The Elven Memes

So we have multiple versions of elves: Santa's elves, Harry Potter's house elves, Lord of the Ring's elves, video games elves. The list goes on an on, which provides lots of great material for meme creation.

Many times mockery is the subject of elven memes. However, sometimes political references are made, such as with Santa's elves and house elves. Freedom seems to popular when concerning house elves and sometimes Santa's elves, though Santa's elves are used to mock Christmas.

Mockery comes mostly from the LOTR and video gaming elves. Elves in LOTR and video games often have powers unattainable to humans and are considered "better" races. A common meme for LOTR is when Legolas, a very popular elf among LOTR and elven fans, is looking out into the distance to see what humans and dwarves cannot. People place a funny image for Legolas to see in the center picture, leaving Legolas shocked in the last frame.

Here's an example:

This meme is mocking computers and losing all the information available. Legolas can see what is happening when the others cannot.

Another common theme is mocking the better abilities elves have in video games. Dominating as an elf is a common theme and often the players of these elves are mocked for their pride and overbearing attitudes.

Example:

In this meme, Joseph Ducreux, a French painter during the French Revolution, is used in memes that mock different subjects. Often the words in the meme are from a vocabulary of large words and using an old way to speak. However, this is not the case since the meme is mocking the language of internet and gaming. The "Level 80 Elf Paladin" is supposed to be a strong character that can dominate in the World of Warcraft games. The "In...Yo...Face" is to mock the gamers' pride for their characters.

In this next meme, the mockery of LOTR and gaming is combined into one.

This is a combination of two memes. The top part is the original meme that circulated around the internet. It's mocking how Legolas never ran out of arrows during the the LOTR movies. The bottom meme is a response to the top meme. The man in the middle is associated with gaming and his words are gaming referencing, bringing together LOTR and gaming into one giant joke.

Besides memes, there are other ways to create internet art about elves. Fan art is really popular as people can curate images, sounds, videos, etc. into a group setting for their individual purposes.

This montage was created from images of Legolas and a quote in the bottom right corner. It was probably created in a photo editor to make the images blend together seamlessly and to add the quote and make it look good. And each montage or fan art carries some meaning from the creator. I believe this creator meant to show their devotion to Legolas. The quote, "And when I look into your eyes, the sky's a different blue" is romantic and all the pictures used are supposed to be attractive. This creator was expressing her devotion and warm emotions towards this fictional character.

But not all fan art is this way. Some have more negative, mocking meanings like memes. The tones are determined on the content and words used within the images created. Elves tend to be more mocking or political in their memes while fan art is devoted more to the likeable emotions.