Reddit is a popular social media website with millions of users worldwide and has a controversial reputation due to its content moderation policies. This GKIS Sensible Parent’s Guide will provide what a parent needs to know about Reddit and offer some suggestions to help keep your children safe while using the website. We also recommend checking out the GKIS Social Media Readiness Training Course, which can help you teach your kids how to safely interact with any social media website.
How long has Reddit been around how popular is it?
Reddit is a hybrid internet forum and social news media website where users can post images, videos, and links to other websites, and other users can leave comments on the original post. As of February 2023, it’s the tenth most visited website on the internet with 4.8 billion monthly visits.[1] It was founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, and Aaron Swartz as a bulletin board-style website that would act as “the front page of the internet.”[2] In 2006, the website was acquired by the mass media company Condé Nast Publications, also known for magazine and news companies such as Vogue, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair.[3]
The website is divided into thousands of subreddits that organize posts by topic. Some subreddits cover broad topics, such as r/gaming for anything video game related, while others are more specific like r/minecraft or r/fortnite for those specific games. There are subreddits for news, relationship advice, political discussion, different hobbies, and nearly anything else you might expect to find on the internet. There are many subreddits dedicated to community support, like r/TwoXChromosomes for women’s rights and r/lgbt for LGBT issues.
Posts and comments on Reddit can be given upvotes and downvotes, which are similar to likes on Twitter or Facebook. Recent posts with multiple upvotes will be displayed at the top of the subreddit it was posted in. Posts with multiple downvotes are less likely to appear and will often be tagged as “controversial” by the website’s filter settings.
Getting Started with Reddit
The only thing Reddit requires to create an account is a valid email address. Reddit’s user agreement states that users need to be over the age of 13, but there is no age verification requirement besides a check box agreeing to the terms and conditions during account creation. Reddit has a mobile app that can be downloaded from the Google Play store or Apple App store, and can also be accessed from any web browser.
Benefits and Popular Features of Reddit
Custom Home Page
By default, the home page of Reddit shows the subreddit r/popular, which displays a variety of posts from a list of the most popular subreddits, with some restrictions related to political and adult-oriented subreddits.[4] Reddit users can also sort by r/all, which displays the top results from all subreddits on the website.
Reddit users can subscribe to specific subreddits they like, causing those subreddits to appear on their home page. Users can also subscribe to other user profiles so that they can see what another user posts no matter what subreddit it’s posted in. By doing so they can create a curated feed of content that relates to their interests.
Subreddits are mostly created by Reddit users and act as community forums for discussion and sharing media. They are run by moderators, who are users that set and enforce rules within each subreddit but are not paid employees of Reddit.[5] Reddit employees known as administrators only get involved in a subreddit if there are violations of the website’s terms of service and content policies.[6]
Community Events
Reddit is also known for having large community events on April Fools’ Day every year. In 2015, the subreddit r/thebutton was created, where a sitewide countdown clock could be reset by pushing a button, but each user could only push the button once.[7] In 2017 and 2022, Reddit ran an event called r/place where its community members could collaborate to create pixel artwork on a canvas where each user could only edit a single pixel every five minutes.[8]
Reddit’s Privacy and Safety Options
Reddit’s user settings and account creation process offer several options to protect yourself and your information while you use the website.
Anonymity
Reddit does not require any personal information besides an email address to create an account.
In its Safety & Privacy Settings, you can choose whether you want your profile to appear in search engine results from websites like Google or Bing.
Users can delete their posts, comments, or their entire account from their profile settings at any time.
Personal Information
Reddit collects personal information about its users but allows users to restrict what information is collected and how it is used in its Safety & Privacy Settings.
Reddit users can file a data request form to receive a copy of the data that has been collected from their account.
When an account is deleted, the username is removed from all posts and comments made by that account. However, the posts will still be publicly visible unless they are deleted before the account.
Chat and Private Messages
Users can choose whether they want to receive chat requests and private messages in their Chat Settings and can restrict messages from accounts less than 30 days old.
Users can also block individual user profiles, preventing that user from messaging them or sending chat requests.
Risks of Reddit
Adult-Oriented Content
Reddit has many subreddits dedicated to easily accessible adult content like pornography and graphic violence. Posts from these subreddits are marked as NSFW (internet slang for ‘Not Safe for Work’ or ‘Not Suitable for Workplace’) and excluded from r/popular and r/all.[4] Despite this, directly searching for adult content is only restricted by a check box below the search bar asking if you would like to include NSFW search results. Those results still appear if you select to hide NSFW posts in your user settings.
Additionally, the process for tagging NSFW content is only enforced by moderators, not site administrators. Inappropriate posts that contain nudity are automatically tagged, but ones that do not show explicit nudity can slip through the filtering process. Posts containing graphic violence are also often poorly moderated, and content from subreddits like r/fightporn (videos of street fights) and r/CombatFootage (GoPro videos of military conflicts) often make it to Reddit’s r/all page even if they show severe injuries or death.
Political Content and Hate Speech
Reddit has had many controversies surrounding the political subreddits on its website. In 2015, five popular hate speech subreddits targeting ethnic and gender minorities were banned for violating Reddit’s anti-harassment policies.[9] It banned the subreddit r/altright in 2017 after posts were made which called for the harassment of and leaked the personal information of a man who punched right-wing personality Richard Spencer.[10] Multiple political subreddits such as r/The_Donald, R/DonaldTrump, r/GenderCritical, and r/ChapoTrapHouse were banned under new policies designed to reduce hate speech in 2020.[11]
Despite these efforts, Reddit continues to have problems with hate speech and politically motivated harassment on its platform. While these bans remove the offending subreddits and all posts within them, the users who subscribed and made posts in those subreddits are rarely banned unless they directly violate terms of service. Users from the banned subreddits will often continue posting in other subreddits with similarly relaxed rules about hate speech and discrimination until it is banned as well.
Cyberbullying and Harassment
Reddit is a social media website with a high risk of cyberbullying and harassment. Because Reddit users are anonymous, there are few repercussions for directly sending another user harmful messages or unwanted explicit images. A user’s posts and comments are also publicly visible to all other users, which enables internet stalking behavior. While Reddit does have anti-harassment policies that can result in an offender’s account being banned, there’s little to prevent a banned user from creating another account to continue their harassment.[12]
GKIS Suggestions to Keep Your Kids Safe on Reddit
You can sign up for the GKIS Connect Family Screen Agreement, a free course that covers the basics of internet safety and keeping open communication between you and your kids about their internet use.
You can check out the GKIS Social Media Readiness Training course, which contains 10 lessons to help your teens and tweens get ready to responsibly use social media. It also provides access to the private GKIS Connected Family Facebook group, with tips and feedback from Dr. Bennett and other families who have taken the course.
There’s also the GKIS Screen Safety Toolkit, which is a parent’s guide to setting up parental controls, screen time management, social media & text monitoring, and other technological tools to keep an eye on how your kids use the internet.
Thanks to CSUCI intern Brandon Bishop for researching Reddit and preparing this GKIS Sensible Parent’s Guide.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
Through their quickly consumable content, TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter have made it increasingly easy to connect with people who have similar interests to you. While this helps people to find those like them, it may become dangerous when those interests are morbid. All over social media, you can find fan accounts and fan edits for the world’s most deadly serial killers. By connecting true-crime fans all over the world, social media has caused an emergence of teens who have a cult-like obsession with killers like Dahmer, Bundy, and Manson. Today’s article covers social media’s obsession with serial killers and how you can keep your child safe from digital injury with our GKISScreen Safety Toolkit.
Fandoms and The Rise of the “Stan”
A fandom is a group built around the shared interest or enjoyment of something in popular culture.[1] Since before the creation of the internet, people have gathered to meet and obsess over their common interests. The internet has simply made it easier to do so.
Fandoms provide a space for people to be themselves without judgment, leading to higher levels of self-esteem.[2] There is a term for those who are particularly obsessed, called “Stans.” A Stan is someone who is a mix between a stalker and a fan, someone who shows extreme fandom behavior to the point of excessiveness.[3]
Typically online, you can expect to see fandoms for pop culture groups like movies, TV shows, and musicians. However, with the rise in true crime popularity, a new subgroup has formed of “Stans” with a particular interest in serial killers and their victims. These Stans continually post videos of serial killer interviews edited to music, create fan accounts, and even write serial killer self-insert fanfiction where they are the victims.[4]
Social Media’s Role in Obsession
Social media thrives on content that can get lots of views and produce lots of likes, meaning that the more scandalous and salacious content is, the more likely it is to do well. The notifications from social media likes and comments trigger the reward center of our brain, releasing dopamine and making us feel good all over.[5] When users post content that is related to their fandoms, they get a rush of dopamine and that connection between fandom content and happiness causes them to post more and interact with the content more.
Social media has also created a world where content is readily available for consumption, meaning that people can see posts specifically tailored to their interests 24/7. This allows people to go from fans to superfans, spending their waking moments scouring the internet for posts related to their fandom. One Quora user shared their experience as an obsessive fan, “I’ve been addicted to a fandom for 7 years, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for that long. As per my personal experience, I got sucked into several fandoms due to over-engaging in social media. I over-identified with the idols and associated my own ego with that of their public image.”[6] This idolization of celebrities creates dangerous parasocial relationships that are only made further dangerous when one’s idol is a serial killer. To learn more about parasocial relationships, check out the GKIS article, “The Dangers of Online Parasocial Celebrity Relationships”.
When Does Harmless Become Harmful
It’s easy to brush off fandom behavior as nothing more than a phase one will grow out of. But when the obsession turns into something more it can become dangerous. Cody Ackland was a 24-year-old who grew up obsessed with Ted Bundy, an interest that no one paid much attention to until he attacked and murdered 18-year-old Bobbi Anne McLeod. Just hours before attacking McLeod, Ackland had searched for “Ted Bundy dead victim’s bodies” and “Ukrainian serial killer bodies” on the internet.[7]
Teens have become more and more desensitized to serial killers and true crime content, going so far as to make fan accounts as part of a big internet joke. When 23-year-old Peter Manfredonia was on the run from the police following a double murder he committed, teens on TikTok and Instagram began making fan accounts and posting meme comments to the killer’s personal Instagram page.[8] While the people running these accounts chalk up their actions to being a big joke, there is a large community of people who genuinely run fan accounts for notable serial killers.
Reddit user IkariMonster shared screenshots of several accounts from Twitter to a sub-Reddit, stating, “These teenagers worship and treat serial killers and school shooters like e-boys.”[9] In the screenshots, you can see several fan accounts treating serial killers Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and the Columbine Shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as though they were celebrities. In one post a teenage girl shares a selfie next to her bedroom wall, which is covered in photos of Dahmer with the caption, “I just thought I’d share cause I think my wall looks pretty [face with hearts emoji].” These accounts and posts are just one example of content and cult-like obsessive behavior that exists across multiple social media platforms.
The victims of these killers were people with friends and family and the pain they endured it absolutely horrendous. There is no reason that serial killers and mass murderers should be praised or celebrated for their actions. The creation of fan accounts and fandom content perpetrates further violence against the families of the victims and serves as a constant reminder of the pain they suffered. GKIS does not endorse this behavior. We are mortified by it and think it is destructive to kids and teens to be so callous and to celebrate violence in this way.
What Parents Can Do
Installing management tools for social media can help you in monitoring their internet behavior. If you would like help with this process, check out our GKISScreen Safety Toolkit made to help empower and provide parents with smart tech tools to filter, monitor, and manage online behavior.
Co-view the content your child interacts with; you can scroll together to choose what content they view and enjoy.
Make it known from the beginning the type of content that is acceptable for your child to view. We can help facilitate this healthy conversation with ourConnected Families Screen Agreement to help you work with your child to create a collaborative, living document.
Fast, entertaining content seems to be the only way to hold the attention span of today’s children and teens. This becomes an issue when virality becomes more important than the content being put out or the audience who will receive it. TikTok users have realized that they can quickly create a viral video by taking Reddit stories and resharing them over clips from popular video games like Minecraft, Roblox, and Subway Surfers. Today’s article covers why this content is dangerous and how you can keep your child safe from digital injury with ourScreen Safety Toolkit.
The Popularity of Minecraft, Roblox, and Subway Surfers
Minecraft
Between 2016 and 2021, Minecraft users have risen from 40 million to 93 million with a peak of 131 million users in 2020.[1] Surveys have found that up to 54% of boys and 46% of girls aged 3 to 12 play Minecraft.[2] The popularity of Minecraft is undeniable. Take a look down any aisle of children’s clothing and you will find item after item filled with popular references from the game. Covid-19 only increased the popularity of the online game accessible on most gaming consoles, with users increasing by 14 million from 2020 to 2021.[2]
Roblox
Roblox is another popular children’s game that has bankrolled off the pandemic and increased in users over the past few years. Between 2021 and 2020, the platform added more than 146 million users to its servers. In 2016, Roblox had 30+ million users. Today they have more than 202 million monthly active users.[3]
While the average user of Minecraft is 24 years old, only 14% of Roblox users are over 25 years old. 67% of Roblox users are under 16 years old, and 54.86% of users are under 13 years old.[3] The popularity of Roblox is reflected on TikTok through a large number of Roblox fan accounts owned by young users. In fact, there have been many audio trends on the platform that are accredited to edits by Roblox users.
Subway Surfers
While less popular than Minecraft and Roblox, Subway Surfers is still the most downloaded and most-played mobile game in the app store. Between 2021 and 2022, Subway Surfers saw more than 2 times the number of downloads with 5.43 million daily users.[4] These numbers are impressive, as, unlike Minecraft and Roblox, Subway Surfers is only available for download on mobile smartphones. It is not available on any other gaming platform. While there is no available data for the average age of Subway Surfer players, the game is recommended for ages 9 and up.
All three of these games are different in their gameplay but similar in their popularity and appeal to younger audiences. Videos made with clips from these games are sure to catch the attention of a younger audience who is trying to view content related to their interests.
Harmful Reddit Content and How They Use Kids’ Games
Reddit claims on its website to be “a network of communities where people can dive into their interests, hobbies, and passions.”[5] Users post on so-called “subreddits” dedicated to topics from the general to much more specific niches.
Today there are over 2.8 million subreddits and Reddit has 52 million users daily.[6] Of their monthly users, 79% are between the ages of 18 to 34 and almost 64% of those users are men.[7] When children encounter posts from Reddit, they are viewing material often made for and by adult men, leading to some very inappropriate content.
A simple search for “Reddit stories” on TikTok will show you video after video of Reddit threads overlaid with a video of someone playing a kid’s game and read by a voiceover. The threads contain content from various subreddits like “/AmITheAsshole” but most contain inappropriate “NSFW” (Not Safe for Work) content. A scroll down the search shows video after video of content with titles like, “My mom keeps having sex with my boyfriend…” or “What do you tell your partner when you’re horny?” or “What did you not know about sex until you lost your virginity?” The last question is from a Subway Surfers video with 1.6 million likes and 13.5 million views from a user with similar content and over 55.4 thousand followers.
The creators of these videos use the popularity of these kids’ games to bring more viewers to their content and help their virality. In doing so, they are promoting sex, adult situations, and overall unsafe content. Each of these videos is followed up by hundreds or thousands of comments from young kids and teens adding their own answers to the question proposed. A quick look at commenters’ profiles revealed that half were between the ages of 13 to 17, and each was commenting on their own sexual experiences to millions of viewers.
Set up content preferences and block out video keywords or put the account on restricted mode in the settings and privacy section of TikTok.
View an account’s watch and comment history and see what content your child is consuming and interacting with.
For younger children, consider waiting before allowing them to have their own TikTok account.
When they do adopt a TikTok account, scroll together to choose what content they view and influence the algorithm that will offer content automatically.
As your child gets older, work with them to establish what they are doing and looking at on social media. Preparing them for the possibility of adult content can help them in discovering it on their own and possibly suffering a digital injury.
If you fear your child may be watching inappropriate Reddit content without your knowledge and permission, check out our GKISScreen Safety Toolkit. This toolkit helps to empower parents and provides them with smart tech tools to filter, monitor, and manage online behavior.
To protect your child, prevent digital injury, and prepare them for social media use check out our GKIS Social Media Readiness Course.
Thanks to CSUCI intern, Katherine Carroll for researching how TikTok users use Reddit content and kids’ games for views.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
Our kids are able to find websites that are not recommended for minors. All parents must be aware of these listed websites so that their child will not be a victim of digital injury. Unlike apps, websites make it much easier for underage children to gain quick access to explicit content. GKIS will provide a brief description of the websites, dangers attached to the websites, and methods to prevent digital injury.
Websites to Look Out For
Parler
In our previous blog article, Parler the Free Speech App was covered as a social network platform focusing on the freedom of speech protected under the first Amendment and user’s rights privileges. An increase of conservative users arrived on the platform in the wake of feeling censored on Twitter. In a battle between liberal and conservative views, big tech censorship has become a public outrage sending users to Parler.
As for children, GKIS stands by our previous decided outcome of Parler not being appropriate for minors due to extreme views and lack of censorship. According to Google Trends, the analysis of popularity for search with interest over time (IOT) ranges from 0 to 100. From January 10th to 16th 2021, Parler had a 78 IOT.[8] With a high population usage and the ability to not fact-check user’s posts, children using the app would likely be exposed to false and conspiracy-laden content.
Onlyfans
One of our most-read articles of 2020, Is Your Teen Selling Nudes on Onlyfans?, explained the risks that on Onlyfans kids and teens may easily access pornographic content. Onlyfans is a social media platform meant for users to access a creator’s content that may provide sexual content to subscribers for a monthly payment. From February 21st to 27th 2021, Google Trends reports that Onlyfans had a 99 IOT.[8] According to Onlyfans terms of service, the user must be 18+. Still, there are reports of minors bypassing the age verification without parent knowledge.[1]
GKIS cautions that minors should not have access to Onlyfans due to leaked information, stalking, life-threats, unemployment risks, and family separation. If you worry that your child could become a victim of sexual exploitation, you will get huge benefits from Dr. Bennett’s weekly parent and family coaching videos on the GetKidsInternetSafe App! Your first 30 days are free!
Toomics
In this comic book subscription service, users can receive Japanese and South Korean comics on horror, romance, and action genres. The service does provide a family mode to exclude inappropriate content. However, children can enable or disable the mode without password requirement.
GKIS recommends monitoring this service or, even better, blocking it from your children entirely. There is a vast amount of sexual content and nudity on this service, including comic book sex scenes, incest, and rape. According to the Google Trends report, from February 7th to 13th 2021, Toomics reports an 85 IOT based on search popularity.[8]
Reddit
In 2005, Reddit grew to be the most popular forum website on the internet. But how safe is it for children? The service provides subreddits of vast topics into smaller ones (e.g., from r/books into r/horror stories or r/Stephen King). Subreddits are organized by moderators who are individuals who manage the forum. As of February 27th 2021, Google Trend reports Reddit as an 87 IOT.[8]
Reddit may not look dangerous, but it does have a high volume of not safe for work (NSFW) material that may be easily accessible to children who lie about their age upon entry into the site. Reddit can be used for searching, browsing, and messaging anyone or anything which obviously holds a high risk of digital injury. For more information on the signs and risks of digital injury, be sure to check out Screen Time in the Mean Time A Parenting Guide to Get Kids and Teens Internet Safe.
The Chive
The Chive’s mission statement is “an outlet for attractive ladies from around the world to strut their stuff.” Although intended to be funny, much of the content on this site demonstrates misogynistic views and a strong prejudice against women.
Google trends reports, The Chive has a 95 IOT from February 21st to 27th 2021.[8] GKIS considers this a red light service due to its raunchy and sexist humor. A study by Brown and L’Engle (2009) reported a significant finding that adolescents exposed to sexual content in media are more likely to engage in sexual harassment two years after watching the activity.[3]
DeviantArt
DeviantArt is an online social community where members share their artwork for critique and to build a fanbase. According to their website, DeviantArt has 55 million users and has a score of 92 IOT from February 21st to 27th 2021.[8] DeviantArt earned a red light GKIS rating because reviews report extremely violent and bloody works of art. Parents also report content involving cursing, insulting, stealing art, fetishes, and nudity on community posts.[4]
4Chan
This highly controversial (and GKIS-rated red light) forum had made headlines because of anonymous users posting nude photographs of dozens of celebrities, including Emma Watson. 4Chan users often endorse sexist ideologies against female gamers like the cyberbullying of Jessi Slaughter and discuss neo-Nazi radicalism.[5] Unlike Reddit, users are not required to form an account. Due to its anonymity, kids can easily participate in R-rated posts undetected and unmonitored.[5]
If you haven’t selected a child-safe browser or set parental controls on devices, through your internet service provider, or through third-party apps and services, you’ll want to check out our Screen Safety Toolkit. We did the research for you with this comprehensive how-to safety resource guide.
Tumblr
In our GKIS article “The GKIS Sensible Parent’s Guide to Tumblr,” we rated this social media platform as a yellow-light app due to sexual images and inappropriate content often displayed on member accounts. With over 30 million users and a score of 83 IOT as of February 14th to 20th 2021, this microblogging social platform is still quite popular.[8]
High-risk content includes self-harm, sexual content, eating disorders, and drugs. There are also reports of sex offenders using the website to incite sexual conversations with children. We stand by our previous decision to recommend parents closely monitor their teen’s activities within the website.
Pornographic Websites (NSFW)
A popular website used for viewing pornographic content like photos, videos, and live streams is PornHub. To learn more about how porn impacts our kids and teens, read our GKIS article “Online Pornography’s Impact on Kids and Teens.” We previously reported that 13% of internet searches are found to access pornography. Due to increased access, that percentage has increased to 20% on the computer and mobile internet browsers.[6]
Fight The New Drug is a non-profit organization trying to reduce porn addiction and set regulations for the porn industry. In 2020, they reported that PornHub’s popular searches were “lesbian,” “teen,” “stepmom,” “mom,” “step-sister,” “hardcore,” “gangbang,” and “rough sex.”[7] Further, the average age for first exposure to hardcore pornography has been estimated to be 11 years old.[7]
GKIS highly recommends that parents add pornography websites onto their restricted website list in parental controls. The website Top Porn Sites can help you block them in child-safe browsers.
Hide it Pro
We would all love to believe that we can trust our kids not to search out, post, and collect inappropriate content online. But sadly, we just can’t. Kids and teens often delight in discovering and sharing titillating and forbidden content and hide it from parents. We cover how to check for apps that hide content in our Screen Safety Toolkit and Dr. B covers it in her coaching sessions on the GetKidsInternetSafe App. To get you started with safety, check all devices for Hide it Pro, a particularly popular hiding app.
Set up content restrictions on tablet and phone devices.
On iOS products, Apple has designated a method for parents to limit adult websites for their safety. Follow these steps:
Go to Settings > Screen Time
Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions and enter your Screen Time passcode
Tap Content Restrictions, then tap Web Content
Choose Limit Adult Websites, and Tap Never Allow: Add Website[9]
In this section, you can add each of the listed above websites to protect your child.
Google has designated parents’ methods to limit adult websites for their child’s safety on Android products. Follow these steps:
Open Settings
Tap Digital Wellbeing
Tap Parental controls > tap Get started
Select Parent
Tap Get Family Link and install Google Family Link for parents
Tap Open (review the information) > tap Get started
Use the on-screen instructions on both phones to finish connecting the two devices. Once it’s all set up, you can use the Family Link app to keep an eye on everything[10]
Thanks to CSUCI intern, Christian Sandoval for locating harmful websites that parents should restrict minors from interacting.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
Onward to More Awesome Parenting,
Tracy S. Bennett, Ph. D.
Mom, Clinical Psychologist, CSUCI Adjunct Faculty
GetKidsInternetSafe
[3] Brown, J. D., & L’Engle, K. L. (2009). X-rated: Sexual attitudes and behaviors associated with U.s. early adolescents’ exposure to sexually explicit media. Communication Research, 36(1), 129–151.
Memes are addictive and trashy, but that doesn’t stop an entire generation of people using and abusing them at any given time. The number of times I have tried to have a conversation over text with my brother and only received memes as answers is ridiculous. In fact, if I had a dollar for every meme that was sent my way, I’d be a debt-free woman. While memes appear pointless and mindless, parents can use them to manipulate their kids into doing homework and chores around the house. How you ask? All it takes is some knowledge about the dankest of memes, and you too shall become a meme lord.
What is a meme?
A meme is a highly shareabledigital image with a witty tagline. They are appealing, because they can be funny, clever, sarcastic, or simply tap into an unspoken but relatable concept. For example, some of my favorite memes are the ones that reference what it is like to have siblings, like the meme of a guy with an arrow through his head, captioned, “I’m sorry, you’re fine, please don’t tell mom.” Every time this tired meme pops up on Instagram, I have to share it. Memes not only offer personal entertainment, they are also a proven way to connect effortlessly to others.
The History of Memes
Believe it or not, memes were not birthed from the Internet! According to Britannica (2019), Richard Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist, was the first to propose the concept of “memes” in his 1976 work The Selfish Gene. In a recentinterview with Vice (2018), Dawkins defined a meme as “the cultural equivalent of a gene,” meaning that, in the same way genes are passed down from person to person, memes culturally spread through the population. By his definition, cultural phenomena like fashion, slang, and fads can all be considered memes, as well as the traditional image with a caption that we see circulating social media today.
Dawkins’ ideas are elegantly illustrated with today’s dank memes(memes that are overused and overhyped) — for example the “free real estate” and the “salt bae” meme.
Salt bae: CNBC (2018) reported that the man behind the salt bae meme is Nusret Gokce, a chef and restaurant owner who became a viral sensation for the way he dramatically sprinkles salt on the steaks he’s prepared for guests. Since an Instagram video of him performing this action went viral, Gokce’s salt bae has become a dank meme and gets used for anything that is perceived as extra or snobbish.
Check out Gokce performing this amazing meme here.
Free real estate: This meme originated from the TV show, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!which aired on Cartoon Network’s late night TV Adult Swim. This hilarious sketch is in the form of a commercial in which Tim and Eric are desperately trying to convince a man named Jim to move into a free house. It ends with a close up shot of Tim whispering the timeless line, “It’s free real estate.”
In his YouTube video, “What makes a meme go viral?” Hank Green (2017) attributes the popularity of memes to the bandwagon effect. The bandwagon effectis when people join in on a trend or belief simply because others have told them to. Social media is a great way to increase the popularity of a meme, because it enables us to share them with the world. When someone finds a meme that they adore, they share it with anyone who will find it funny, usually with a caption like, “OMG you have to see this!”
Hank (2017) elaborates that a meme going viral depends on how extreme of an emotion it elicits in us. The more outrageous a meme, the more likely we are to share it. In my opinion, this also has to do with how nostalgic a meme’s content is. For example,the popular meme that features a clenched fist from the popular TV show Arthur can be used for a plethora of situations but is mainly used to elicit subtle levels of frustration and anger.
In my opinion, the reason this meme became such a viral sensation is the feelings of nostalgia it brought to millennials. I adored the TV show Arthur as a child, and every time this meme pops up on my Instagram discover page, it brings back memories from when I was small and cute.
The Most Insane Viral Memes
To become a meme lord, you must be familiar with these iconic memes.
Success Kid: In 2010, an image of a cute little baby at the beach clenching his fist began circulating the Internet. This image is usually used when something awesome happens that was unexpected. Check out its history here.
Distracted Boyfriend: The distracted boyfriend meme was discovered on Shutterstock, a site that houses royalty free images. Its appeal is self-explanatory.
World Record Egg: This is by far one of the most ridiculous things to have happened at the beginning of 2019. It all began when an account on Instagram wanted to see if a photo of an egg could
gain more likes than one of Kylie Jenner’s photos, which had 18 million likes. As of today, the great egg on Instagram has over 53 million likes and 9.9 million followers. This then sparked a series of memes with the captions, “Can this meme get more likes than the Kylie Jenner baby pic?”
Check out their Instagram to keep up-to-date on the hunt for the egg! @world_record_egg. Check out these amazing memes here.
Need more memes, because that just doesn’t feel like enough? Frequentknowyourmeme.com to maintain your newly-acquired meme lord status. You won’t be sorry.
How GKIS Parents Can Become Meme Lords
As the popularity of memes has rapidly risen over the last few years, it’s evident that memes are here to stay. Many people and workplaces are now using them to their advantage. Teachers are using them as motivational tools when they’re grading papers, and workplace managers post them in employee break rooms as funny motivational tools.
Mom, Dad – you too can be a meme lord! Not only can you bring humor into your everyday chore assignments, but you can mortify your kids for being quicker in-the-know than they are!
For example, use them as motivational and study tools when helping kids with homework. There is an entire genre of memes dedicated to random facts. These are known as WTF facts and include some fantastic information that you usually wouldn’t learn in a classroom. Of course, fact check. You can’t believe everything you read on the Internet. Kids love them! My younger brother will spend hours looking at these memes, especially the history ones.
What sites will help GKIS parents become meme kings and queens?
If you can’t find what you’re looking for, make one! Believe it or not, making memes is as simple as pulling up free design sites/apps like Canva or Imgur. Remember, if it doesn’t cause immediate laughs, then it’s probably not a meme!
Dr. Bennett founded GKIS as a service for parents looking to have more fun with their kids, which means joining them where they’re at. Become a meme lord to lighten up, have fun, and encourage mutual meme sharing with your goofy brood. If your kids are younger than eleven, they’ll be in awe of you. If their tweens or teens, you’ll get a mortified eye roll – which Dr. Bennett says is “the best you’re gonna get outta teens.” haha.
Thank you to CSUCI intern, Kassidy Simpson for providing parents with information they need to help become as meme savvy as their kids. Need more support to get Internet savvy and partner with your kids instead of lecture them? You’ll love our GKIS Connected Family Online Course. Designed to help parents lighten up and have fun with their kids while improving screen safety, you’ll see why Dr. B’s kids say she’s “the fun mom.”
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
Thanks to CSUCI intern, Katherine Carroll for researching social media and serial killer obsession.
