Memes can be fun! When created with responsibility and forethought, memes can also be a visually appealing medium to drive home a point using logic or humor, educating and delighting with the brevity of a picture more efficiently than an essay or video ever could. However, unfortunately, too many "informative" memes posted today in the netherworld of social media are, at best, half-truths not fully vetted, using tenuous or disemboweled logic to the extent that reasonable, thoughtful people simply move on to the next post. However, some memes are so absurd, so fatuous, and incomprehensible that even this author takes pause and, when the meme emphasizes a political point to which blind acquiescence can result in great harm to the greater public welfare, it's time to sharpen the daggers.
Unobjective, misleading or outright false memes being shared from one person to another is not the exclusive domain of only one political point-of-view. For instance, a meme shared on social media by more than one friend claimed that Donald Trump told People Magazine in 1998 that "If I were to run (for President), I'd run as a Republican. They're the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe everything on Fox News. I could lie and they'd still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific." When this author and others pointed out this meme (despite its plausibility) was blatantly false, even citing research, the memes remained on their social media pages.
Another blatantly false post (not quite a meme) shared by more than one person on the Left was from an obvious parody account on Twitter of someone pretending to be ZM Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands (replete with a crown icon right next to the name!) that said, "Dear mister Trump. You see this beautiful building? It's the International Court of Justice in Our residency The Hague, the Netherlands. It's waiting for you. It might take a while. But it's waiting..." The absurdity of an actual king of a first-world country posting such a message alone, to say nothing of the grammar (None of the original punctuation or capitalization- or lack thereof- of the faux post was altered by me) should have alerted most would-be post sharers, but when this writer told a friend who shared this on their social media page of its dubious origins, the response was, "Oh, well!" The post stayed.
However, it has been this author's experience that the majority of misleading, thoughtless posts come from the Right and the post that particularly made me pause was the following, which I guess is supposed to offer some type of commentary on press bias or something. Let's break down this simple meme, listing some of the problems with it:
1. Timing: The statistics (more on the veracity of these numbers in a moment) presented are virtually worthless, for they compare numbers for the United States near the end of the H1N1 virus pandemic to those at the onset of COVID-19. Doing this to demonstrate some type of proportion to make a statement on press bias is intellectually dishonest, as no one could guess the final statistics of the corona virus at the time the meme was first crafted at or around March 10, 2020.
2. Lack of Logic: Presenting statistics that mathematically show the lethal potency of the very pandemic you're trying to downplay is rather myopic. Highlighting numbers that demonstrate a fatality rate of only .0003695 for the pandemic you're trying to emphasize and then right above that offer numbers showing a fatality rate of 6.7% for the pandemic you're trying to minimize seems rather counterproductive to the point you're trying to make.
3. Panic Level, Part I: The quote "Swine flu sickened 57 million Americans," offered by the meme's creator to demonstrate that, during a pandemic, NBC News and other biased news agencies were using minimalist language to protect the Obama Administration, demonstrates nothing. The quote in question was the headline of an online article that, in its body, gave a simple recitation of statistics and was not intended at all to be a definitive statement on either the public's or the media's attitudes on the H1N1 pandemic. (Also, the sentence itself, when standing on its own, is not minimal at all. Just read it in this paragraph, outside the context of the meme.)
4. Panic Level, Part II: The panic level of "Totally chill" during the H1N1 pandemic (although this assertion is not true- there are numerous stories that survive detailing public anxiety) versus the "Mass hysteria" at the onset of COVID-19 can also be explained in part by knowledege that, unlike the Obama Administration, it is understood by a majority of Americans that the current administration is totally incompetent and in way over their heads. Time has certainly borne this out. Just suggesting this as a possibility.
5. Panic Level, Part III: Highlighting the quote "Swine flu sickened 57 million Americans" is pointless for another reason. Is the meme's creator attempting to imply that, of all press coverage of the H1N1 virus circa 2009-10, there were no more foreboding quotes or headlines than this? For a hilarious three minutes of right-wing media using minimalist language to downplay COVID-19, please do a YouTube search for The Daily Show's video "Saluting the Heroes of the Coronavirus Pandumbic," posted April 3, 2020.
6. Bogus Statistics: Never taking something at face value, this author attempted to verify the "22,469" number. According to their website, the Center of Disease Control (CDC) estimated that 12,469 Americans died from the H1N1 virus based on a range of 8,888-18,306 possible deaths from the pandemic. Why 12,469 and not the mean of 13,587 was used by the CDC is unknown to this author; that said, the 22,469 statistic is simply made up. In response to the Right's inevitable complaint that adding 10,000 to the estimated total accounts for all the unreported U.S. H1N1 deaths, one most also hold U.S. COVID-19 statistics to that same liberal standard.
The only things honest about this meme are its colors and the grammar.
Three days (3/13/2020) after this first meme was created and posted, a statistically more accurate meme citing the aforementioned 12,469 U.S. H1N1 deaths, 1,329 U.S. COVID-19 cases and 38 U.S. COVID-19 deaths graced Facebook, with the NBC News headline replaced by the unsupported assertion, "Do you all see how the media can manipulate your life?" Even this more accurate post was flagged by Facebook in its half-hearted efforts to combat misinformation. Unfortunately, what is relentlessly accurate are CDC figures as of May 8, 2020: 1,248,040 U.S. COVID-19 cases resulting in 75,477 U.S. COVID-19 deaths. How many of these lives could have been saved if the COVID-19 pandemic was taken more seriously at the onset instead of being downplayed for transparent political purposes will, unfortunately, never be known. Let the meme buyer beware.
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