Could memes help students better master their subjects?

EINSTEIN supposedly once said that if you can't explain something simply, you don't understand it well enough.

The American start-up Antimatter has put its own spin on this premise to help students with their revision. It offers to help them learn their subjects better... by making them into memes.

Memes are humorous or ironic takes on a subject based on a photo, a quote, a GIF or a video excerpt little known to the general public.

These communication tools, synonymous with internet culture, are often the preserve of a limited audience of web users who pride themselves on their meme expertise.

In many ways, memes are insider jokes: you need a good understanding of the things they reference to find them entertaining. 

It is precisely this intimate knowledge of the subject that Antimatter draws on to help students with their revision. The American start-up lets them create memes on the theme of their choice and post them on its platform to encourage the sharing of academic knowledge.

"To be able to shitpost, you have to understand the subject matter really well," Antimatter founder and CEO, Jonathan Libov, told TechCrunch. "In a sense, shitposting is the highest form of consciousness."

The memes available on the Antimatter site are themed on a multitude of school subjects, from mathematics and physics to history and literature.

One of them uses an image of Bender, the feisty robot from the TV series ‘Futurama’, to allude to the fact that the god Zeus often entrusted critically important tasks to other characters in Greek mythology, including Prometheus and his brother Epimetheus.

Another meme refers to the love triangle involving the British art critic John Ruskin, his wife Effie Gray and the Pre-Raphaelite painter John Everett Millais.

While Antimatter describes itself as a revision aid, the company insists that these memes do not absolve students from serious study and revision work.

"You can’t learn from the meme alone, right? You learn from the discussion of the meme," Libov said.

"It’s the discussion during that review session when all of the learning really happens, when people are looking at each other’s memes and explaining what they created."

And the start-up doesn't intend to limit itself to memes and students.

Its aim is to offer other formats – including puzzles – to companies, in order to give a fresh twist to the traditional PowerPoint presentations that characterise office life. Its recent US$2 million (RM9.22 million) funding round should help it achieve this goal. – ETX Daily Up, June 8, 2023