SHILLONG, March 13: Divided by borders, languages and ideologies, united by memes, reads the cover illustration of Shillong FTW Facebook page.
Shillong FTW along with other social media handles such as Shillong Sarcasm Society highlight issues from the region and allows netizens to express their views on government policies through memes.
Members of Shillong FTW, which has more than 45,000 followers and 23,200 followers on Instagram, seeking anonymity, said, “We have been successful in captivating netizens because memes are a source of the most sought after dopamine rush. They allow users to sit back and laugh after a stressful day at work.”
Though meme-makers from the region have spared nobody, they recently slammed the National People’s Party-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance government with their creative memes on load-shedding.
As Shillong continues to reel under load-shedding, a meme showcasing a screenshot of the movie Lion King, expressing people’s woes was widely shared.
The meme depicted Simba’s conversation with his father Mufasa. It read, “Simba: Dad what’s that dark place out there beyond the light. Mufasa: Its Meghalaya son. They are in Stage 2 load-shedding.”
Another meme, which went viral said, “Some famous people you must know before you die- Father of Nation: Mahatma Gandhi, Father of Computer: Charles Babbage, Father of Economics: Adam Smith, Father of Electricity: Michael Faraday, Father of Load shedding: James Sangma.”
Apart from load-shedding, politicians have also been slammed on poor road conditions, reimbursement of 95 per cent of taxes for civil servants and coal mining.
They said, “We create awareness about social issues and try to provide a platform for users to talk about social issues with a dash of humour.”
A meme usually is an image, video or piece of text, which is typically humorous in nature. It is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations.
They have become a part of our popular culture and people prefer to communicate through memes instead of holding protests and rallies holding placards as they can reach out to more people in a shorter span of time.
People share their responses through comments and messages, the meme-makers said.
They also said that although their memes are innately satirical, they do implant elements of their opinions in accordance with the context of the meme, adding they fancy themselves as educators sometimes, but they try to not stray too far from the primary objective of the page.
“Memes also allows us to relate to other people. For example, we have all had teachers who cracked jokes to make lessons interesting,” the members said.
