(2021-08-09) Text Memes Are Taking Over Instagram

Text Memes Are Taking Over Instagram. Last month, the singer Courtney Love, who is a keen observer of social media trends, posted a cryptic message on Instagram. “Lots of people don’t understand Gen-Z,” she wrote. “I think they’re funnier than any other generation I’ve ever known.” Accompanying Ms. Love’s Instagram post was a blurry photo of herself and a gallery of unrelated and messy screen-shotted memes filled with nonsensical text overlaid on random photos

Ms. Love was mimicking and complimenting a kind of social media post that is now sweeping through Instagram. Known in internet slang as shitposting, this style of posting involves people publishing low-quality images, videos or comments online.

A growing ecosystem of Instagram accounts has embraced this text-heavy posting style, which has exploded in popularity among Gen Z users during the pandemic. The trend has transformed Instagram, the photo- and video-based app owned by Facebook, into a network of microblogs and a destination for written expression

Instagram’s “Create” mode, which lets people design text posts on top of gradient backgrounds

It’s like Twitter, but for Instagram

But Twitter posts have a 280-character limit. And for Gen Z users, the combination of text, tools like the Whisper app and Instagram Create mode have mixed together into a viral alchemy that resonates with their age group.

Confessional, overly personal messages paired with seemingly unrelated images allowed for an extra layer of humor and irony.

“The dissonance between the photo and the text on Whisper is what appeals to people,” said Anna Mariani.

Ricky Sans, Instagram’s strategic partner manager for memes, said the Create mode tools hadn’t been made for the purpose of text-heavy memes, but “we love to see the creativity to reinterpret a tool to help expression and communication.”

The relationship between meme creators and Instagram has long been fraught. In 2019, Instagram meme creators tried to unionize to force the company to better address their support requests and issues such as bans. (Mr. Sans was hired later that year.) 2019-08-31-InstagramWantsMemersToLikeItAgain

Some users have also built their own audiences off cleverly written commentary beneath the posts on the meme pages. Known as mega commenters, they have added to the virality of the meme pages in Instagram’s feed algorithm.

Ms. Brennan, the meme librarian, said the rise of Instagram’s text-heavy meme pages was reminiscent of the early years of Tumblr.