Image macros (colloquially called memes) have become mainstream. Political candidates use them, corporations use them, even your grandma uses them.
But that doesn't mean every meme is something your grandma would reblog to talk about how much she loves wine.
The emergent genre of art/poetry called "macropoetry" came out of the dying alt-lit movement over the past few years. Alt-lit, a style of prose fueled by reduced publication costs that highlighted Western, white, millennial sensibilities, faded away in the late 2000s after in-fighting between writers grew to a head. Out of the fallout, several authors moved into other alternative literature formats. One of those formats was macropoetry. Frequently as simple as short poems overlaid standard meme images, macropoetry has found a home on Facebook. However, the communities are plagued by many of the same problems as alt-lit faced.
I don't consider myself a part of the macropoetry community, just as I didn't consider myself alt-lit, despite writing and publishing similar works during the same period. Most of my exclusion is voluntary - I tend to use original designs for my macropoems, unlike many creators. Some of it comes from the quasipolitical fighting that happens within the groups. Either way, this leaves me largely without an audience for my content outside of physical prints, so I thought I would share some of it with the Steemit community. I put them in a rough order of "most meme-y" to "most artsy," to ease y'all into things. If you've got a favorite, let me know in the comments; I have much more than I'm including in this post but want to see what style y'all prefer before adding more.
image from Hey Arnold!, the 90s cartoon
image from Spongebob Squarepants
image from a playmat me and many other 90s kids had
original digital design
original digital design
original digital design
original digital design
original digital design
original digital design
Again, if you have a favorite, comment below. And if you're interested in supporting me outside of Steemit, check out my store and consider purchasing my poetry book.
