Ever since the debut of the smart phone, digital entertainment has replaced magazines when it comes to spending time on the toilet, and memes are a large reason for that. Teens and young adults have created a new cultural movement in the form of the “meme” (pronounced /mēm/ for those who have yet to fully immerse yourselves in modern art). The new comedic art form of the up-and-coming generation can be summed up as jokes told over photographs or cartoons, occasionally (or more often) in poor taste. This cultural “meme-ent,” if you will, has confused our parents and theirs, begging the question why.
It's not the spread or virility of a pure, unaltered idea. In fact, the whole point is that it's altered, taken out of context to convey something more amusing than before. Arguably, each alteration results in something less original and even more derivative before, calling into question its legitimacy. Even though this may be the case, it seems to be this unoriginal quality and universality that make memes so appealing to people.
The term “meme” comes from evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. For Dawkins, cultural ideas were no different than genes—concepts that had to
spread themselves from brain to brain as quickly as they could, replicating and mutating as they went. He called those artifacts memes, bits of cultural DNA that encoded society’s shared experiences while also constantly evolving. Dawkins coined the term in 1976,
in his book The Selfish Gene, long before the modern internet, before
memes morphed into what they are now. Back then, Dawkins was talking about passing along culture—song melodies, art styles, whatever. Today, denizens of the internet think of memes as jokes passed across social media in the form of image macros (those pictures of babies or cats or whatever with bold black-and-white words on them), hashtags (the thing you amended to what you just wrote on Twitter), GIFs (usually of a celebrity, reality star, or drag queen reacting to what you just wrote on Twitter), or videos (that
Rick Astley video people used to send you).
Although not always decorous or remarkably innovative, these instances of virality are a pretty appropriate modern adaptation of the 1970s namesake, encompassing the cyber-spread of only the most popular and universally appealing ideas. Some may despair at calling this an artform or even decry the meme as a cultural component, but the reality is that it's a fairly accurate representation of popular media and daily issues. It's so deeply entrenched in millennial circles that I'm confident memes will continue to hold their own in terms of popularity.
In the early days, memes started slowly and stuck around longer. (Seriously, Nyan Cat was around for literally years.) But the speed of social media meant memes could blow up and be over in the span of a week, if not a day. Overall, memes are about more that just LOLs. They’ve picked up two new purposes: to pledge allegiance to your in-group and to make you lots of money. Memes used to appeal to humanity’s fundamentals—everyone feels awkward sometimes, everyone likes watching a kitten acting a fool. But now people flash political memes like gang signs. Modern-day American memes are about political correctness or the Second Amendment, about the emptiness of offering thoughts and prayers to shooting victims or the satisfying inclusiveness of Black Panther. These memes are seen as a public declaration of your political positions and cultural identity, and, increasingly, an invitation for people with opposing viewpoints to come sass (or harass) you in the comments. Is this casual yet hostile behavior a symptom of how contentious and polarized the internet has become? Most definitely. Memes are just snapshots of culture. Does it seem likely to stop anytime soon? Definitely not.
The current digital era has given us several common names that expand the limitations of technology and make us feel at home. Most smart devices provide a virtual assistant; an integrated software that is conversational, listens, and carries out tasks when given a standard trigger phrase like "Hey Siri." or "Alexa." that would be recognized as calling their name. Amazon is the host of Alexa. Just like Apple's "Siri" assistant, The Alexa Voice Service (AVS) "has been integrated into many of Amazon’s services and can be used with products such as the original Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Spot, or Amazon Fire TV." But of course Amazon will not stop there. Having already entered the homes of millions, the AVS has ventured into smaller everyday appliances like light switches, thermostats, wall plugs, and even wall clocks. 
CNET recently announced the restock of Alexa's Echo Wall Clock. They were originally stalled because of some "Bluetooth connectivity kinks", but the problemed seemed minor considering it took less than a month to correct. The Echo Wall Clock is not considered a traditional echo device meaning it does not have a microphone or speaker of its own. This also means that in order to operate the clock you must own and pair it with an existing echo speaker. The beauty of the device lies within its simplicity and minimal visual aspects. On the face of the clock there are LED light notches that aid in detailing the time when setting a timers or when requesting a reminder of something. Aside from the prior Bluetooth connectivity issue, a "hiccup" you may want to think about before purchasing this item could be the lack in display of the timers. Some people have reported that even after resetting the command, the timers "weren't displaying as expected". Fortunately this bug has already been addressed and is less likely to occur. Another thing to think about would be the clock's battery usage. "Some users reported that they needed to regularly swap the batteries out whenever the clock would lose connection." In the video provided below, Executive Editor, Rich Brown, explains how he received 4 Amazon Basics AA batteries that were only strong enough to go through the setup process. After exchanging them with 4 Duracell batteries, the device functioned "just fine". 
I personally would not purchase this item due to the cost. One clock is priced at $30 retail and seems expensive considering that is how much I paid for my speaker (Echo Dot 3rd Generation) alone. However, having a smart analog clock is not a bad idea. Since the display is larger and tailored towards time, you are able to watch the time and how much of it you have. This is something that cannot be done with just the speaker.
