What does HR Meme? DCIM Assignment

This meme relates to my audience of HR entry level employees due to its relevance to today’s workforce and controversies. According to Workforce.com, “seventy-three percent of HR practitioners at the manager level are female…only 27 percent in IT” (The Awesome Influence, 2017). Human resources seems to be the field for females! It is so great to see these percentages rising as the role of people managers moves closer to equality in the workplace. For my female followers, I want them to be proud to be in this field and realize the influence we have. This picture specifically is part of the #HereWeAre movement that was part of a twitter series created by Twitter’s CMO Leslie Berland to advertise the line-up of women in technology speaking on stage for the annual twitter CES.

The ideal demonstrated in this meme is strong women. This is demonstrated by a series of separate elements coming together to show this. The one word leaves a lot of room for interpretation but in todays battle for equality I believe this is the most common reference. Empowered women working to empowering women is a practice spreading daily.

The behavior is the action behind the meme. I would say this is the urge to empower women in all fields. Specific to #HereWeAre and the description KnowYourMeme.com has for the picture, it is said that the tweet received “440 retweets and 1,200 likes in less than three months” (2018). This action of likes, retweets, and comments allows the message to spread as was initially intended by the creator.

The manifestation of this meme is the color background choice, the centered lower-case text, and the stance of the character depicted. Each individual element works to impact the strength of the meme. For example, the black and white element shows that the idea and action meant to be taken portrayed is simple. Additionally, the lower-case “woman” shows that stereotypes of the gender must be broken in order to move forward. It plays on the whole black and white reference to being-in-the-past idea. I hope these manifestations appeal to the audience because both individually and together the elements tell a story of empowerment and equality.

I feel that this meme relates to my audience in a light-hearted, funny way. This meme demonstrates the stress that can come with being in human resources. For those in human resources, every day is different. For me on a personal level, I can say that I have been victim to stress even as an intern. The most stressful area of HR is definitely recruitment for me. The deadlines and unknowns that come with recruiting the right individuals is very pressing. One of the experiences I will never forget is having a great candidate decline and getting pushed back in the process when I thought we were in a great place. One of the best skills to master in HR is becoming comfortable with ambiguity and the challenges arising daily.

The ideal demonstrated here is stress. Stress consumes us all whether it be in our academics, workplace, or figuring out what to wear. As humans we stress over so many moments instead of learning to live in them and come to terms with the simple solution that “this too shall pass”. For entry level HR employees, there is a lot of stress that can come with learning curves. Hardware and software one is not familiar with can be difficult to conquer but by practicing and asking the right questions one can become more comfortable.

The behavior demonstrated in service of the meme would be putting ones stress into photography and art. For artists, one way to relieve stress can be to draw in order to articulate their thoughts. This drawing has a pretty straightforward concept although the exact reason the character is stressing is up for interpretation. I feel that this is the beauty of art, one can tailor the message of a photograph to fit multiple situations.

The manifestations in this drawing are the character, the visible sweat, the under eye bags, and the hand motions along with the different colored background. Each element is one that depicts stress and when together can create an individual victim to the need to stress management techniques.  I hope these will appeal to my audience because they will hopefully relate to the experiences but be self aware enough to learn to tame them.

This last meme relates to my target audience because it depicts the evolution of technology in society. We have evolved from exploration to augmented reality. For human resources  entry level employees, we are not taught to use our daily hardware and software in school, we must take the time to learn them on the job. For me, it took a lot of outside research and practice to properly understand what I am using and how to use it effectively. As recruiters, we are now recruiting the entry level technology employees of the future and we must learn how to keep up with what experience makes a great candidate.

The ideal conveyed here is that we are progressing quickly and soon will be completely immersed in this technological world. As all generations become more and more accustomed to technology, as HR professionals we can see that the importance of learning and becoming comfortable with new technology is urgent. It is important to become a renaissance individual in terms of knowledge coming out of college. Branching out in terms of different disciplines out of your comfort zone in order to transition into a work-place smoothly.

The behaviors this meme portrays are urging individuals to understand how rapidly we are advancing and ponder what the future will look like. With the last depiction being an augmented reality helmet, you can also infer that we slowly may be losing touch with reality by becoming so immersed in a world of devices. I think that what is important to notice is that we are the individuals creating this technological era. As human we are the developers and if the increase of technology becomes a large problem, we are the ones who will be able to stop it.

The manifestations of this meme are its main character and background color. This meme is a chain of memes as seen on KnowYourMeme.com and each have a significance because each picture has the character displaying a different distasteful emotion. The title of the series is “Computer Reaction Faces” and the character is conveying all of the different emotions this form of technology can elicit. I think this can connect will with my audience because as individuals who deal with different issues daily, our emotions range from smiling one minute to stressing the next.