Week 6: Proposal of studying “Buddhist styled youths” memes

By the end of 2017, the search volume of the buzzword “Buddhist styled youths” exploded in Chinese social media. The word was so popular that everyone seemed to claim that he or she is one of the “Buddhist styled youths”. However, they are not real Buddhists, but partly agree with the Buddhist way of thinking: With a simple and plain life and a fewer desires, you can gain a stable, tranquil and peaceful mood. Youngsters extended the idea to “nothing really matters”, “I don't argue with anyone”,  “all is fine”, “I do nothing and my goal will achieve itself”.

With the popularity of this buzzword, Buddhist styled youths memes emerged. Some of these memes remixed some popular meme, such as the girl with coconut head. The Buddhist styled youths version of her is eyes-closed and sitting cross-legged on a lotus with golden lights behind her head. The sitting gesture and elements of lotus and golden lights are common in Buddhist artworks. The subtitle is “Everything is nothing. No desire. No demand.”

The similar sitting gesture can be seen in another picture of a Western boy. His thumbs are touching his middle fingers, imitating Buddhist characters’ gestures. His eyes are closed and his facial expressions are calm. Incense is burning in front of him.

The third meme is a still of Korean TV series Reply 1988. Although the TV series was not popular in China, the still became viral with “Buddhist styled youths”. The background, his peaceful emotion and the plastic lotus in his hands are all strong Buddhist elements.

According to Shifman (2013), a content becomes viral due to “six Ps”: positivity, provocation of high-arousal emotions, participation, packaging, prestige and positioning. It agrees with packaging feature as the memes of “Buddhist styled youths” is very simplified as everyone with common sense can easily discover the Buddhist elements in these pictures. Social media users also post these memes to highlight their identities as “Buddhist styled youths”. Thus, it also meets the participation feature. When facing all the troubles and problems in our lives, the Buddhist way of thinking helps us to claim down. So the memes can also be considered as somehow positive. (Although more and more people began to critique the “Buddhist styled youths” as a negative way of living.)

The aim of my study is to figure out what made the Buddhist styled youths memes so successful that most youngsters accepted this way of thinking. Though it seems that the idea of “Buddhist styled youths” has strong connection with Buddhism, this religion did not become more popular. I would like to find the reason of it and explore more about the relationship between memes and religions.