Museums in the UK have celebrated ‘Museum Meme Day’ by posting captioned pictures of their artefacts on Twitter.
Many of the Twitter accounts behind popular UK museums posted a meme related to art, history and even the people that visit. It follows a popular trend of Classic Art memes, where pictures of famous artworks were captioned.
A meme is an internet phenomenon that usually consists of a recognisable image with a humorous or relatable caption added.
The memes added new captions to classic artefacts in their collections:
Happy #MusMeme day! Have you ever created any memes with objects in our collections? If so, be sure to share them with us today. Sculpture from Italy c. 1518 pic.twitter.com/DcdF9epNQ5
— Ashmolean Museum (@AshmoleanMuseum) August 22, 2018
Others, including the Natural History Museum and National Football Museum, made a comment on the visitors and their behaviour:
So we heard it's #MusMeme day.
A classic. pic.twitter.com/NToKPZTK7e— Natural History Museum (@NHM_London) August 22, 2018
#MusMeme
If you're here for the King of Pop, he's up on Level 1. pic.twitter.com/d3D20EmPjF— Nat. Football Museum (@FootballMuseum) August 22, 2018
Just saying… #MusMeme pic.twitter.com/vfv0VU2uJP
— V&A (@V_and_A) August 22, 2018
"Thank you for visiting. The museum is now closed." #MusMeme pic.twitter.com/qbeBUDv7Gk
— Field Museum (@FieldMuseum) August 22, 2018
Profile pic vs tagged photo 😨 #MusMeme pic.twitter.com/FfNUZubLTn
— English Heritage (@EnglishHeritage) August 22, 2018
VisitEngland recently released data about English attractions and their use of marketing and digital media.
17% of visitor attractions increased their marketing spend in 2017, while 10% decreased. Those that increased tended to be those that saw an increase in visitor numbers, growth predominantly driven by overseas visitors.
93% of attractions have a website, 89% use some form of digital communications (a slight increase on previous years). More than one third have an online booking system, at 37%.
Digital communications appear to be working. The attractions that used them saw a 2% increase in visitors. The attractions that did not saw a 3% decline.
For the second year in a row, Instagram and Pinterest are becoming more in use by visitor attractions. 44% now use the social networks, up from 22% in 2015. However, it does appear that attractions are narrowing in on their social media use – the proportion of sites using “other” social media has more than halved since 2016. This suggests attractions are investing more time into the mainstream social media.
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/your-favorite-historical-artefacts-are-now-memes-as-museums-celebrate-national-musmeme-day-1853715.html