Exigence of a meme - Blog 5 - Josh Freetly

    This is a meme from Tumblr where a user had a dream that the phrase "there are many benefits to being a marine biologist" had become a meme which many blogs latched onto making a real meme spreading it across the platform. This meme originated of course mainly to be funny, but this particular instance goes much deeper. As the meme spread around Tumblr even an institution for marine biology like the Monterey Bay Aquarium got on board with the joke. The exigence of this meme is that a situation where marine biology was being widely talked about promoting one of the most famous and well-known institutes for marine biology to reply and encourage people to keep talking about marine biology even if that is in a humorous way

    The timing of this response is the most important factor to why the situation of the meme came to be. The response had to be in a short time while the meme stays relevant and had to be engaging to the audience and to the joke. It is not common that a specialized field like marine biology is being widely talked about across any platform and especially a social media platform like Tumblr so it is only natural that an authority figure on marine biology would respond and engage with the joke. This rare opportunity to organically become a part of the conversation for the Monterey Bay Aquarium would have led to them wanting to speak and join the conversation because it would help it to continue. This continuation of the conversation would be beneficial to the aquarium as its goal is to get people informed and passionate about marine biology.

    Below the post by the aquarium is a reblog response showing surprise that the Monterey Bay Aquarium of all people would join in on the conversation. This response of surprise further backs up the reason for them to join the conversation. The second image is meant to convey surprise or disbelief, and this shows that when the aquarium joined the conversation created more enthusiasm for the joke which gets the conversation to continue. By adding to the conversation, they have made people more enthusiastic about marine biology which is an obvious goal of the response because people caring about the oceans and how they work benefits, not just the aquarium but the work they do. Tumblr made a joke about marine biology which led to many more jokes creating an opportunity for the Monterey Bay Aquarium to join in inspiring their Tumblr audience to keep going and get passionate about marine biology.