Memes

I’m sure all of us have had those nights where we just can’t sleep and will do anything to keep yourself busy until you're finally ready to catch some Z’s. You might be stressed out before a test, and even though you’ve done all of the studying you can do, it is all you can think about. Personally, I have a test tomorrow and class all day today, so naturally I didn’t get an ounce of sleep last night. Spencer talks about how a lack of physical activity will increase emotions, like how one that sits there and plans revenge will come up with the most diabolical plan (kind of like Dicey). So there I am, an emotional ball of stress in my bed that is 110% focused on how I am going to fail my accounting exam. Naturally, the next course of action is to whip out my phone and look at memes until I am relaxed enough to maybe get some much-needed sleep.

I feel that memes elevate your mood late at night, just like stressing out for a test completely destroys it. Memes have become so popular because they focus on the broader audience and try to be relatable. They also demonstrate some of the theories of humor. Freud’s relief theory is present in the meme above. If you had this uber driver, you would probably be pretty scared, so the “no thanks, I’ll walk” is a relief of the tension. They also demonstrate spencer’s theory of descending Incongruity. The theory of descending incongruity is when something is expected to be great, but falls short (108). Hurston also demonstrates the theory of incongruity when Big Sweet beats up Nunkie. Nunkie hides away from Big sweet with Lonnie’s money and Big Sweet is threatening to kill Nunkie over it. Sop The Bottom says, “Big Sweet is two whole women and a gang of men-descending incongruity” (Hurston 282). This demonstrates descending incongruity as well as the absurd. It is absurd how a woman named “Big Sweet” is pummeling a con man like nunkie. The incongruity comes from Sop the Bottom’s immense description of Big sweet followed by a disappointing turn of events. This is also a funny situation because of Freud’s relief theory. In the relief theory, Freud claims that for something to be funny, you have to see yourself as the father figure and the others as your children. In this part of the play Big sweet plays the role of the father, and Nunkie is the child.