The Language of a Generation vs “Funny” Picture: Students’ Perceptions of Memes in Digital Culture

Abstract

The article examines how students perceive the phenomenon of Internet memes and assess their cultural and communicative potential. The relevance of the topic is due to the growing role of digital humour in shaping public narratives and its transition from the everyday sphere to the academic one. Memes are increasingly becoming the subject of interdisciplinary research covering communicative, psychological, political, and educational dimensions. In Ukrainian context, interest in memes intensified after the start of full-scale war, when they became a means of mobilization, self-identification and overcoming fear. A review of publications from the last decade confirms the scientific legitimacy of memes as a subject of research. The aim of this article is to identify students’ perceptions of memes as an element of digital culture and to define the boundaries between their ‘everyday’ and ‘academic’ understanding. The empirical basis for the study was a survey of 86 students at Borys Grinchenko Kyiv Metropolitan University, conducted before the start of the course ‘Symbolic Communications: Memes, Emojis and GIF Culture.’ The questionnaire contained 12 questions — mostly closed-ended, as well as several open-ended questions for recording individual comments. The results showed that students primarily view memes as the “language of a generation” (43 %), but at the same time, a significant portion perceive them as “jokes circulating on the internet” (38 %) or simply “cool pictures” (14 %). Over 70 % of respondents use memes, emojis or stickers every day, but only 15 % identify themselves as active content creators. Most recognise the scientific potential of memes (61 %) and consider them relevant to education, albeit with a degree of self-irony. The most common taboo topics are war, religion, disease and violence. The findings confirm that for students, memes are simultaneously a means of self-expression, an educational resource and a social marker of digital culture, combining the serious and the ironic, the personal and the collective.