Meme and Interpretation
Reference
Griffiths, Heather et al. Introduction To Sociology 2E. 2nd ed., Openstax – Rice University, 2019
This meme illustrates social mobility from one social class to another. According to Griffiths et al., social mobility is “the ability to change positions within a social stratification system” (192). In the U.S., society is stratified into the upper class, middle class, and lower class. The upper class is at the top of the stratification, where the power elites who have the most influence in society are found and usually comprise a small percentage of the national population. The lower class is at the bottom of stratification and consists of subsets such as “the working class, the working poor, and the underclass” (Griffiths et al. 192). Therefore, and arguably, the upper class has better living standards than the middle class, who have better standards of living than the lower class. That is why people strive to move from the lower and middle classes into the upper classes, where they can enjoy more material goods and much power. This movement is called upward mobility. In that view, the meme above illustrates upward mobility, from either lower class or middle class to the class(es) above. That is why the cat is very excited since, in the upper class, where it will have a billionaire status, it will have access to luxuries of the world and influence social issues through power. Notably, social mobility in the opposite direction is called downward mobility – from the upper class or middle class downwards, is undesirable since it limits access to material goods and much power. If the meme was in the opposite direction (downward mobility), for instance, moving from billionaire status to millionaire, the cat in context would be sad and not happy.
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