LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 25:6 June 2025
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Co-Editors & Publishers: Selvi M. Bunce, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate and Nathan Mulder Bunce, M.A., Ph.D. Candidate
Published monthly in honor of M.S. Thirumalai, Ph.D. (1940-2025)

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Remix Realities: The Cultural Codework of Photo-Based Memes in Malayalam

Dr. Muralikrishnan T.R.

Abstract

This study explores how photo-based internet memes - reaction photoshops, stock character macros, and photo fads - function as hypersignifying visual texts. By manipulating photographic realism and exaggerating cultural codes, these memes deconstruct social norms, disrupt temporal continuity, and engage digital communities in collective meaning-making through parody, remixing, and visual subversion.

Keywords: photo memes, hypersignification, photographic realism, digital participation, reaction photoshops, stock character macros, photo fads, visual parody

Introduction

Internet memes are dynamic, multimodal texts continuously reshaped by users across digital platforms. Unlike Richard Dawkins' original concept - memes as culturally replicating units similar to genes - today's internet memes are deliberately created, shared, and altered by online communities. While early memetics emphasized imitation and static transmission, contemporary scholarship views memes as evolving signs embedded within social and cultural contexts. Memes are not fixed instructions but variable, context-sensitive artifacts shaped by collective discourse.

Often low-resolution and visually unpolished, internet memes use humour and cultural references to foster group identity and enable discourse on sensitive topics, such as in support communities. Their accessibility, remixability, and symbolic resonance make them icons that strengthen group belonging. As such, internet memes function as enduring, participatory cultural artifacts embedded in the rhythms of digital life.

In the age of participatory digital culture, photo-based internet memes have emerged as potent visual artifacts that mediate, parody, and contest social realities. Genres such as reaction photoshops, stock character macros, and photo fads function not merely as sources of humour but as hypersignifying texts that deconstruct photographic realism and cultural scripting. Hypersignification is when we no longer "conceal the code", rather using the code itself as the punch line (Shifman 344). Drawing from inspiration from postmodern media theory, cultural studies, and performance sociology, this study investigates how these meme genres exaggerate, distort, and remix visual conventions to reveal the constructed nature of identity, time, and truth. Whether critiquing political figures like Shashi Tharoor, mocking ideological symbols like Che Guevara, or amplifying domestic rituals such as Onam festivities, memes encode cultural critique through mechanisms of visual irony, stereotype amplification, and pose repetition. These digital texts illuminate how image-based humour becomes a form of social commentary, shaped through collective authorship and ritualized interaction.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. Muralikrishnan T.R.
Professor, Department of English Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit Kalady Ernakulam, Kerala
mesmurali@gmail.com
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