Of Myths and Memes

When I was growing up, watching the Olympics was an exciting and necessary part of my life. LA 1984 Seoul 88 and ‘Barcelona 92 is waiting for you’ – this was written on a badge I owned and cherished – and Atlanta 96. I was an avid fan of the spectacle until perhaps London 2012. Given the political situation in the world, especially Gaza, I was not really enthused by the Paris Olympics 2024. That childhood passion and even respect for the games had waned.

Then last week, I suddenly started to see posts about a Turkish man who took part in the shooting competition without wearing any protective gear and actually won a silver medal. The internet was ablaze and his images went viral. People were creating memes and even professionals on LinkedIn were using his success to counter Enzo Ferrari’s quote, “No one remembers who took second place…” It seemed that this man, Yusuf Dikeç, had overshadowed the gold medallist, and that in this instance, no one did care who came first.

However, when Abraham Lincoln, in his wisdom, said, “Don’t trust everything you see on the Internet,” he was apparently right. But we were enjoying the memes, and there was even a story about how Dikeç took up the sport after his divorce and about him wanting his wife to give his dog back to him. That story was a case of Chinese whispers; it had been published as satire and was perceived as factual, although it was not.

All well and good. However, the shock came when my friend Afia Salam shared a post that added context to the story. Firstly, Dikeç won silver in a team event and his partner, who was shooting just as casually as he was, was Şevval İlayda Tarhan. She, however, did not go viral. Dikeç, for his part, has competed in every Olympics since 2008 and, as far as I can deduce, never won a medal. Furthermore, it was the better performance by Sevval that secured the silver for Turkey. Dikeç was also a former officer of the Turkish police, by the way.

I shared Afia’s post on Facebook and in the marketing group I am a member of, and this led to some interesting comments and logic. The post basically theorised that the fact he went viral and no one even spoke about Tarhan was related to gender. Some argued that he went viral because of his pizzazz. Some argued that more women at the Olympics had gone viral than men.

Seeing the virality and popularity of Dikeç and the reaction to the post led me to believe that the memes we share are related to the myths we believe in. In fact, on LinkedIn, James Crawford’s post on ‘Myths and Memes’ says, “Myths are memes and memes are myths.”

Regarding this particular story, what are the myths? The first one would be the hero myth, where a single man is the hero. The second would be the underdog, and that while we love to remind ourselves that nothing good is achieved without hard work, we secretly love stories where the underdog disrupts the competition with their style and skill, making everything look so easy. The reality is that Dikeç’s story is actually the opposite: it is about collaboration and interdependence.

Going back to the divorce story, the site Sports Memery, which first published the story, had this to say: “It’s clear I overestimated the internet’s ability to distinguish between fact and fiction.”

I would go so far as to say that the problem is not the internet; it’s us. We are amazing creatures, but we are lazy and biased. We cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction, or perhaps we do not want to. A friend once gave me an eye-opening book called The Games People Play by Dr. Eric Berne, which talked about the adult, parent, and child in each one of us and how we interact with each other.

In 2024, we need a new book or an upgraded edition that talks about the myths we believe in and the memes we share. Because the memes we share and spread are like my Barcelona badge. They represent something we cherish and value as true.

Tyrone Tellis is Senior Manager, Corporate Sales and PR, Bogo. tyrone.tellis@gmail.com