Pattern-Seeking Brain Monkey & You

a depth model for meme analysis

This meme is in 3-D:

when your eyes first fall on the post, you read “Evolution can you give me…” left to right. Then, you read the four panels from top to bottom. These two kinds of reading, width and length, are clear enough.

But a third kind of reading also happens, which goes from shallow to deep. You see the photograph in the fourth panel, which isn’t quite aligned, and the text in the first panel, which is in a different font. Each of these elements has been added on top of something that was already there. You see the original and you see the new additions, the riffs on the basic form, and the reinterpretations of an older theme.

This third kind of reading, which moves between layers of interpretation and reinterpretation, is what memes really bring to the table that is different and fresh.

Layer One: The Four-Panel Meme

The bottom layer of the “pattern-seeking brain” meme — the cross which creates four panels — calls back to Rage Comics, the 2000s and 2010s early meme tradition…