Lectures on Tap - The Sociology of Memes: Virality, Obscurity, Belonging

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "The Sociology of Memes: Virality, Obscurity, Belonging"

🎤 Speaker: Dr. Ashley Lucia Torres

Memes might look like quick jokes, but they carry deep social meaning. Join us for an evening with sociologist Dr. Ashley Lucia Torres as she unpacks digital meme culture as a space shaped by tension between going viral and staying obscure.

While many memes are crafted for mass circulation, others depend on ambiguity, insider knowledge, and “you had to be there” context to create distinction and exclusion. Drawing on sociological research on digital culture, social networks, and community, Dr. Torres will explore how memes work as tools for identity performance, political signaling, emotional calibration, and community formation across platforms.

From meme merging and intertextual remixing to ironic affect, gatekeeping, and the politics of “getting it,” this lecture shows how participating online increasingly requires interpretive fluency—the ability to recognize, decode, and feel the “right” way within fast-changing systems of shared meaning.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

7:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

7:55 PM – Host introduction

8:00 PM – Lecture begins

8:45 PM – Audience Q&A

9:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

9:30 PM – Wrap up.