Exploring: The anatomy of meme-worthy content

Irrespective of whether you are an influencer or a brand, creating meme-worthy content can go a long way to help increase your reach.

What translates a piece of content into a meme or better yet, a meme template? What makes it meme-worthy content? If you were to look at popular and successful instances of memes breaking through the surface of your feeds and stopping you mid-scroll, you will find that there are certain markers that make them appealing. Here, we explore a few.

Punch line ready

One of the most casually spoken dialogues in 2019, at least to those who follow Bollywood and understand Hindi, was 'Mar Jayenga Tu'. It became viral ever since the movie's (Gully Boy) trailer released. The lesson to learn from its success is how a punch line can go a long way in making your content meme-worthy.

'Ja Simran Ja, Jee Le Apni Zindagi' and 'Ye Haath Mujhe Dede Thakur' are two old and popular examples in the same genre. Such lines have an evergreen quality to them, a classic way to remain relevant and memorable for years to come.

Essential moments

Even when your content is something people wait for, you need to serve them something they can own. The idea is to create a ripple effect that goes a long way to influence people and spark their creativity. Another aspect is to help them feel and express.

'Love you 3000' from Avengers: Endgame is one such example that created waves for being an essential moment people could connect with, call their own. Across social media, people used it to express love to people they love and create memes, essentially content.

Also Read: Meme – the new marketing language!

Template possibilities

All meme formats are templates that became famous as people started replicating them. The phenomenon takes into account that people love to participate and create original content. All they need is a piggyback to stay in the game and contribute to the movement.

A successful example of this can be seen in Bharatiya Janata Party's #JantaMaafNahiKaregi campaign that went live before the 2014 elections. It was easy to speak, came with faces and became an easy avenue for people to share their woes in a funny manner.

High-degree polysemy

One of the most essential traits of a meme-worthy content template is that it should have a high degree of polysemy possibilities. The distracted boyfriend meme format, for example, keeps making an appearance on our feeds at regular intervals, in different contexts.

The premise of the picture is simple — there is a man who is whistling at another woman and upsetting his girlfriend in the process. The polysemy here is that while the man is the protagonist, there are two other entities in the picture, one that he has and another that he desires for. The polysemy of this situation is high and can be used to portray a variety of expressions — adding to the value and longevity of the meme.

Common meme resonance

#JCBKiKhudai was perhaps the most mind-boggling meme template of 2019. No one is sure as to how it started (there are quite a few assumptions though). However, everyone seemed sure it was a recipe to success for it resonated so well with the common people. This is the most important aspect to get something viral the meme way — find something that appeals to and is inclusive of the lowest common denominator.

Dissecting the anatomy of meme-worthy content gives us an understanding of what has the potential to go viral or out of the million things that are already viral how can you best leverage them.