Jan 22

Jan 22 Spreading Synthetic Biology in the Age of Memes

By Gilai Nachmann, iGEM Stockholm 2017

A meme is typically a picture with a humorous text, used to spread happiness, gain recognition and create a sense of belonging. We know that iGEM can be tough, and bringing the whole iGEM community together through laughter was the main reason for iGEM Stockholm 2017 to create iGEM Memes.

However, iGEM Memes is not the first meme page in iGEM history. We discovered that many meme pages already existed, although these were mainly team specific and not engaging the entire iGEM community nor containing general scientific memes. Our goal was to unite the iGEM community through laughter and today we have gathered over 3000 followers on Instagram and Facebook, connecting old, current and future iGEMers across the globe.

The iGEM Memes account is shared between current and old iGEM Stockholm team members, posting content created by us or submitted by iGEMers from other teams. During iGEM 2017, the pages were so popular that we created the “Meme of the week” challenge, where iGEMers could submit memes and the best one would win the honour of being posted the following Monday. For a short period, iGEM Memes even had more followers on Instagram than iGEM HQ!

The success saga continued in 2018 and the number of followers to iGEM memes reached new heights. Stockholm 2018 decided to create the Facebook group “iGEM Memes for Jamboree Attending Teens” where all iGEMers could post memes freely. In 2019, iGEM Memes participated in several team collaborations and were honoured to receive an invitation to the Bonn Spring Festival as workshop speakers. The first (of hopefully many to come) iGEM memes workshop on memes and scientific/science communication, meeting lots of meme enthusiasts, iGEM sponsors and ambassadors. We also took part in the iGEM Düsseldorf postcard collaboration, iGEM Lab Pat’s wiki guide, iGEMxSDGs challenge, iGEM ITB’s DrawYourGEM challenge and many more!

As a team, we consider our greatest accomplishment to be the new people who discover the iGEM Competition through iGEM Memes. Many of our readers have told us that they believe iGEM Memes make science accessible and understandable for everyone. We were even contacted by a person who was interested in starting a new iGEM team after discovering iGEM Memes!

Conclusively, iGEM Memes connects old, current and future generations of iGEMers, and we want to see social media and humour as a part of the iGEM spirit and community. Make sure to get in touch with us on Facebook or Instagram if you want to share your love for memes or collaborate in some other way!