Listen, we don't mind admitting it:  memes are a huge love language for us. No matter who you are and what stage we are at in our friendship,  you best believe you will get a meme sent from me to you. Throughout the pandemic, many people used memes to cope with the world's heaviness, as they're an undeniably fun way to express one's emotions and feelings. But they are also a great way to connect with others in so many things, including pop culture, reactions, and the news. ✨

So for this week's episode, we decided to sit down and dig into memes as a love language. While Millennials and members of Gen Z are constantly criticized for their inability to put their phones down and connect with people through in-person interactions, how valuable are memes for digital self-expression? In this week's episode, we chat with Thea D'souza from the wildly popular Instagram account @YourMomsAreWatching. Her account uses a mixture of humorous memes, serious analysis, and personal stories to analyze the Bravoverse has been on the tip of everyone's tongue recently, as she has been in the middle of the Lisa Rinna/Patrick Somrs/Kathy Hilton drama - D'souza has used memes to build an engaged community of Bravo fans who can laugh at the sheer absurdity of the shows drama.  📺

Throughout the episode, we try to explore the ideas, the spread, and some of the behind the scenes of running a popular meme account, including:  

• How important is this form of digital self-expression?
• Where do you get your ideas from, and/or does your audience ever reach out with ideas?
• Why are memes so intimate and another form of communication?
• Has anyone (celeb or otherwise) ever reached out and been mad about something you've created?
• Memes are basically editorial cartoons for the internet age, true or false?
• Then we take a quick break for a segment where Ama chats with James behind the hilarious and popular Instagram account Gay Writes - the queer book coven that uses memes to get people to read books. 
• Then we talk about the Lisa Rinna/Patrick Somrs/Kathy Hilton drama because OBVIOUSLY.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Further Reading on this Topic!

1. Choose your memes carefully. They might change your mood. - Mashable
2. Memes have helped those cope with stress during the pandemic - The Washington Post
3. Memers are Taking Over TikTok - The New York Times
4. From Doge To TikTok: How Society And Our Memes Changed In The 2010s - HuffPost
5. The Evolution of Memes - Complex

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Support the show