This chapter turns to labelling memes, where some images may develop into full-blown Image Macros, while others remain non-entrenched. Here, the textual component is different from both when-memes and from the typical Image Macro memes. In typical labelling memes, parts of a depicted scene are labelled with words or phrases which do not describe anything in the image, but instead collectively call up a different frame. Well-known examples discussed include the Is This a Pigeon? meme, and the Distracted Boyfriend meme (DBM), showing a man turning over to admire an attractive passing woman (dressed in red), while the woman (in blue) whose hand he’s holding looks on indignantly. This scene of a change in attention and preference – a choice for a new and attractive opportunity – gets to be applied to unrelated choices and new preferences. Labelling itself can sometimes be visual again. Overall, we stress the constructional properties of DBM – with strong argument structure-like properties – alongside the role of embodied features (emotions and attentions expressed in facial expressions and posture) and the figurative, similative meaning often arrived at compositionally.

This chapter consider advertising strategies based on, or inspired by, meme genres. Our most interesting examples don’t so much directly borrow a fully-formed, recognizable meme to reuse it in an ad (though this, too, is sometimes done). Instead, really successful memetically inspired ads partly borrow from existing meme codes, such as when-memes or the ‘Sections of’ meme, and adapt these creatively to suit the persuasive goals identified. This suggests that aspects of the grammar of memes are affecting other forms of communication.