2016 was universally a pretty crazy year. We have exclusionary and bigoted rhetoric legitimized in the West, a controversial war on drugs in the Philippines, a staggering death toll in Syria, an impeached South Korean president, and the untimely passing of pop culture icons like Carrie Fisher. What the year did bless us with, however, apart from new Beyoncé and Gaga albums (YAAAAS), is an abundance of memes to help us grapple with the chaos 2016 relentlessly piled on our fragile minds. Yes, memes. While “studying” in my university library, I often find myself mindlessly scrolling through memes on Instagram and Facebook. For many, sifting through hordes of these posts has become as regular as checking for new WhatsApp messages. It’s about time we sit down and evaluate why memes are so addictive to begin with.

They are ridiculously relatable.

It’s safe to say that there are memes out there for everybody, whether you are a wine-chugging single mom of two or a procrastinating high school student. In particular, the latter half of 2016 gave birth to a slew of memes featuring Kermit the Frog in a face-to-face confrontation with his evil, hooded alter ego. This pair quickly became the icon for anything that has to do with giving in to our temptations, ranging from breaking a diet to sleeping with someone who’s off-limits. Kermit’s new meme depicts a literal reflection of the self, but most of the time, all memes actually aim to mirror different aspects of our lives, no matter how mundane. I often find myself chuckling at the surprising discovery that yes, I am not the only person in the world that thinks about eating pizza and mozzarella sticks in church. (Yes, that was a meme).

They bring people together.

My dictionary defines memes as “a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by Internet users.” And no, this ‘spread’ isn’t just the casual, impersonal click of a button. When I moved to Singapore from my hometown of Manila, I initially found it difficult to keep in touch with old friends from high school who likewise traveled to other corners of the globe for college—that was, until the recent explosion of memes. My close friends and I rarely keep in touch via long, thorough conversations on Skype. And yet, it’s hard to feel the distance when we’re constantly tagging each other in memes that make us nostalgic about our stupid high school days. The best ones always involve smuggling food into a classroom or being the only sober ones at a party. Ensue the comment: “LOL that’s so us”.

They keep up with the times.

One of the reasons memes will never get boring is that they constantly renew according to real-time political or social contexts. As a result, some of the most pressing moments of 2016 could momentarily be viewed in a humorous and (almost) positive light. When Donald Trump was officially announced as the President-Elect of the United States, social media outlets were flooded with memes featuring the adorable bromance between President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, where the latter would be depicted as hilariously petty and/or sentimental. Harmless jokes about Melania Trump’s infamous plagiarism also emerged, albeit alongside problematic slut-shaming judgments about her background. Netizens all across the world were soaking these up with glee—this was the Internet’s way of coping. While seemingly trivial, memes are artifacts of pop culture that can both reflect and impact the sentiments of their viewers. Memes are intricately connected to both banal and essential day-to-day happenings, packaging the otherwise neglected realm of politics (and other things that require brainwork) into bite-sized pieces for the general public to enjoy and share.

They remind you to take yourself less seriously.

Perhaps most importantly, as a combined by-product of all of the aforementioned factors, memes can heal—even if in just the most superficial ways. I find myself drawn to memes that tap into some of the most relatable flaws: being unable to finish work on time, failing to resist sending that f*ckboy another text, and sometimes, not being able to get up in the morning because life can feel a bit overwhelming sometimes. These simple photo-caption bundles remind me that there are people out there who go through similar motions in life, albeit to varying degrees. It’s the solidarity endowed by all this Facebook tagging that puts a transient Band-Aid on the internal chaos. Memes provide the space for us to laugh through the pain, or at the very least, concretize the struggles that we never bothered to caption before. So as 2017 steps into the picture, I look forward to getting distracted from my study time by tags in more posts about gaining weight over the holidays and not having anyone to kiss on New Year’s Eve.

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Grammy nominations for 2017 have just been unveiled, and as expected, Adele’s record-breaking 25 is a key frontrunner for a number of major accolades, including the coveted Album of the Year. With two consecutive albums each selling more than 20 million copies across the world, Adele is by far the most successful musical act in the past four years. Gone are the days when popular culture revolved around Katy Perry and her cotton candy wig from “California Gurls” or Lady Gaga emerging from an egg-mobile in the Grammys of 2011. These aesthetic stunts, while once seen as creative and revolutionary in the peak of social media, have quickly been cast aside in favour of what can best be termed as “realism.” Adele does not use over-the-top outfits and blatant sex appeal to top the charts—the realness of her melancholia and the powerful nuance in her voice are enough. Adele is not the only artist to embrace this low-key mode of performance to achieve mainstream success. Previously outrageous icons have shifted to “going real” in response to this emerging trend. In a promotional teaser for PRISM in 2013, Katy Perry is depicted burning her iconic pink wig, favouring a darker and apparently more “natural” image. Even Lady Gaga, a once-renowned provocateur, has decided to channel sartorial simplicity for her latest full-length album, Joanne, which unusually delves into the personal details of the icon’s family and past. The theatrical, electronic glitz and glam of Gaga’s earlier efforts have faded along with her meat dress. In essence, there is nothing inherently wrong with this movement to a more subdued aesthetic in pop music (although, I’ll admit that I’m quite bored with the scene right now). There are a number of valid reasons for why someone might dislike all the theatricality. After all, the costumes and the convoluted video plots can make it difficult to take a musician seriously, and may distract from the product core—the music. What is problematic, however, is the prevalent perception that having a toned-down aesthetic means that an artist is more authentic.

A SUPERFICIAL DEFINITION OF SUPERFICIAL

It is common to degrade personalities as pandering or superficial when they have “too much going on.” To some extent, there is indeed most likely a deliberate marketing effort behind these outsized looks and antics—what is seen as shocking or controversial normally garners media attention. At the same time, however, to suggest that all aesthetic elements are merely gimmicky add-ons creates a false dichotomy, whereby “internal” qualities are considered real and true while “external” features are inauthentic distractions. In actual practice, the lines between internal and external are much blurrier than these criticisms entail. Visual theatricality can easily be a valid expression of an artist’s interiority—the external can be a reflection of the internal, not necessarily a distraction. Lady Gaga’s infamous meat dress, while plausibly meant to get the cameras rolling, is also likely to be a valid expression of artistic intent. In previous interviews, Gaga has referred to fashion as a long-held childhood passion, and has attempted to interweave visual art with music through her creative sartorial choices. As a big fan since the advent of her mainstream success in 2009, I can attest that her seemingly bizarre outfit choices are never really arbitrary. Different looks are tailored for specific album arcs—for instance, the garish, yellow-blonde wig Gaga wore throughout The Fame Monster era references Marilyn Monroe as a doomed starlet, tying in with the EP’s thematic focus on the trappings of fame.

PRETENSION CAN GO BOTH WAYS

Even without all the costumes and theatrics, icons like Adele still run with an aesthetic nonetheless. She has a professional makeup artist, a competent publicist, and a tailored social media presence—the supposed everyday woman is no stranger to the marketing pap the pop music universe demands. Adele still has a fine-tuned exterior to display, albeit a subdued and unsurprising one. Her mature, introspective image—while not necessarily inauthentic—is still a partially manufactured one that keeps its audience in mind. True authenticity doesn’t have a face, and the same arguments about being “real” can be made against icons who don’t wear lobsters on their heads. I’m sure we all have that one friend who is devoted exclusively to indie music, refusing to listen to that new Beyoncé track because pop music is supposedly full of sell-outs. In truth, all art forms are performative, and it is no longer productive to ask ourselves whether an artist seems ‘real’ or ‘fake.’ That grungy underground guitarist who vigorously shakes his head while strumming is performing just as much as Nicki Minaj twerks on stage. By limiting our impression of what is real to the the type of “look” a public persona conveys, we are essentially shaming and muting particular modes of expression without bothering to understand what makes that character human.

LOOKING BEYOND THE “INSIDE VERSUS OUTSIDE” NARRATIVE

Outside of the music world, this problematic mindset can be seen in everyday life. Women who wear a full face of makeup everyday are often ridiculed for hiding their “true self” behind a superficial mask. In contrast, those who go for the more “natural” or unpolished look tend to be positively associated with realness. Both aesthetics, in fact, are equally valid modes of self-expression, and the act of denigrating one as superficial is superficial in and of itself. It goes without saying that some images are louder than others, but that doesn’t mean they should be confronted differently. Whether they are global superstars or everyday netizens, people should have the social agency to portray themselves with whatever aesthetic they choose. The “outside” is not always meant to hide or distract from the “inside”—both are integral facets that construct a human persona. In her music video for “Million Reasons,” Lady Gaga trades the otherworldly outfits and theatrical murder plots for a black t-shirt and denim shorts. She later explains the simplicity of her approach as an attempt to strike a more “human connection” with her fans. But ultimately, with or without the costumes and bling, Gaga has always been human (her early material has some pretty deep stuff), and the onus shouldn’t be on her to tell the world that. We, as listeners, should strive to avoid confining entire identities to what our eyes see. There is definitely more beyond that. Top Image Credit

In psychology, it is a basic tenet that human beings are social creatures who crave a sense of belonging. Common sense would seem to confirm this—regardless of introversion, much of our identity is still built on the relationships we forge and the people we care about. For many of us, our most precious memories do not begin and end with ourselves in isolation. Even then, amidst the noise and chatter of the crowd, it is inevitable to feel the pangs of loneliness. In Singapore, the superficial hyper-exposure endowed by social media and the fast-paced movements of a career-oriented society can easily drown out opportunities for intimacy. People are now only one WhatsApp message away, and yet, they have never felt more distant in the overwhelming sea of heartless noise that all millennials swim through. Especially if you are newly single or are constantly on the move, it is easy to fear the encroaching threat of solitude and the emptiness we commonly associate with it. To counter its onset, it seems instinctive to latch on to the closest friend at ungodly hours or hopelessly stalk a fantasy crush on Facebook. However, these approaches can lead to attachment issues, especially when our needy outbursts go unreciprocated. Personally, I can attest to the struggle of being seen as the “clingy” one in all of my relationships. As Singapore becomes increasingly individualistic, perhaps we should embrace solitude every now and then, crafting an identity that can stand strong even in the absence of others. Here are some simple strategies that I have adopted to cope with loneliness:

GO ON SELF-DATES

It’s the weekend and you have no social plans, but you still don’t want to drown in self-pity alone in your room. The perfect solution (if you have the budget to spare, that is): go out and treat yourself to a movie, complete with over-salted popcorn and the soothing darkness of a chilly cinema house. Coming from the distant and inaccessible suburbs of the Philippines, I can attest to the fact that Singapore makes it extremely easy for such spontaneous outings late at night. Watching a movie, having a meal at a restaurant—these activities are often reserved for “date nights” or other collective affairs. There is a certain stigma that comes with showing up to public spaces with no one to show for because it implies the lack of friends or perhaps even a snobbish attitude. But doing so doesn’t have to be depressing. Over time, confidently stepping out alone—even for casual walks down a silent neighbourhood—encourages you to appreciate yourself as someone truly worth spending time with.

TALK TO YOURSELF

This past semester, I took it upon myself to enroll in a Creative Nonfiction module. What started out as a mere venture of curiosity evolved into a new medium through which I could converse with and understand my deepest thoughts. I challenged myself to bluntly tell stories about my insecurities, even those that I have long since been terrified to outwardly confront. Writing is the perfect avenue for not only expressing yourself, but for also engaging yourself at a deep level. It enables you to organise your complex emotions, and preserves this mental struggle on a page that you are free to either share or keep to yourself for further reflection. Of course, writing isn’t the only mode of simulating a conversation with yourself. Film yourself while in a stream of consciousness, stage a self-interview, or even talk to your reflection. At the end of the day, keeping yourself updated on your own emotions and motivations helps you find comfort in the person behind the mirror, making you less dependent on some saviour to swoop in and save the day.

FIND THE PERFECT DISTRACTION

However, these two tactics can be stressful, particularly for those unaccustomed to throwing themselves into a state of isolation. It is only human to feel the need for company when it is least available to you, and no amount of time spent getting used to yourself may be able to alleviate that desire. In times like these, there is nothing wrong with immersing yourself in a different world as a momentary distraction. Pick up a new show on Netflix, re-read the Harry Potter series, get lost in Game of Thrones fan threads on Reddit—these sources of entertainment can give you a much-needed break from bouts of neediness and overthinking that can sometimes feel a bit too real to handle. It’s easy to condemn these one-off methods as superficial ones that merely “avoid the problem,” but let’s face it—we all need distractions every now and then to cope with pain in the moment. As an added bonus, you’re less likely to get bored! Living in a residential college for the past few years, I’ve learned that it’s important to navigate my social life with balance in mind. College students are prone to teetering between undying devotion to their social groups and shutting themselves off for self-care. After gradually coming to terms with my inevitable solitude, I found it much easier to strike a middle ground between these two extremes. Nonetheless, it is never easy to go against the social grain in public or scribble out personal thoughts that make you uncomfortable—the art of loneliness takes practice, and contentment only comes with time.