Nature's Archive #40: The Crazy World of Wild Green Ecological Memes - Rhett Barker and Curtis Sarkin
My guests today are Rhett Barker and Curtis Sarkin of the incredibly popular Wild Green Memes for Ecological Fiends.
If you don’t know Wild Green Memes, it’s a Facebook group of over 475,000 members. And it’s quite possibly the most enjoyable place I’ve found on social media.
Before I go any further, yes, today’s episode is a bit different than my typical episodes. But you’re still going to learn some fascinating ecology! You’ll hear about spiders that keep frogs as pets, the amazing nomadic steller’s sea eagle, a tree that has exploding seed pods, lungless salamanders, and more.
But the focus of today’s episode is how the humble meme has turned into an amazing tool for fun, education, and even nonprofit fundraising! In case you’re wondering what the heck a meme is, I found this nice succinct definition. A meme is a virally transmitted image embellished with text, usually sharing pointed commentary or humor about cultural symbols, social ideas, or current events.
Today Rhett and Curtis discuss how Wild Green Memes came to be, and the clever ways that they manage the group, facilitating its insanely rapid growth while maintaining the group’s culture. You’ll hear how they turned a trend of wildlife “gang” memes into a basis for highly successful nonprofit fundraising.
And of course, we talk about the funniest memes and meme trends that they’ve seen.
As Curtis, says, we’re only scratching the surface of the potential of memes.
You can find Wild Green Memes for Ecological Fiends on Facebook, and they also have a presence on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, as well as a podcast called Wild Green Streams.
FULL SHOW NOTES
Support Us On Patreon!
Buy our Merch!
Music: Spellbound by Brian Holtz Music
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
Artist site: https://brianholtzmusic.com
Discover the Jumpstart Nature Podcast - entertaining and immersive, it's the nature fix we all need.
Check past Nature's Archive episodes for amazing guests like Doug Tallamy, Elaine Ingham, and Rae Wynn-Grant, covering topics from bird migration to fungi to frogs and bats!