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The internet has become the best source of entertainment for the young generation. In our highly stressed lifestyle, funny caricatures, comedy videos, jokes, and memes are our stress-buster. Currently, memes are the most common source of laughter on social media platforms where the young generation is highly active. However, there are certain memes referred to as dark memes which negatively affect the sentiments of teens.
There are certain inappropriate subject matters that kids and teens should not come across on the internet. Dark memes are based on these forbidden subject matters, and they push the youth generation into the dark world. In this article, we will discuss in details about dark humor memes and how they impact our kids and teens. Most importantly, we will illustrate what parents can do to prevent their kids from getting exposed to dark memes.
- 1. What Is A Dark Meme
- 2. How Do Dark Memes Spread and Get Viral
- 3. How Dark Memes Impact Teen
- 4. The Signs of Child Influenced by Dark Memes
- 5. How to Protect Kids in The Dark Memes
1. What Is A Dark Meme?
Memes are images or GIFs that are humorous in nature generally depicting something in a sarcastic way. Dark memes are those memes whose subject matters are based on inappropriate and forbidden topics for teens. These subject matters are violence, suicide, death, bullying, discrimination, substance abuse, adult stuff, diseases, and likewise.
Generally, the hilarious dark memes do not provoke kids and teens to be violent or commit suicide, but they plant a seed in their subconscious minds. Offensive memes affect mostly those who are going through depression, discrimination, bullying, and negative mindset. Research has pointed out that if kids and teens get too much exposure to dark memes, it can lead them to live a negative lifestyle going forward.
2. How Do Dark Memes Spread and Get Viral?
Memes are created by online users who have a sense of humor and a proper app to edit images and turn them into memes. In fact, various social media influencers and pages create and share memes on their feeds which go viral instantly due to their huge followers. Dark memes may originate from these creators who create them just for fun. However, there are some groups that create certain dark memes to propagate their agendas in society.
Memes are extremely popular on social media platforms. Most social media users who can see and enjoy the funny side of a meme, they share it on their feeds. Therefore, that particular meme can be seen by everyone in his friend circle.
His friends can also share the same meme, and the meme then becomes visible to their respective friend circles. That is how a humor meme generally spreads and gets viral. However, for a dark meme, this spreading activity is slightly different.
Apart from getting shared by those who can get a laughter from a dark meme, people who find the dark meme relatable to their current life situation, they share dark memes the most. Not just that, dark memes get more engagement than regular funny memes. This is because there are people who take these so-called funny dark memes offensively and protest against them in the comment section.
The more comments a dark meme gets, the more will be its engagement and the more it will be recommended to users present on social media platforms.
3. How Dark Memes Impact Teen?
There is a wide difference between regular humor and dark humor. Those who create dark memes may intend it for adults only, but these dark memes eventually end up on the feeds of the teenagers and their impact could be grave. Here are some of the common offensive dark memes and how negatively they impact teens.
Racist Memes
Racist memes are extremely popular on social media platforms. Even though people say they are against racism, they do not think twice before sharing them with others directly through their social media handles or in private groups. When teenagers repeatedly keep seeing racist memes, discrimination automatically springs up in their minds.
White teenagers start to look down upon black teenagers in their group, and they even start to bully. Black teenagers start considering white teenagers as their enemy, and due to constant discrimination and bullying, they can also go into depression and may commit suicide.
Violence and Suicidal Memes
Memes based on violence try to make violence look cool. It tries to show that beating someone should be taken as a matter of pride. It gives a message that beating up someone establishes superiority and everyone loves to be a fan of a gangster.
When teenagers get to see such dark memes, naturally, they start to believe that they should pick up a fight and beat up others in order to be superior in the eyes of their peers. This gives rise to bullying and unnecessary fights where innocent persons generally fall victim.
Similarly, suicidal memes are dangerous for teens. Teens go through various phases in life, and during their worst phase, suicidal thoughts are quite common. Even though suicidal memes are generally made for fun, they give away various ways to commit suicide and plant suicidal thoughts for the dark time of their lives.
Specific Propaganda Memes
There are some groups that create memes only to spread their evil propaganda among teenagers. It is very easy to influence teenagers and make them believe in something that may not be true. These propagandas could be against a particular religion, a specific race, women as a group, people belonging to the LGBTQ community, and likewise.
For example, dark memes try to make teens hate the Muslim community by propagating that they are extremists. Some dark souls memes propagate that men are here to rule over women and women are to be played with. Others try to make teenagers look down upon those who are not straight and have different preferences.
4. The Signs of Child Influenced by Dark Memes
There is no dearth of dark memes on the internet, especially on social media platforms. Even if you uninstall social media apps, you have to allow your kids to use messaging apps where kids are part of groups for study purposes.
Any kid can share dark memes there, and constant exposure to such dark memes could lead to bad influences on your kid. That is why parents need to be watchful and watch out for the signs of their child getting influenced by dark memes.
Issues In School – If your kid is constantly getting into fights and bullying activities in school, you should take it as a red flag. This is especially true when there used to be no complaint from school or tuition teachers previously.
Reckless Behavior – Sudden change in behavior among kids and teens is common. But if their behavior is becoming reckless and inappropriate, you need to start the source that is influencing their behavior massively.
Lack Of Interest – If you find your kid has lost the enthusiasm and interest in activities that he used to love, it is a sign that something is not right in his life. This could be due to substance abuse, victim of bullying, depression and others after getting gravely influenced by dark memes.
These signs may not always be due to exposure to dark memes. This is why to confirm, you have to monitor their online activities secretly.
5. How to Protect Kids in The Dark Memes
The modern day kids are very smart, and they delete their browsing history, downloaded images, and their conversations so that their parents cannot detect their online activities. That is why parents need an advanced monitoring application to outsmart their kids. KidsGuard Pro for Android is the best parental monitoring app. If your child is using a iPhone, you may choose KidsGuard Pro for iOS to monitor.
Features of KidsGuard Pro for Android
- Track Social Media Apps – Parents can track their kid's activities on popular social media apps where the so-called hilarious dark memes are so fluently shared. You can also read their conversations and check their private groups.
- Track Browser History – Apart from social media, you can check the browser history to understand that your kid is searching and surfing. This is where you can get signs of your kid getting influenced by dark memes.
- Check Photos & Videos – By checking the downloaded photos and videos on your kid's phone, you can confer whether your kid is into inappropriate content.
- Record Calls – Listening to the conversation of your kid will help you to understand their state of mind as well as what they are up to. You can record calls on your kid's phone and listen to them later.
Using KidsGuard Pro for Android, parents can capture real-time screenshot of their kid’s phone anytime and anywhere. Such a live screen capture will let the parents find out if their kid is accessing any harmful content. Here are all the other features that KidsGuard Pro for Android offers parents.
Apart from that, you can track their locations, read messages, and check call logs.
Steps To Install KidsGuard Pro
Step 1: Sign up and purchase a plan for KidsGuard Pro for Android. Thereafter, check Setup Guide on My Products and Orders Management page.
Step 2: Get your kid's phone and open its web browser. Visit the download website and download the app.
Install and open it to sign in with your account's credentials.
Step 3: Come back to your computer and sync the data. Now you can start monitoring on the dashboard.
Conclusion
When you give your kid a smartphone for study purposes, you should constantly monitor their activities remotely. You should monitor their browser history, social media activities, images they are downloading, videos they are sharing, and likewise. Internet is a tricky place to be in for kids, and dark memes can lead them to a negative mindset. We recommend you to install KidsGuard Pro for Android as soon as you give your kid a smartphone. Start monitoring their every move remotely to take timely steps for parental guidance.
