The Expanding Brain Meme is used by individuals in order to reflect the level of knowledge that is utilized by people as they engage in a certain activity. The meme exhibits an inverse relationship between knowledge and complexity. The meme begins at the top with the highest level of knowledge and the lowest amount of complexity. However, as the meme progresses, the level of knowledge decreases and complexity increases. Each layer features a more intricate approach to accomplishing a certain task. Based on the meme, it appears that as the action gets more complex, the brain expands and gets bigger. However, this is used as a sarcastic and humorous technique to ridicule the unnecessary actions that are overly complicated.
For instance, this meme demonstrates a scenario in which the viewer will need to have an awareness of AutoCAD, a software that is utilized by engineers and architects. When most people observe this meme, they will just see it for face value: an Expanding Brain Meme with an irregular ending. As previously mentioned, the difficulty of making memes increases as the figure becomes more enlightened to the reality of the subject. AutoCAD is not a software that is typically associated with the creation of memes, so using it to create an Expanding Brain Meme takes a lot of effort. When drawing lines or objects, coordinates are required to properly produce the desired image. However when using Photoshop, the user simply has to drag and drop images in order to get the desired results.
Creating a successful Expanding Brain Meme requires a topic that can be applied to a wide range of audiences. Memes created for specific communities tend to lack the widespread support that are typically associated with successful memes. One topic that presents difficulty for creators to gain a lot of traction on, is politics. No matter what political meme is posted, there will always be some form of opposition to it. During the 2016 Presidential Election, many memes flooded the Internet as people expressed their opinions of the various candidates. Some memes emerged that displayed strong animosity against the two main candidates of the Presidential race, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. As a result, strong memes were those that showed apathy towards both candidates. The creators understood the community that they were constructing their memes for; thus they established a space for people to come together from both parties to unite as one community.
Like the political meme, it is important for versions of the Expanding Brain Meme to be relatable to a wide range of people in order for it to be most successful and widespread. According to this chart by Statista, 58% of Reddit users were between the age of 18 and 29 in 2016. As a result, memes circulating on Reddit tend to be most successful if people that are within the 18-29 age group are able to relate to the content within the Expanding Brain Meme. This concept of connecting with the audience is crucial because the likelihood of the meme having longevity on the Internet depends on the meme’s ability to feature topics that large segments of people will be able to relate to.
Unfortunately, not all attempts at making an Expanding Brain Meme are successful. Chartwell Inc. attempted to create an Expanding Brain Meme in the hopes of connecting with younger audiences in order to make them switch to Chartwell’s energy service. However, like many other versions of the Expanding Brain Meme, this meme fails to capture enough interest for it to circulate on the Internet. The meme lacks actual humor and relatable content, so it would not work well within this age group.
Secondly, when memes fail to meet the proper formatting guidelines, viewers tend to dismiss the meme and it gets lost within the void of the other memes that have been created by other users. Chartwell’s version of the Expanding Brain Meme is reversed, which causes it to fail amongst its audience. Seeing as they are trying to promote their customized energy usage alert program, it would have been best to place it in the first panel. This would have shown customers that Chartwell has the simplest method of saving on energy costs.
Expanding Brain Meme 