to make them fit our current attitudes and beliefs. For example, a person might say they think cheating on a romantic partner is wrong. But then, that person finds themselves in a relationship with someone they do not love—let’s call them B—and a few weeks later, they meet a new person, F, who sweeps them off their feet, and wrapped up in the moment, they kiss F. Now what? How can this cheater live with themself when they’ve gone against what they believed to be a steadfast value? Well, they justify their behaviors: “I don’t love B, so it doesn’t really count.” Or: “F is the love of my life so it was worth it.”
I, for one, will complain about my anxiety all day, drink three cups of coffee in the evening, have a panic attack, take a Xanax, and complain that I am taking Xanax too frequently, then do it all over again the next day. “I have to stay awake to get my work done,” I will tell myself when I brew coffee the following night.
We make these justifications all the time, whether we realize it or not. And these justifications, along with the existing contradictions, are what make for interesting character development. No matter how interesting a premise you’ve come up with—say you want to write a queer zombie vampire love and redemption story—the story won’t ever take off without internal conflict. The type that makes us say, “Oh shit, I wouldn’t want to be in their position.” Take even my less-than-compelling David Duchovny meme. A story idea could spring from that as easily as creating a character—let’s call them Storm—who has been burned by one too many mediocre men in her life. They lie, they cheat, they ghost, the typical mediocre guy starter pack. Storm has decided to not only go celibate, but to never date ever again. In an effort to distract herself, she takes up a new hobby in rock climbing. She wants to become good enough so she can hold her own when she visits Yosemite in the fall. But alas, in her very first rock climbing class, she meets a mediocre man who doesn’t wear deodorant because one time, a woman who was drunk off her ass told him she liked his musk. A fire erupts in her loins. It is game over for Storm, unless she can find a way to avoid the mediocre man and chase her dream of climbing in Yosemite.
While that concept doesn’t necessarily get my blood pumping, it is enough to produce plot. In Douglas Glover’s craft book, The Erotics of Restraint, he states that plot is “desire conflicting with resistance over and over. The same desire meets the same resistance in a series of events—plot steps—that increase in intensity as they progress toward a climax, at which point the desire is achieved or not.” We have desire (swear off men) plus resistance (meet attractive guy in class). The rest of the plot unfolds as the author decides what the next instances of resistance will be (maybe attractive guy asks her on a date or maybe attractive guy shows up at her apartment (creep)). Either way, this internal conflict provides enough grounding for a story to emerge.
I find this meme format helpful, especially when I’m experiencing writer’s block or just want a less Literary™ way into a piece. I used it to write a short story called “A Story that Begins with Stolen Hot Sauce & Ends with a Pointed Paw,” which was published in Flypaper. Its humble beginnings:
Me: I want to find my true love and settle down.
Also Me: *Throws away any good person worth loving.
This is a starting point that one might argue is well, pretty basic bitch of me, but you’d be surprised at the opportunities it provided. My typical writing style is to come up with an opening sentence I really love and then just move forward from there, hoping to write my way into the story. And while there is something inherently fun about that journey of discovery, I’ve found that establishing an internal conflict allows me to start at the heart of the piece and build my way out in every direction. What would someone who claims they want to find “true love” (whatever that is) but won’t give themself the opportunity behave like? How does their self-sabotage manifest? What would they value? How would their belief system guide their behaviors? How much suffering does cognitive dissonance bring this person? Do they recognize their own suffering? Perhaps this person doesn’t believe they deserve love and happiness after all. Or, maybe they don’t actually want to find true love; they simply think they do and the prospect of it sends them running for the hills or forest or desert. Perhaps this person punishes themself by dating people they hate. Maybe they derive joy from torturing themselves by dating someone they hate. I could go on and on, and sometimes it’s smart to explore all of the various options. But what’s important is that after every perhaps, there is also a why? and in what way? These questions and musings open up countless opportunities for the story to take shape.
Here is an expanded version of this exercise:
Without thinking, write the first “Me, Also Me” meme that comes to mind. The weirder, the better. Make each line no longer than one sentence.
Then, write a second version building upon the first. Make sure each line is two sentences long.
Continue doing this until you complete five versions, with the last version including at least five sentences for each line. Now you’ve got some meat to work with.
Draft up a micro, flash, or short story in which this character’s cognitive dissonance gets them into trouble.
A more sinister version of this meme is the outdated yet effective “evil Kermit” meme, which acknowledges two separate selves, the moral and immoral sides, that not only influence one another but operate as part of the whole persona. If you want to explore your character’s conflicting values, this is a great meme template to use since the second self encourages the first self to misbehave or make the problematic or inappropriate choice.
A quick example:
Me: They’re probably just having fun at the bar with their friends—I should go find something to distract me.
Me to Me: They’re hooking up with someone in the bathroom as we speak—go find someone to fuck.
If neither of these duality memes is doing it for you, don’t fret. There are many more memes to utilize in your creative writing practice. Take the “Distracted Boyfriend” meme. It is the holy trinity of desire, tension, and consequence. Even the stock photo is enough to spark a story idea. Man has been with his girlfriend for six years, they love each other, he listens, he validates, he showers her with love and affirmations—all is going well (narrator: “It was not, in fact, going well”). The man is a cheater, always has been a cheater despite his love for his girlfriend, and instead of admitting what he wants, which is to be in an open relationship, he convinces himself he’s better off if he never shares this desire with his girlfriend. She wouldn’t understand, she would leave him, he doesn’t want to risk losing her, he will continue to sleep around in secret. He is generally very good at ignoring other women when they’re out and about, but one day he and his girlfriend pass a woman who immediately entrances him. He can’t help but look and keep on looking. Something has come over him, and his girlfriend notices. What next? Her move, buddy. And of course, you can play with those genders however you please if straight and/or cis stories aren’t your thing.
In making your own Distracted Boyfriend meme, you can be as abstract or as concrete as you’d like.
Consider the inner conflict of queer desire vs. internalized homophobia:
The distracting woman = Kissing that gorgeous woman with the thigh tattoo who always flirts with you at the bar
The distracted boyfriend = The protagonist
The jealous girlfriend = Wanting to live a “normal life” (read: cisheteropatriarchal)
Once again, we have internal conflict here, a collision of competing desires. Which will win? What will tip the scales in either direction? How does that collision manifest, over and over again? What are the external pressures in this character’s particular environment?
Here’s an example in which the distracted boyfriend isn’t actually a human character:
The distracting woman = Comparing myself to others
The distracted boyfriend = My mental health
The jealous girlfriend = Positive self-talk/affirmations
After reading this meme, we know immediately that this character has probably been to therapy since they are equipped with the coping skill of positive self-talk. Or maybe it’s just something they found online when they Googled “how the hell am I supposed to learn to love myself?” Now, throw them into action with a character who has every quality they wish they had. And watch how they handle it. (But make sure it’s actually a separate character; Fight Club is already a thing.)
When creating a distracted boyfriend meme as story inspiration, it’s important to remember that all you need for drama is the difference between the past, present, and future self. So, if you’re thinking of creating a character, you can always consider the tension between these selves, how it manifests, and what types of problems it causes for your character.
What about a classic novel so many people love to hate or hate to love? The Catcher in the Rye as a few different meme structures:
Me, Also Me meme:
Me: I’m the biggest sex maniac you ever saw.
Also Me: If you want to know the truth, I’m a virgin.
Distracted Boyfriend meme:
The distracting woman = Romanticizing childhood innocence
The distracted boyfriend = Holden Caulfield
The jealous girlfriend = Growing into a mature adult
What’s cool about using memes as inspiration is I could assign each and every one of you to write a story based on the same exact meme and everyone would write a vastly different story—this is because everyone would create different explanations for the cognitive dissonance, different background stories, settings, demographics for the characters, external conflicts, etc.
What’s more is, meme formats function much like experimental structures, which I am a big fan of using, especially when I’m feeling uninspired or burnt out. The constraints of trying to write a story within an innovative format, such as assembly instructions, grants me the freedom to explore and surprise myself within the piece. Other examples of experimental structures I’ve used include pop quizzes, self-report questionnaires, MapQuest directions, drunken text messages, board game instructions, and shopping lists. But occasionally, I go even further and find a new method in unexpected places, such as on Twitter in my drafts folder, where I’ve experimented with many a meme that thankfully never saw the light of day or the wrath of Twitter. And these memes, since they require following a formal constraint, allow me to stretch other areas of my mind in new directions.
I don’t dislike more traditional craft talks or essays, but sometimes they can feel inaccessible to me. And I think some of us, from time to time, need a fresh window into craft that doesn’t feel so academic. Plus, the secret is out: when we participate in a current trend and create memes of our own, we are all writing creatively. Some people may disagree, but we all know when a meme doesn’t quite hit the mark.
What makes a meme good? I’m not the resident expert, but I have come up with a few qualities that successful memes typically embody:
Funny (duh)
Surprising
Fresh/new
True, to some degree
Relatable
Now, compare these qualities to Jo Ann Beard’s infamous “Sentence Test,” which includes four questions we should ask ourselves when determining if a sentence we’ve written is good:
Is it grammatical?
Is it true?
Is it new information?
Is there a surprise in it?
There tends to be some degree of truth and surprise in both good memes and good writing. I often think about how creative one must be to actually pull off not only writing great memes but doing so consistently. The difference between a meme that goes viral and a meme that flops can be the difference between a single word, punctuation mark, or conjunction. And the difference between an unforgettable and forgettable story can be as subtle as a single moment, turn, or surprise. It is not just about the turn or surprise—it is also about how we get to the surprise, and that journey often begins with inner conflict.
Marisa Crane is a queer, nonbinary writer whose work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Passages North, The Florida Review, Catapult, F(r)iction, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. The author of the forthcoming novel, Exoskeletons (Catapult, 2023), and the poetry chapbook, Our Debatable Bodies (Animal Heart Press, 2019), Marisa currently lives in San Diego.