“It’s Like the Fridge Magnet of the Internet”: <i>Platform Aesthetics</i>, Generational Taste, and the Cross-Cultural Valuation of Good Morning Memes

This article investigates the values expressed by good morning memes—an understudied subgenre of social media inspiration featuring a “good day” wish—and criteria that users from different countries and generational groups adopt to evaluate them. Expressed were detected through content analysis 414 memes in English Italian, while insights about evaluation derived 20 semistructured interviews with American Italian users. Analysis revealed cross-cultural divergences core conveyed two subsets, self-efficacy foregrounded met humorous skepticism memes. Interview data cross-generational cleavage interpretation genre based on communicative values, younger negatively evaluating as inauthentic due lack creativity older appreciating them genuine attempts cultivate affiliation between Such distinctions emerged crucial establishment three-way connection an imagined audience users, types framed kitsch such memes, specific platforms, especially Facebook. The concludes heuristic associations infuse ways which people visually imagine coalescing into recognizable platform aesthetics: notions what platforms look like who we believe inhabits