I wanted to spend this week in the aftermath of our most
recent hurricane to examine the role that religion plays, particularly on
social media, during natural disasters. There are both pro-religion- and
anti-religion memes or images commonly spread before the onset and aftermath of
events that have an interesting tug of war over memes. One side will often
reuse or imitate the other in a form of mockery in an attempt, I guess, to “win”
the internet war. In particular I focused on the anti-religion memes in order to show some of the mockery and imitation, while at the expense of a horrible situations.
Image 1: Evil Raccoon. This first image depicts a snarling raccoon that appears to be plotting like some sort of James Bond villain. This meme has many other contexts, but is here shown talking about social media posts calling for "thoughts and prayers" for either the sick, dying, or those in imminent danger. While the analysis of this meme can seem cruel, its humor value comes from incongruity, displaying how the act of thoughtful praying is being portrayed as a selfish act that does nothing at all. Superiority also plays a large role in the "humor" of this post because of the creator attempting to show dominance of atheism over religious beliefs by belittling the religious actions taken.
Image 2: Lack of Prayer
This image portrays the aftermath of a disaster area where there is flooding and property damage apparent. The text calls the reader to recall to seeing posts that call for prayer for those in danger. This meme was likely posted as a counter to the idea that religious forces have any means to stop real disaster. the humor employed here is mostly of superiority, as the author is likely again trying to show dominance over the original posters of religious calls to prayer.
Image 3: Useless cats
This image portrays several cats lounging around on a sunny chair. While the picture itself is adorable, it shows a common act of cats...absolutely nothing. The added text to the meme plays on the "lazy" nature of cats as well as religious calls for prayer for the sick, dying, or in danger. The author here relates the uselessness of cats in a practical matter to his perceives uselessness of prayers in stopping a storm or any other of life's forces. Superiority is clearly used here to show the opinion of the author over the use of prayers to change anything. We also can see some playfulness used here as we can relate to the idea that cats, or pets in general, are often useless to accomplish many tasks.
The implication of using superiority in memes to attack religious beliefs show maybe an incomplete argument against religion, in that it can be summed up in two lines of text. Also, it is counter culture to the like/share images that frequent with religious posts asking for help that can flood Facebook. I think the trivializing of the argument also trivializes the real issues on both sides. It may make the issue easier to understand or relate to, but also does not result in any meaningful interaction or change.
