FEATURES OF THE INTERNET MEME

Abstract

The article analyzes one of the Internet communication tools that has recently become widespread on social networks – the Internet meme. An Internet meme is a unique communicative unit consisting of a two-level structure: linguistic (verbal) and visual (graphic), which is the creation of network users, offering a certain subtext to the online community. The work describes the path of its origin and development, and also studies the ideas developed in scientific works. Taking into account the media nature of Internet memes and distinguishing them
from other types of online messages, the factors influencing their rapid spread and popularization are determined. It is shown that this depends on its quality and competitiveness. It is clear that creating such an Internet meme requires considerable effort on the part of the author: the Internet meme must be creative, interesting, and its idea must be fresh and original. In this regard, it was concluded that some memes «live» on the network for a long time, others are forgotten the next day, others are even ignored, and others are suddenly «reborn» thanks to a random user.