Written by Lan
A meme is an idea, behaviour, style, or image spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. It always resonates with people and spreads like a virus. In some aspects, it’s like the carrier of Internet culture. And last year, a Chinese Memes Museum was established, not in reality, but in the game VRChat. It is a 100% non-profit free museum based on the online VR platform, open to everyone 24 hours a day. Although it is constructed in a virtual world, this museum has the same entrance, exhibition hall distribution, furnishings and even collection display as an actual museum. It does not appear to be of inferior quality because a commercial team does not produce it. The entire museum contains almost all the popular memes on the Chinese Internet from 2000 to the present. It is divided into seven areas, the beginning of memes, the inheritance of memes, the rise of memes, the prosperity of memes, gamers, anime and home. Due to a large number of visitors, the museum has more than 70 lines to facilitate VRChat users to access the Chinese Memes Museum around the world in a smooth visit, and there are even memorable lines for the United States and Japan.
The source of exhibits can be regarded as all-inclusive, from topics elicited by simple chat conversations to more popular carriers such as pictures and short videos, to famous scenes in film and television dramas, animation and comics, and video games. Anything that has ever been a topic of conversation and brought joy and memories to the Chinese Internet is present. Since it is a museum, it is also displayed in multiple forms. In addition to the most basic pictures and texts, there are also 3D models and related sounds of the items in the memes, and even many famous scenes are created one-to-one.
Because it is a scene in VRChat, the Chinese Memes Museum has a social attribute that many digital library products do not have: anyone can walk around the museum with their friends in the guise of virtual images (anime girls, robots, and small animals, etc.) and chit-chat without disturbing anyone. Of course, a more regular usage of VRChat is to watch the exhibition with unfamiliar friends and chat to get to know each other.
Many famous Chinese media, including Sohu and Chinanews, have reported the museum. It has subtly served as a historical identity for inheriting the past and ushering in the future. On the one hand, it records the fragments of the Chinese Internet in the past ten years, and on the other hand, it contributes to VR/MR content.