SAFETY MEMES – the best and funniest
This idea of memes is not something one finds in a discussion on culture and safety. Yet, there are many safety memes that also have a presence on most social media (https://www.facebook.com/WorkplaceSafetyMemes/; https://cheezburger.com/15506949/workplace-safety-memes-for-the-responsible-coworkers-out-there; https://memes.com/tag/safety ). A search for ‘safety memes’ brings up 27 million results.
What is a meme? The official definition is: A meme (/ˈmiːm/ meem) is “an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture”. It could include a captioned image, a hyperlink, a video or even a hashtag. Examples have included the recent planking craze or the harlem shuffle videos – both of which resulted in people losing their jobs due to breaching safety rules whilst filming. See article: Our Obsession with Forbidden Pleasures–Applying it to Safety …
For many years safety fail videos and pictures have very popular, perhaps for all the wrong reasons (see why here). We don’t agree with the use of safety memes and other voyeuristic techniques as, although they may create awareness and get attention they can lead to desensitisation (see: A Case of Desensitisation)
Since safety seems to have a culture of its own, then it makes sense that safety memes will flood facebook, the internet and training presentations. Oh well, if you can beat em, join em. Here is a collection of safety memes and links to more. Please carefully consider what you do with these and the long term harm they may cause.
MORE SAFETY MEMES
The Meme Center
The meme center contains a large collection of quite funny safety memes using some of the safety fail photos you may have seen a few times already.
Make your own safety meme with their Meme Builder
Quick Meme
Not many safety memes on this site but you might find some of their others quite funny – warning easy to waste a lot of time in there!
Delta Flight Safety Video
See How Many Internet Memes Delta managed to cram Into This Ridiculous In-Flight Safety Video:
Please send us any good safety memes you have seen or created. But please don’t send in any more SAFETY FIRST memes – its too easy to poke fun of the “over safetyfication” of everything (Safety Compulsive Obsessive Disorder)
Brendan Sisombath says
There are a ton of safety memes at:
https://www.facebook.com/EHSsafetymemes
Check it out!
Dave Collins says
Thanks – there is some really dumb stuff on there that does absolutely nothing for real risk discernment but I’m sure just Safety luves it – saves having to think too much about what is truly effective