Nobody felt the need for a Directorate-GeneralA Directorate-General (abbr. DG) is an administrative branch dedicated to a specific field of expertise (e. g. agriculture). It is very similar to a ministry, but we can’t call them like that or member states will be scared that the EU wants to take over their sovereignty. The head of... for Memes, Satire and Sober Fun until the 21st of June 2018, the day DG MEME opened its Facebook page with the following aims:
- Communicating the stories, the dream, the drama and the comedy of the European Union, mostly via memes, interviews, videos and short articles.
- Informing about EU topics while entertaining (infotaining), thus making EU politics relatable to citizens.
- Creating a European community that can discuss relevant EU topics, even if the conversation started with a meme.
- Constructively criticizing the staid communication style of the EU institutions by showing the success of a different, more modern approach.
- Having fun in the process.
The reactions were incredible: functionaries secretly liked it but at the same time there were attempts to report and close it. Fortunately the page grew too big to be stopped and an interview on POLITICO Europe persuaded the hierarchies that a bit of criticism could only be beneficial.
“The European Union is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, very few really know what it is or how it works”
Suddenly even the most senior and unmotivated communicator had to learn what a meme is or how to use Twitter (presently known as X). And this is something we are proud of: despite being outsiders, we managed to impact the European communication, proving that even eurocratsThe term Eurocrat (from the combination of "European" and "bureaucrat") broadly indicates any official working for the European Union; it may have both a negative and a positive connotation, depending on who is speaking. In the EU-Bubble, for example, becoming a eurocrat means reaching a superior state of being, comparable... have their human side.
