ABSTRACT
We demonstrate how cultural iconicity is achieved through successful memes on the internet, especially through the accrual of intertextual persuasive force, the mechanism of phatic sharing, and the use of memes for building community through individualized emotional expressions of the human experience. The chapter provides an overview of how hypermediacy; we argue that mediated images are part of the operating system of internet memes, and discuss how audiences react to metavisual content in highly intertextual memes. Our focus is the Firestarter or Disaster Girl meme, paired with a discussion on Nissenbaum and Shifman's approach to studying international memes in comparative perspective. The widespread use of memes for (negative) emotional arousal functions as a form of unifying viewers against others, and as acts of self-expression that take on different qualities across national culture groups. Finally, the chapter provides a general overview of issues around memes, privacy, and copyright.
