A pensive woman engrossed in a complex mathematical formula reacts to an unclear situation or statement, so the muscular and shy dog ironically emphasize the differences between the two people.
There are almost no users of social networks who have not come across these contents, better known as mimes in popular culture, in various corners of the Internet.
They mostly take the form of photos, videos or cultural information that are adapted with appropriate text.
Mimes often refer to specific social, political, and cultural events and thus, like other media, influence how we see reality, explains Luka Bešlagić, art and media theorist from the Faculty of Media and Communications.
"These are fairly simple contents, so anyone can produce a mime to convey a specific message in that telegraphically condensed form," he tells the BBC in Serbian.
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How are mimes made?
While scrolling through photos on social networks, twenty-five-year-old Anđela Mujković stopped and smiled.
On the screen was a photo of a cup of coffee, the foam of which formed the silhouette of a bug.
Above was the inscription: Good morning, Kafka.
This internet joke is based on a large number of imitation posts from the early 2000s on the social network Facebook, where users used to greet each other like this.
The photo also alludes to the writer Franz Kafka and his work Transfiguration, in which the main character turns into a bug.
Anđela says that a good mime can brighten her day, and Bruna Žeželić on her mime page @good morning friends every day he tries to do just that - to make others happy.
She found the idea in the Facebook posts of older relatives and friends.
"They would wish each other a pleasant morning or evening with photos of cups of coffee, flowers or some cute animal.
"I thought that there are no such posts on Instagram, and then I transferred some of them to that network."
This is how an entire community of more than 20.000 "cafopias", as Bruna jokingly calls them, developed.
It's not just younger people, a large part of her followers are also older people who don't see this as a joke, but feel good when someone wishes them a nice day and offers them a cup of virtual coffee.
In addition, Žeželić says that in her virtual space there are also those who are just entering the world of design, so that in addition to her mimes or those downloaded from Facebook, humorous visual solutions of her followers also appear.
"Most often, it's some mismatched combinations, like the one where the singers Lana Del Rey or Taylor Swift drink coffee surrounded by pigeons," she adds.
Mimes are much older than the internet.
They include any ideas, behaviors and knowledge that belong to pop culture and that are easily spread, explains Ilija Milosavljević from the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš.
"It is an ideal means of communication that is in line with the fast-paced lifestyle and globalization, due to which popular culture is almost the same everywhere.
"In addition, it is visual content that, as such, is ideally suited to networks," he believes.
What are mimes?
The word mim (meme) comes from the Greek word mime, which means to imitate.
This term was first used in 1976 in the book The Selfish Gene by biologist Richard Dawkins.
Dawkins believed that mimes are similar to biological genes, because they convey a large amount of information.
He defined a mime as a word that conveys information from culture, while also having the characteristics of imitation.
Dawkins needed a name that would be similar to a gene, and the word could also be related to the concept of memory (memory).
At the beginning of the 21st century, as Internet culture developed, mimes became part of it and their popularity grew.
Source: Britannica
Laughter, psychology and existentialism
On the profile photo of the Instagram page Mime therapy is Sigmund Freud, one of the most famous psychiatrists and founders of psychoanalysis, with sunglasses and a microphone.
This page was started a year ago by a student of psychology, Srećko Gutić, at the persuasion of a colleague from the faculty.
He says that he collects mimes that he finds interesting and then combines them with texts related to psychology, psychoanalysis or the philosophy of existentialism.
Existentialism is a philosophical direction that appeared after the First World War, and its most important representatives are the writers Franz Kafka and Albert Camus, the philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger.
"I wanted to create content that would be both funny and serious at the same time," Gutić told the BBC in Serbian.
His original idea was to expand the knowledge of the science he studies and deals with, so that it is available to a larger number of people, he explains.
There are many subgenres of mimes, and some of them deal with serious topics, according to art theorist Bešlagić.
"In a deeper, philosophical sense, they are dedicated to the fundamental problems of what and what reality is, how the subject is created, how our reality functions."
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Former British Prime Minister and lettuce
A political commentator's humorous remark that then British Prime Minister Liz Truss had "the shelf life of a lettuce" sparked a series of memes across the internet.
Britain's Daily Star tested the theory by in a live YouTube broadcast posed this vegetable with a blonde wig in front of the camera.
When the then prime minister announced her resignation after only 44 days in office, around 20.000 people came to congratulate the green salad.
At that time, mimes could be seen everywhere with photos placed next to each other with the inscription: Liz Trass - Lettuce 0:1, but also those with lettuce giving a speech or defeating a politician in a boxing match.
What is generation Z laughing at, and what are millennials laughing at?
Lav Grdan and Fatmir Brežanin belong to different generations - the first is a buzzer, and the second is a millennial.
Generation Z, or Zoomers, consists of everyone born from 1997 to 2012, while millennials are a bit older - they were born between 1981 and 1996.
These two generations differ not only in their attitudes towards work, education and dress, but also in what they find funny.
That's how a discussion started on the social network TikTok, and Generation Z accuses millennials that their jokes are weird, because they are influenced by a large number of cultural references, such as band names or quotes from movies.
Meanwhile, Millennials think Zoomers are laughing at nonsensical things.
Both Lav and Fatmir spend a lot of time looking for a mime that will be funny to them.
Leo is particularly interested in those that look like "collages with incompatible contents", so his favorite mimes include historical figures and contemporary pop stars at the same time.
Fatmir says that "newer, more absurd mimes can be good", but that he still "prefers meaningfulness".
Zoomers see humor as a refuge, they combine the incompatible and thus "one nonsense gives meaning to another", it is stated in the textThe comical path to the interior, or the pedagogical problems of generation Z.
The frames of expected and unexpected, as well as positive and negative, change from generation to generation, explains satirist and screenwriter Vojislav Žanetić.
"It doesn't happen by completely changing the framework, but by partially moving it.
"Humor has changed throughout history in the same way it is modified through different generations, but that does not mean that all humor from earlier times has stopped being funny," adds Žanetić, who is also a marketing expert.
How did the mimes get to the art gallery?
During the fall, an exhibition Mimes by the artist Aleksandar Denić was organized in one of the Belgrade galleries.
On the illuminated walls of the gallery space, there are painted fragments of the most famous jokes from the Internet.
They are skilfully combined with figures of historical figures, politicians and folk stars, and are accompanied by some witty commentary.
Denić, a long-haired millennial, says that for him the greatest success is to make a picture out of the content that lives on the Internet.
"Mimes are something humorous and simplistic at the same time, but on the one hand they are also clichés.
"I was constantly painting public and historical figures, so the transition to mime as art was natural," Denić told the BBC in Serbian.
His work was also influenced by folk music.
"With the advent of YouTube, I got the opportunity to hear everything I was interested in, because I wasn't the type to buy records and tapes or listen to the radio.
"I wanted to paint everything I was listening to, because it's unexpected for an artist to unironically use folk music as inspiration," he explains.
Raw expression and bright colors, but also the "combination of the incompatible", such as French cinematography and church leaders, conveys many messages, according to this painter.
"I want to say that all people are equal, that no one is better or worse because they have a different taste, and I think that is the most important message of my drawings and paintings, which are primarily artistic mimes," concludes Denić.
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