Fifteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The shift from oral to written speech is found in different types of communication. The same thing happens now with pictures, since oral tradition on the Internet functions as online orality. The Internet is undoubtedly a new habitat for creating folklore that should not go unnoticed. The of this paper is to study the use of these images, known as “memes”, as a form of communication among young people through the current COVID-19 pandemic with the help of quantitative research. A web-based questionnaire will be posted targeting the 18 to 35 year-old age-group to study their function during this period of public health crisis. I will be studying two pages on Facebook and Instagram, namely “The Real Ancient Memes” and “Mimidia in Greek”, which are the most visited by young people in Greece. Also, communication with the creators of these pages will be attempted in order to conduct interviews on the source of their inspiration and creation of these images as well as the pages. It is common on social media to post pictures with paintings and sculptures of antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and other periods of history, with the simultaneous use of dialogue within the image, which is very much like a comic book. These jokes are written with a kind of humour that sometimes involves indiscretion in order to create laughter. These texts refer to various aspects of daily life, including customs and celebrations of the yearly cycle.