Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising

Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

The Effect of Humour on Virality: The Study of Internet Memes on Social Media
Viriya Taecharungroj1 and Pitchanut Nueangjamnong2

Abstract – This research looks into the communication phenomenon on the most vibrant and active social
media website, Facebook. The authors try to understand the role of humour and virality, or the spread and
diffusion of the message, through the study of Internet memes. From the use of quantitative method and
content analysis, the authors found the relationship between humour styles, the number of likes and
comments and the virality of the memes or the number of shares. The subjects of the research are 1,500
images of Internet memes in a Thai and an English Facebook pages. It is found that memes with a “self-
defeating” style of humour from the English page can lead to a higher number of shares while “self-
enhancing” humorous memes from the Thai page tend to be more viral. This research can be valuable for
advertisers and communicators who intend to use humour to effectively communicate their messages on the
Internet.

Keywords – humour, memes, social media, virality

Introduction
The rise of social media and social networking websites in the 21st century transformed the communication
landscape dramatically. Social media is the Internet and web-based platform designed to encourage social
interaction of user-generated contents between individuals, groups, and organisations (Mills, 2012; Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2011). According to Mills (2012), social media enables the communication transformation from
broadcasting (one to many) into social dialogues (many to many) through the networks of active users
(Kilian, Hennigs, & Langner, 2012). Therefore, the emergence of social media turned the role of users from
content consumers to producers.
In the digital era, the online social media and communication have evolved into a broader collective
dimension, which transcends different platforms, reaching new authors and audiences (Harlow, 2013). The
boundaries between several actors in the social network are blurred; the difference between
professional/amateur, bottom-up/top-down is not as clear as in the past (Shifman, 2013). The younger
generations are now experiencing media differently from their parents.
Digital natives or Millennials, the generation that were born after 1982 (Oblinger, 2003; Prensky, 2003), are
attracted to social media because it can satisfy different needs they have. According to Kilian et al (2012),
motives for media uses are (1) Information: information and advice seeking, satisfying curiosity (2)
Integration and Social Integration: gaining sense of belonging, connection with family, friends, society (3)
Personal Identity: personal value reinforcement and (4) Entertainment: relaxation, emotional release.
One of the elements that is eminent in online communication through social media is “humour” because it
seems to satisfy most, if not all, of the needs mentioned. Social media users are, more than ever, engaged in
humorous contents and the engagement led to the viral effect, or virality, where audiences turn themselves
into producers by spreading the message to others in their networks. The medium that is frequently used to
channel humour is the “Internet memes”.
This paper looks at the communication phenomena in the most vibrant and active social media website,
Facebook. Specifically, the authors try to understand the role of humour and virality, the spread and
diffusion of the message, through the study of Internet memes.

______________________________________
Viriya Taecharungroj1 (viriyatae@gmail.com)
Pitchanut Nueangjamnong 2, Albert Laurence School of Communication Arts, Assumption University, Thailand
(ordinary.kat@gmail.com)

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 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Literature review
Memes
The Internet memes on a social media, Facebook, are the subjects of this research. This section reviews the
definition of memes and their characteristics. The authors laid out some examples of the memes and the
concept of spreadability (virality) is discussed.
Definition of memes
Memes are the analogous concept to the biological “gene”; they are self-replicating and they present the
knowledge, views, perceptions, and beliefs, which are communicated from person to person (Pech, 2003a).
Memes are units of information, ideas or mental representations, cultural instructions that are not only self-
replicating but also contagious (Pech, 2003b). The word “meme” was coined by Dawkins (1976) referring to
the viral spread of ideas. The root of the word comes from the Greek “minema” meaning “something which
is imitated” (Shifman, 2013).
The contagious or viral process where memetic ideas move between ideas via texts, objects, images, sound,
or behaviours is also called diffusion (Sci & Dare, 2014). Memes are viewed figuratively as organic objects
because they are selfishly driven to survive by replicating, circulating, and evolving in order to capture
public attention (Sci & Dare, 2014).
Memes can carry cultural patterns from religions and political belief such as Communism (Pech, 2003a) to
more transient fads such as catch phrases and fashion (Hahner, 2013). There are various studies on the
emergence of online memes (Internet memes) in various contemporary occurrences from the political events;
Egyptian protests (Harlow, 2013), Vancouver riot kiss (Hahner, 2013), and Pepper Spray Cop (Sci & Dare,
2014) to online jokes; “Leave Britney Alone” (Shifman, 2013), and “Wife/Husband 1.0” (Shifman &
Thelwall, 2009).
From the examples mentioned, the advancement and proliferation of digital technology and social media
evidently drove the birth and development of memes in the digital era (Sci & Dare, 2014). The Internet
meme is a term commonly applied to the propagation or spread of digital and online contents such as jokes,
images, rumours, videos, or websites from person to others via the Internet (Shifman, 2013). The
phenomenon is also helped by the user-generated websites and social media such as Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter,
Facebook, or YouTube (Sci & Dare, 2014).

Characteristics of memes
The study of memes is initially called the science of memetics (Hahner, 2013). When memes travelled from
person to person, they exert influence over what we believe, want, and do (Pech, 2003a). Memes, like genes,
undergo the processes of variation, competition, selection, and retention. They also compete among
themselves for the attention of hosts or people (Shifman, 2013). Memes that are suited to the environment
spread successfully while others become extinct (Shifman, 2013). Furthermore, powerful memes, desirable
or undesirable, can be replicated consciously or unconsciously (Pech, 2003a). Shifman (2013) concluded the
three attributes of memes.
(1) Cultural Information: memes are cultural information that began as a single event and gradually scale
into a shared social phenomenon.
(2) Imitation: memes are reproduced by various means of imitation; copying, mimicking, remixing, or
repackaging.
(3) Competition and Selection: memes have varying degrees of fitness to the sociocultural environment that
makes them survive or extinct.
The analogies of meme are based on the biological concepts of viruses and genes. The two analogies have
both the valid logics and flaws in describing memes. Meme-as-virus analogy considers memes as disease
agents that can spread from person to person. However, this analogy seems to conceptualise people as
helpless and passive, susceptible to the infectious diseases that invade their minds. Meme-as-gene analogy
focuses on the evolutionary characteristics of gene but the analogy fell short because memes behave very
differently and are seemingly more complex than biological genes (Shifman, 2013).

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 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

According to Shifman (2013), memes should not be looked upon as singular ideas but cultural items that
employ three dimensions; content, form, and stance. The first dimension is content, referring to the ideas and
the ideologies conveyed. Form is the physical incarnation of the message, visual, audio, animation, etc.
Lastly, stance is the ways in which addressers position themselves in relation to the content (Shifman, 2013).

Spreadability of Memes
Many scholars tried to find the answer to the question: “why do memes spread?” From the principles of
selfishness, repetition, and circulation, Sci & Dare (2014) concluded that the evolution of memes is non-
linear and difficult to trace. Heylighen (1995) explained that successful memes are those that have high level
of “meme’s fitness”; meme’s fitness depends on two criteria;
(1) Learnability: how easy it is for the host to learn the meme (Heylighen, 1995; Pech, 2003b; Williams,
2000).
(2) Infectiousness: how contagious the meme is or how much the host can be induced to repeat or pass on the
meme (Heylighen, 1995; Pech, 2003b, Williams, 2000).
Pech (2003b) extended the concept of meme’s fitness and concluded that the degree of compatibility can be
explained by the four criteria; (1) meme’s compatibility with the brain’s hardwiring which is the result of
evolutionary pressures and adaptations (2) the ease with which a meme can be replicated (3) a meme’s
ability to provide for or meet the needs of the people it encounters and (4) an accidental or involuntary
lodging of a meme in the neural network.
The crucial role of the Internet cannot be neglected and it probably possesses the characteristics that are
more suitable for large-scale meme distribution compared with mediums of the past (Shifman & Thelwall,
2009). Shifman & Thelwall (2009) demonstrated three properties of the Internet that dramatically drove the
birth and development of memes.
(1) Copy-Fidelity (Accuracy): the digitisation of the meme allows the transfer of the content to be seamless
and without loss. At the same time, it enables the receivers to edit and produce new versions of the memes
with ease via digital technology such as Photoshop memes.
(2) Fecundity: a great number of copies of memes can be made by the computers and the Internet especially
via social media where memes can be reproduced instantly to a number of people in the networks.
(3) Longevity: digital memes can be stored and archived in a wide array of personal computers and servers
(cloud computing) and they can be retrieved any time.
According to Shifman & Thelwall (2009), a commonly transmitted Internet meme is a joke or a humorous
content. The Internet allows humorous memes to reach the global audiences. In the social media, a type of
humorous meme that is prevalent is the “Photoshop meme”, which is considered “a pleasurable form of
postmodern play, or the meme produced by “photoshopping images to humorously represent mimetic ideas”
(Sci & Dare, 2014). Another type of notable memes on the social media is “image macros” referring to the
use of superimposed discursive text on a specific image to establish a joke (Sci & Dare, 2014).

Humour
A distinctive element of the Internet memes is humour. There are a few theories of humour discussed in this
section. The different dimensions of humour, humour processes, humour styles, benefits of humour, and
categories of humour are briefly reviewed in order to grasp the key ideas of humour in literature.

153
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Definitions and Theories of Humour

Humour is a concept that is rooted in the evolution of human behaviours (Flamson & Barrett, 2013) and in a
series of complex subjective, social, or cultural values and beliefs (Shabbir & Thwaites, 2007). Reyes,
Rosse, & Cuscaldi (2012) defined humour as “the presence of amusing effects, such as laughter or well-
being sensations” (Reyes et al, 2012). It can be recognised by the smile or laughter that follows when the
hearer perceives it (Hübler & Bell, 2003). The main function of humour is to release emotions, sentiments or
feelings that generally positively impact human health. Humour comes from different sources such as verbal
(jokes), visual materials (cartoons or films), or social situations (Samson, Zysset, & Huber, 2008). According
to Lefcourt & Martin (1986), humour is discourse that brings together two ideas, concepts, or situations in a
surprising and unexpected manner. “Surprise” was found to have an important role in producing humorous
events especially in the presence of playfulness, warmth, and the ease to resolve incongruity (Alden,
Mukherjee, & Hover, 2000). However, not all of the surprising juxtaposition lead to humour (Hübler & Bell,
2003).
Language in humour is often figurative language; it employs the linguistic devices such as metaphor,
analogy, ambiguity, irony, etc., in order to communicate more complex meaning (Reyes et al, 2012).
Humorous language in the digital sphere has a slight variant because it can also be in the form of discussion
or conversation, the hybrid form of written and oral communication (Holocomb, 1997). On the other hand,
humour on the Internet also comes in the form of cartoon (Tsakona, 2009; Samson et al, 2008) or imagery. In
that case, humour is the result of the text and image interaction.
Vaetch (1998) theorised humour by outlining the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for the
perception of humour that are;
(1) V: v stands for “violation”. It denotes the situation that violates the perceiver’s (hearer’s) subjective
moral principle.
(2) N: n stands for “normal”. The second, simultaneous, condition is that the perceiver has in mind a view of
the situation as normal.
In other words, Vaetch (1998) concluded that humour is emotional pain (V) that does not hurt (N). It occurs
when the perceiver sees that things are normal while, at the same time, it seems wrong. There are also other
scholars that tried to theorise humour. According to Thorson & Powell (1991), there are six dimensions of
humour; (1) humour production (2) a sense of playfulness (3) the ability to use humour to achieve social
goals (4) personal recognition of humour (5) appreciation of humour and (6) use of humour as an adaptive
mechanism. And the famous work by Raskin (1985) outlined the components of humour act including (1)
human participants (2) a stimulus (3) life experience of an individual (4) psychological type of individual (5)
certain physical environment/situation and (6) society. Nevertheless, an important part of Raskin’s work,
which was further studied by a number of scholars, is the typology of the humour process.
Processes of Humour
Raskin (1985) wrote that there are three sources of laughter or humour: incongruity, arousal-safety, and
disparagement. Incongruity is the juxtaposition of the two or more incongruous parts or circumstance which
led to humour (Shabbir & Thwaites, 2007). Arousal-safety is the humour based on an escape of some form
(Shabbir & Thwaites, 2007). Finally, disparagement is the humour that is the result of hostility, superiority,
malice, aggression, derision, or disparagement (Raskin, 1985). Although all three processes involve a play
manipulation, arousal, tension, some mechanism that allows one to reduce the tension and enjoy arousal,
these three processes “engage the subject on a different level, requires a unique pattern of processing, and
produces a distinct effect” (Speck, 1991). Speck (1991) elaborated more on the three processes.
(1) Arousal-Safety: this type of humour process views humour as a mechanism that relieves some kind of
strain. Humour occurs when the arousal is heightened and at the same time, the perceiver evaluates the
stimulus as safe or inconsequential. On the other hand, if the situation is evaluated as serious, it disallows the
playful disposition required for humour. Arousal-safety humour generally involves the sentiment or good
will for people “that we consider cute, warm, friendly, or familiar” (Speck, 1991)

154
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

(2) Incongruity Resolution: incongruity occurs when the two or more elements perceived are unexpected.
The resolution follows incongruity and becomes a form of problem-solving or “get the joke” perception
(Alden, Hoyer, & Lee, 1993) leading to humour. This two-step pattern is often the characteristics of puns,
punchlines, comic, irony, understatement, or exaggeration (Speck, 1991). According to Alden et al (1993),
the jokes found in TV ads in several countries are mostly of the incongruity-resolution type. There are two
schools of thought on this topic where one believes that congruity is sufficient to generate humorous
response while the other emphasises the role of resolution. However, the research finding suggests that
congruity-resolution (the two-step) is more effective than congruity alone (Flaherty, Weinberger & Gulas,
2004).
(3) Humorous Disparagement: disparagement is the humour that is a tool for criticism, censure, and control.
It has a triadic relationship of joke-teller, joke-hearer, and victim. In humorous disparagement, the joke-teller
attacks the victim and the hearer complies with a laughter. This type of humour process is often found in
satire, ethnic, put-down, sarcastic, or sexist humour (Speck, 1991).

Categories of Humour
This section reviews the different approaches in categorising humour by scholars. Humour can be crudely
separated into positive and negative humour (Cruthirds, Wang, Wang, & Wei, 2012). Flamson & Barrett
(2013) divided humour into two types: (1) low encryption condition, where most of the information needed
to understand the joke was provided and (2) high encryption condition, where none of the relevant
information is provided. The finding suggests that for the high-encryption jokes to be regarded as funny,
audience should already possess prior knowledge whereas, possession of prior knowledge is not statistically
significant for audiences to find low-encryption jokes funny (Flamson & Barrett, 2013).
Kelly and Solomon (1975) wrote about the operational use of humorous advertisements by categorising
humorous into six typologies; (1) pun (2) understatement (3) joke (4) ludicrous (5) satire (6) irony. Raskin
(1985), having a more general outlook on the concept of humour, classified humour into (1) ridicule (2)
deliberate ridicule (3) humour at speaker’s own expense (4) riddle (5) conundrum (6) pun (7)
suppression/repression (8) wisecrack and (9) epigram.
Speck (1991) analysed the typology of humour from the humour processes (arousal-safety, incongruity-
resolution, and humorous-disparagement) discussed and came up with five types of humour employing
different combinations of processes: comic wit, sentimental humour, satire, sentimental comedy, and full
comedy. Leist & Müller (2013) studied humour styles (Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, & Weir, 2003)
and presented three broad types of humour: humour endorsers, humour deniers, and self-enhancers
The previous research shows that there are several approaches to categorise humour but the authors of this
research focus on the categories of humour by Catanescu & Tom (2001) because they offer relatively simple
and clear-cut concepts that are practical to apply. There are seven categories of humour according to
Catanescu & Tom (2001).
(1) Comparison - Putting two or more elements together to produce a humorous situation.
(2) Personification - Attributes human characteristics to animals, plants and objects.
(3) Exaggeration - Overstating and magnifying something out of proportion.
(4) Pun - Using elements of language to create new meanings, which result in humour.
(5) Sarcasm - Blatant ironic responses or situations
(6) Silliness - Making funny faces to ludicrous situations.
(7) Surprise - Humour arises from unexpected situations
The study by Catanescu & Tom (2001) found that sarcasm is the most popular form of humour in magazines,
whereas, silliness is the most popular in television commercials.

155
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Humour Styles
While the humour categories focus on the content of the humour itself and humour processes look at the
overview of the humour act, humour styles mainly concern the producers of the jokes or humorous contents.
The most predominant concept of humour styles was developed by Martin, Puhlik-Doris, Larsen, Gray, &
Weir (2003) into Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ) which allows researchers to conduct the survey on
subjects in order to better understand the “styles” of humour of each participant. There are several topics
studied that were related to humour styles such as emotional intelligence (EI) (Gignac, Karatamoglou, Wee,
& Palacios, 2014), psychological well-beings (Stieger, Formann, & Burger, 2011), and national cultures
(Cruthirds, Wang, Wang, & Wei, 2012). According to Martin et al (2003), there are four styles of humour:
self-enhancing, affiliative, self-defeating, and aggressive.
(1) Affiliative Humour (enhance relationships with others): people high on affiliative humour tend to say
funny things, jokes, witty banters to amuse others and facilitate relationships. Affiliative humour is non-
hostile, tolerant use of humour. It is related to extraversion, cheerfulness, self-esteem, intimacy, relationship
satisfaction, and positive moods and emotions (Martin et al, 2003).
(2) Self-Enhancing Humour (enhance the self): people high on self-enhancing humour tend to have a
humorous outlook on life, to be amused by incongruities and maintain a humorous perspective in adversity.
Self-enhancing humour can be regarded as a healthy defence mechanism allowing oneself to avoid
negativity. It is positively related to openness to experience, self-esteem, and psychological well-being while
emphasising on intrapsychic rather than interpersonal focus (Martin et al, 2003).
(3) Aggressive Humour (enhance the self at the expense of others): aggressive humour is a humour style that
relates to the humour expression without regard for its impact on others by saying funny things that are likely
to hurt or alienate others. This type of humour is often found in people with aggressive humour using
sarcasm, teasing, ridicule, derision, put-down, or disparagement. It is related to neuroticism, hostility, anger,
and aggression (Martin et al, 2003)
(4) Self-Defeating Humour (enhance relationships at the expense of self): people with self-defeating humour
amuse others by doing or saying humorous and disparaging things at one’s own expense. This style of
humour is considered a form of defensive denial or a mean of hiding underlying negative feelings. It is
related to emotional neediness, avoidance, low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety (Martin et al, 2003).

Benefits of Humour
There is much research on the benefits of humour; some findings are unanimous while some can be
controversial. In the business settings, the study on advertising in particular, it was found that humour
attracts attention (Weinberger & Gulas, 1992; Speck, 1991). It can also aid message comprehension
(Weinberger & Gulas, 1992; Speck, 1991). However, Weinberger & Gulas (1992) did not find evidence
showing that humour leads to increased persuasion and it does not enhance source credibility. On the other
hand, the research on financial advisor by Bergeron & Vachon (2008) found that good sense of humour has a
positive impact on perception of trust, quality, satisfaction, purchase intention and word-of-mouth
propensity. Kurtzberg, Naquin, & Belkin (2009) also found that humour leads to the increased trust and
satisfaction level.
Nevertheless, humour is found to enhance liking and the authors found that the relationship between humour
and liking is stronger than any other factor (Weinberger & Gulas, 1992; Fugate, 1998). Likewise, humour
increases the attitude towards the advertisements in the study done by Alden et al (2000).
Humour can also have a positive effect on the physiology and mental health. Certain types of humour are
associated with high level of life satisfaction (Zhao, Wang, & Kong, 2014). According to Lee & Kleiner
(2005);
“Humour and laughter can reduce tension, anger, and frustration. Overly stressed individuals cannot think
clearly and find optimal solutions. Humour and laughter can reduce pain, relax muscles, and lower blood
pressure. Laughter increases endorphins, the feel-good chemicals. Humour has advantageous effects in
physical health, psychological status, and social life.”

156
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Having humour is a display of attractive qualities of a person such as intelligence and creativity to potential
mates; it can play an important role in forming and maintaining social relationships (Flamson & Barrett,
2013. Mendleson, Golen, & Adams (1986) listed five positive benefits of humour as (1) courage mechanism
(2) a defines against life’s vexations and woes (3) a reaction to the incongruities of life (4) a tension reliever
and (5) a frame of mind, a manner of perceiving and experiencing life.
Virality
Virality is the ability of the content to “go viral” or spread from a person to another person in the exponential
fashion. This paper aims to study the virality of the Internet memes or the degree in which the memes spread
on the social network. The word virality is often used as “viral marketing” which means the marketing
tactics or campaigns by the brands or organisations. Although the scope of the study does not include
marketing efforts, it is worth reviewing the meaning of viral marketing. Furthermore, “contagious” is the
term used to describe the cause and effect of viral dynamics and is discussed in order to form hypotheses.

Viral Marketing
Viral marketing is a term that began in 1996 with the free email provider Hotmail when the provider attached
a promotional message to every email sent (Schulze, Schöler, & Skiera, 2013). Viral marketing is a
marketing approach that seeks to create viral dynamics of the process of receiving and forwarding viral
messages from one person to another in their networks (Camarero & San José, 2014). The definition is
closely related to word-of-mouth (WOM); it refers to “communication process in which the receiver in turn
becomes a broadcaster, ensuring that the information continues to circulate” (Camarero & San José, 2014).
WOM is one of the most effective tools in marketing. Nevertheless, there is a difference between viral
marketing and WOM in that viral marketing refers to the marketing programs, viral contents, guerrilla
campaigns; it is the “cause”. On the other hand, WOM is the “effect” of the viral campaigns (Ferguson,
2008).
“Going viral” usually implies the spread of an object, a video or an image, rather than just spreading
information. Mills (2012) differentiated between viral marketing and WOM stating that “‘viral’ connotes
infection: rapid spreading across individuals and communities, growing exponentially with each cycle”
(Mills, 2012). However, Kaplan & Haenlein (2011) defines viral marketing as electronic word-of-mouth.
The authors wrote that electronic WOM has advantages over traditional WOM in that it has a significantly
higher diffusion speed and it is substantially easier to monitor and track (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2011).

Contagious Messages
There is a lot of research trying to find out what causes the content to go viral. A famous research by Berger
& Milkman (2012) studies how emotion shapes social transmission or the viral dynamics. The findings from
the research show that the role of emotion is more complex than valence, whether the emotion is positive or
negative, alone. Although an awe-inspiring (positive) content is more viral than the sadness inducing
(negative) ones, some contents with strong negative valence such as anxiety- and anger-inducing could be
highly viral as well. The authors concluded that the content that “evokes high-arousal emotions (i.e., awe,
anger, and anxiety), regardless of their valence, is more viral” (Berger & Milkman, 2012). Furthermore, the
study by Heath, Bell, & Sternberg (2001) found that people were more likely to pass along contents that
produce high level of “disgust”. The role of “surprise” is also documented and the messages that contain an
element of surprise with either positive or negative emotions have higher probability to be viral (Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2011; Dobele, Lindgreen, Beverland, Vanhamme, & van Wilk, 2007). Moreover, in viral
messages, surprise often comes with other types of emotion, joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust, because
surprise alone cannot guarantee success (Dobele et al, 2007).

157
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

In the same manner, Nelson-Field, Riebe, & Newstead (2013) studied the commercials and found that
videos, where high arousal emotions are the primary driver, are shared about twice as much as those with
low arousal emotions. The authors also found that people generally share more positive videos than negative
ones but arousal has a substantially stronger impact on virality than valence. The results of the research are
very similar to Guadagno, Rempala, Murphy, & Okdie (2013). They found that the “strong affective
responses” (positive emotion) to a video led to greater intent to pass on the video because we want other
people in the network to experience the same pleasure that we did. The research also found that the videos
that evoke “diffuse arousal” are likely to be more viral (Guadagno et al, 2013). However, some high-arousal
videos were not shared because there are several other keys to the virality puzzle (Nelson-Field et al, 2013).
The different generations of the users could have an effect on content sharing and the digital natives, Gen Y
cohort are found to be more likely to share contents on Facebook than the older Gen X (Strutton, Taylor, &
Thompson, 2011). It is possible that younger generations of users tend to pass on the messages on social
media because they more often receive those viral messages. The research found that those who receive
more tend to send out more (Camarero & San José, 2014).
The process of viral dynamics includes the receiving and forwarding of the message and this two-step
process is conceptualised by Mills (2012) as the “likeability” and “sharability” of the content. “Likeability
refers to the degree to which the message is stimulating or engaging in some emotional or intellectual way”
(Mills, 2012) and it signifies the willingness of the recipient to consume the content. Sharability refers to the
degree to which the recipients or the consumers of the content feel that content can have a similar effect of
others. Hence, the contagious message, or the message with a high level of “spreadability” is the sum of
likeability (the perspective of the recipient) and sharability (the perspective of the sender) of the message
(Mills, 2012).

Hypotheses

The viral dynamics is the two-step process of receiving and forwarding the message (Camarero & San José,
2014). It concerns the two related concepts, the likeability and sharability of the message (Mills, 2012) or in
this case, the Internet memes. Thus, the first hypothesis (H1) is the number of likes (likeability) of the
Internet memes is positively related to the number of shares (sharability or virality). Bergeron & Vachon
(2008) found that humour leads to higher word-of-mouth propensity; hence, the second hypothesis (H2) is
humorous Internet memes have higher number of shares than non-humorous Internet memes. Many scholars
found the strong relationship between high arousal emotions and virality (Berger & Milkman, 2012; Kaplan
& Haenlein, 2011; Dobele et al, 2007) and from the four humour styles (affiliative, self-enhancing,
aggressive, and self-defeating), aggressive humour possesses the characteristics that are all high-arousal,
anger and aggression. Therefore, the third hypothesis (H3) is memes with an aggressive humour style has
higher number of shares than memes with other styles of humour.

The controlled variables in this research are (1) the number of comments (2) categories of humour
(Catanescu & Tom, 2001) (3) the content of the Internet memes (text, photo, digital image, drawing, shots
from films, or shots from animations) (4) lines of text, and (5) day of posting (Monday to Sunday).

Methodology

This research explores the English and Thai Facebook pages. The English Facebook page selected in this
research is “See More” (facebook.com/seewaymore) and the Thai Facebook page is “9GAG in Thai”
(facebook.com/9gaginthai). These two pages are appropriate in an analysis because they are the portals
collecting Internet jokes and memes in an image format and distributing (sharing) them on a daily basis. As
of June, 2014, “See More” has 2.6 million likes whereas “9GAG in Thai” has nearly 1.5 million likes. The
samples are only image files because of their variety and their number is large enough to be analysed
statistically. The memes are analysed from 31 March 2014 backwards. The researchers allow approximately
two months between the time the meme is posted and the time it is analysed because the numbers of likes,
comments, and shares become stable over time.

158
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

This research employs the mixed-method approach combining the quantitative and qualitative research. The
procedure starts with the content analysis of the Internet memes from the selected pages. According to
Bordens and Abbott (2011), content analysis is the method analysing a written or spoken record for the
occurrence of specific categories or events, items, or behaviour. The Internet memes are, then, divided into
humorous and non-humorous memes. The humorous memes are, in turn, categorised into one of the seven
‘types’ of humour (Catanescu & Tom, 2001) and into one of the four ‘styles’ of humour (Martin et al, 2003).
Although the humour styles were originally analysed by Martin et al (2003) through the use of self-report
questionnaires, this research reverses the steps and categorises the memes’ style of humour from the view of
the third person. However, the original concept is intact.
To test the hypotheses, the researchers use three different statistical analysis tools, multiple regression, T-
test, and ANOVA test. The T-test is conducted to test the difference between the means (average) of shares
of humorous memes and the non-humorous ones. ANOVA test compares the means of shares of the four
different ‘styles’ of humour. The first hypothesis, testing the relationship between likeability and sharability,
is tested using stepwise multiple regression that also includes other controlled variables.

Results and Discussion

Relationship Between Likeability and Sharability

To test the first hypothesis, the multiple regression analysis is conducted to observe the relationship between
the number shares (a dependent variable) of the memes and the number of likes (an independent variable)
together with other controlled variables. The result of the model of the Internet memes of the ‘See More’
page in Table 1 shows that the number of shares is positively related to the number of likes; the relationship
is statistically significant. Likewise, the result from the ‘9GAG in Thai’ page in Table 2 shows that the
positive relationship between the two variables is also present. Therefore, the first hypothesis (H1) is
accepted. The standardised coefficients of the number of likes and the number of shares are .46 (in the
English – See More – page) and .68 (in the Thai – 9GAG in Thai – page); they are higher than the
coefficients from other variables. Apart from the number of likes, other variables: the number of comments
and the lines of text are also positively related to the number of shares in both pages.
In the ‘See More’ page, there are also a few notable dummy variables that positively affect the number of
shares. Those variables are whether the meme has ‘painting or drawing’ or ‘text’ in it. Surprisingly, posting
the meme on Wednesday also has a positive effect on the number of shares. Furthermore, the memes which
have the ‘Self-Defeating’ humour style are likely to be shared more. On the other hand, two types of
humorous memes, ‘Surprise’ and ‘Silliness’ are negatively related to the number of shares. Nevertheless, the
effects of all the dummy variables are not particularly strong. The multiple regression model of the number
of shares on ‘See More’ page has the decent R-Square of 0.58 and shows no multicollinearity problem
because VIF is less than 5.0 and Tolerance is higher than 0.1 (O’Brien, 2007).
The role of the dummy variables in the ‘9GAG in Thai’ is different from the ‘See More’ page, the ‘Self-
Enhancing’ humour style has a positive effect on the number of shares in this case. And it is found that
posting the memes on Tuesday in this page tends to have a lower number of shares. However, like the result
from ‘See More’ page, although the effects from the dummy variables such as the day of the week are
significant, they are not substantially impactful. The multiple regression model of the number of shares on
‘9GAG in Thai’ page has a satisfactory R-Square of 0.59.

159
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Table 1 Multiple Regression Model (English)

Coefficients (R-Square = 0.58)

Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients Collinearity Statistics
Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig. Tolerance VIF
(Constant) -552.54 71.39 -7.74 .000
Likes .04 .00 .46 18.06 .000 .732 1.366
Comments .53 .04 .37 15.41 .000 .721 1.388
LinesofText 48.60 5.69 .20 8.54 .000 .778 1.286
PaintingDrawing 619.97 81.15 .16 7.64 .000 .988 1.012
SelfDefeating 365.68 101.48 .08 3.60 .000 .982 1.019
Text 195.28 64.82 .07 3.01 .003 .773 1.293
Wednesday 187.77 74.07 .05 2.54 .011 .991 1.009
Surprise -218.95 95.28 -.05 -2.30 .022 .978 1.023
Silliness -145.30 66.28 -.05 -2.19 .029 .966 1.036
a. Dependent Variable: Shares

Table 2 Multiple Regression Model (Thai)

Coefficients (R-Square = 0.59)

Standardized
Unstandardized Coefficients Coefficients Collinearity Statistics
Model B Std. Error Beta t Sig. Tolerance VIF
(Constant) -445.61 37.76 -11.80 .000
Likes .03 .00 .68 18.30 .000 .601 1.665
Comments .225 .09 .10 2.62 .009 .606 1.651
LinesofText 25.70 4.29 .17 5.99 .000 .981 1.019
SelfEnhancing 316.44 60.08 .15 5.27 .000 .976 1.024
Tuesday -118.05 45.73 -0.76 -2.58 .010 .970 1.031
a. Dependent Variable: Shares

Humour and Non-Humour Sharing

To compare the means of shares between humorous and non-humorous memes, the T-test analysis is carried
out. In total, there are 651 humorous memes and 349 non-humorous memes on the ‘See More’ page. The
mean of shares of humorous memes, 1405.44, is higher than the non-humorous ones, 1257.16 (Table 3).
However, the t-test statistics indicate that the difference is not statistically significant (0.054) with 95%
confidence (Table 4).

160
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Table 3 Group Statistics (English)

Humour-V-NonH N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Humour 651 1405.44 1171.56 45.92
Shares
Non-Humour 349 1257.16 1130.97 60.54

Table 4 Independent Sample Test (English)

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference
Shares 1.931 998 .054 148.2729 76.7968

The analysis of ‘9GAG in Thai’ page found 463 humorous memes as opposed to the 37 non-humorous ones.
The T-Test analysis is conducted (Table 6) and shows a statistically significant difference between the two
groups. The humorous memes in the Thai page has a higher mean of shares at 439.12 compared with the
non-humorous ones, 268.95 (Table5). However, the standard deviations of the two groups are quite large at
514.82 (humorous) and 322.72 (non-humorous). Therefore, the result is barely significant with p-value of
.048. In conclusion, the hypothesis 2 (H2) is partially accepted because of the difference between the results
from the English and Thai pages.

Table 5 Group Statistics (Thai)

Humour-V-NonH N Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean
Humour 463 439.12 514.82 23.88
Shares
Non-Humour 37 268.95 322.72 53.06

Table 6 Independent Sample Test (Thai)

t df Sig. (2-tailed) Mean Difference Std. Error Difference
Shares 1.982 498 .048 170.1707 85.8389

Humour Styles and Sharability

The third hypothesis looks at the four humour styles. The hypothesis states that the ‘aggressive’ humour
style is supposed to have higher number of shares due to its higher arousal nature. The ANOVA test is
performed and the result shows that the differences between the four groups of memes in the ‘See More’
page are statistically significant (Table 7). However, the post-hoc test (Sheffe) found that the ‘self-defeating’
humour style has significantly higher number of shares than the other three groups where the differences
between the three are not statistically significant (Table 8).

Table 7 ANOVA Test (Shares) (English)

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
Between Groups 32414117.220 3 10804705.740 8.131 .000
Within Groups 859740368.885 647 1328810.462
Total 892154486.104 650

161
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Table 8 Homogeneous Subsets (Shares) (English)

Scheffea,b
Subset for alpha = 0.05
HumorStyle N
1 2
Self-Enhancing 72 1093.97
Affiliative 259 1320.97
Aggressive 260 1431.70
Self-Defeating 60 2029.97
Sig. .215 1.000
Means for groups in homogeneous subsets are displayed.
a. Uses Harmonic Mean Sample Size = 104.540.
b. The group sizes are unequal. The harmonic mean of the group sizes is
used. Type I error levels are not guaranteed.

The test on the Thai page ‘9GAG in Thai’ found a different result. Although ANOVA test shows that
different humour styles have different means of number of shares (Table 9), the style of humour with the
highest mean is ‘self-enhancing’ in which the mean of shares is 826.323. On the other hand, the differences
in the means of shares are not statistically different among other styles of humour at 389.44 (affiliative),
411.03 (self-defeating), and 422.67 (aggressive) (Table 10). Therefore, the third hypothesis (H3) is rejected.

Table 9 ANOVA Test (Shares) (Thai)

Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig.
Between Groups 5037031.556 3 1679010.519 6.589 .000
Within Groups 116963518.133 459 254822.480
Total 122000549.689 462

Table 10 Homogeneous Subsets (Shares) (Thai)

Scheffea,b
Subset for alpha = 0.05
HumorStyle N
1 2
Affiliative 73 389.44
Self-Defeating 216 411.03
Aggressive 143 422.67
Self-Enhancing 31 826.323
Sig. .985 1.000
Means for groups in homogeneous subsets are displayed.
a. Uses Harmonic Mean Sample Size = 69.469
b. The group sizes are unequal. The harmonic mean of the group sizes is
used. Type I error levels are not guaranteed.

162
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

Conclusions and Recommendations

This research tries to explore the relationships between humour and virality on the social media through the
study of the Internet memes or jokes. The authors employ the mixed-method approach combining content
analysis of the memes and the statistical tools in order to test the relationships. In total, 1,500 image memes
from the two Facebook pages, See More and 9GAG in Thai, are categorised and analysed. According to
Mills (2012), spreadability, or the propensity of the message or meme to spread or go viral, is the
combination of likeability and shareability, this research tests the relationship between likeability and
spreadability through the number of likes and the number of shares of each meme. The results from the
multiple regression modelling of the memes from the two pages share similar findings. The relationship
between the number of likes and the number of shares is statistically significant and strong. Memes with a
higher number of likes are more likely to be shared than memes with a lower number of likes.
From the multiple regression models, there are two notable variables, the number of comments and the lines
of text, that emerge as the significant independent variables affecting the number of shares. The number of
comments can imply the engagement of the audiences who are willing to participate in the meme by posting
intelligent comments. The relationships between the number of comments and the number of shares are
statistically significant in both pages but the effect is noticeably stronger in the English page, the
standardised coefficient of .37, than in the Thai page, .10. On the other hand, the number of lines of the text
in the meme also has a significant positive relationship, albeit not as strong as the number of likes, with the
number of shares. The probable reason is that more lines of text denote the story-like memes or the memes
that tell stories. The story-like memes might have better propensity to spread than memes without context or
narratives. However, storytelling is beyond the scope of this research but it can be studied extensively in
future research.
Another focal issue of the research is the role of humour. Bergeron & Vachon (2008) argued that humour
leads to word-of-mouth behaviours; hence, this research compares the means of shares between the
humorous memes and the non-humorous ones. From the statistical tests, the finding is not yet conclusive. In
the English page, the difference is not statistically significant whereas it is significant, albeit barely, in the
Thai page. The finding from this research is not meant to lessen the role of humour but it means that the non-
humorous communication tactics can also evoke sharing. The non-humorous communication tactics that led
to virality in the two pages studied are, for example, dramatic, emotional, inspirational, sexual, beautiful,
intelligent, and cute memes. Therefore, humour, although it is a very useful and pleasurable way to
communicate, is not the only way to generate viral messages on social media.
The fascinating point of humour is that all humours are not created equal. This research looks into the
‘humour style’ (Martin et al, 2003). There are four styles of humour, affiliative, self-enhancing, aggressive,
and self-defeating. Through the content analysis method, the authors categorised over a thousand humorous
memes into those four styles according to the definitions. The ANOVA tests and the post-hoc analysis found
that the ‘self-defeating’ style has the highest mean of shares in the English – See More – page whereas the
‘self-enhancing’ style has the highest mean in the Thai – 9GAG in Thai – page. This finding is revealing in
many dimensions; firstly, those two humour styles are the styles that senders of the meme make fun of
themselves. In these cases, the people spreading or sharing the memes do not only share the memes just to
spread the joy or to make people in their networks laugh (Guadagno et al, 2013), but also to use them as the
vessel to communicate what they are thinking and feeling about themselves at the moment of sharing. This
remarkable characteristic of memes resonates with the concept of meme’s fitness by Pech (2003b). The
author described one of the criteria of a compatible meme is when the meme can meet the need of the people
it encounters. In this case, the need of the people is the communication need to express one’s own thought.
Self-defeating memes often communicate their breakdown in relationship, academic failure, and other
inferiorities in life. Receivers of those memes who experience the same feelings as the original sender, in
turn, share the memes to make fun of themselves while making people in their networks laugh. Self-
enhancing memes work in the same way but in the opposite valence. They are the primarily inspirational and
positive yet humorous way ones look at his or her life. The receivers of the memes, thus, share the memes to
inspire themselves while also making other people laugh.
The aggressive style of humour, where the sender makes fun of other people negatively, is hypothesised to
have the highest mean of shares because it could theoretically and consistently arouse strong feelings.
However, this style of humour only came second in the means of shares in both pages. Hence, the hypothesis

163
 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

is rejected. Another interesting and insightful finding of the comparison between the effects of different
humour styles on sharability is that there is a stark contrast in the results from the English and Thai pages.
Self-defeating memes have the highest mean of shares on the English page whereas self-enhancing memes
are more likely to be shared in the Thai page. The most probable cause could be the cultural differences
between the West and the East. The contents of the See More page mainly appeal to the audiences from the
English speaking countries such as the United States. On the other hand, the contents of the 9GAG in Thai
are exclusively in Thai and appeal to Thai audiences. The cultural differences between the West and the East
have been extensively researched and one of the thought-provoking differences is the concept of “faces”
where people in the Eastern culture tend to exhibit behaviours that try not to “lose faces”. Therefore, it is
probable that Thai people are less likely than their Western, or English-speaking, counterparts to share the
‘self-defeating’ memes where the sharers, in effects, make fun of themselves negatively. The ‘self-
enhancing’ memes, with their inspirational, positive, and humorous nature, are possibly more aligned with
the Thai nature and culture.
In conclusion, this research can be useful for advertisers and marketing practitioners who are working on the
viral campaigns. Humour is an important element in communications and it can help enhance the
spreadability of the message. Nevertheless, humour is not the only way to make viral contents and not all
styles of humour are created equal. The memes that can spread the most effectively behave like vessels for
receivers to communicate their thoughts and emotions by sharing the memes in their networks. Thus, the
humorous memes that the senders make fun of themselves are more likely to be shared. However, the
research finding found that there is a delicate cultural difference between sharing humorous memes on the
English and Thai pages. Therefore, practitioners should pay close attention to how different types of
audiences react to different kinds of messages before coming up with a viral campaign.  

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 Paper presented at 7th International Forum on Public Relations and Advertising
Media Impacts on Culture and Social Communication, Bangkok, August 13-15, 2014, www.muic.mahidol.ac.th/conferences/pr/
This conference was hosted by the International College of Mahidol University (MUIC) in Bangkok, Thailand, in collaboration with the Department of Media and Communication at
City University of Hong Kong, the School of Journalism and Information Communication at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and
the College of Journalism and Communication of Shih Hsin University in Taipei, Taiwan.

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