I know, I know. Silly. But I enjoyed my visit to the Museum of the Moving Image too, and playing around with creating memes 🙂
Not only is today (10/20) National Writing Day, but next Thursday is National Cat Day, and there is a cat video festival happening in Boston next week!
This presentation will explore the meme. When tying this into the understanding of memes it all goes back to discourse communities. Memes are single ideas that together, connect entire discourse communities. Regardless of the chosen affinity, a well constructed meme “will be one that triggers the appropriate set of conceptual and emotional associations for a given audience within a given cultural context” (Wetherbee 2). The topoi, this connector contributes to the interaction across social media platforms. The meme connects users for Facebook to Instagram and Instagram to Twitter. Sites such as Tumblr, Reddit, and individual blogs in WordPress are a part of a larger idea.
Today, Tuesday, October 22, 2015, is National Day of Writing! You can more about this on NCTE’s website. A primary way this day is being celebrated / organized is through the use of a hashtag: #WhyIWrite. As the website states, “For this year’s National Day on Writing we will focus on the what, how, and why of writing and we are asking people in our community to share their writing life by posting on social media with the hashtag #whyiwrite.” You can follow this live conversation unfolding on Twitter, and participate yourself if you want.
This is an opportunity to consider why you write, the role it has in your life, and perhaps even how your writing is expanding in new media composing environments. Anyone who wants to do so may post a multimedia post for extra credit (complete by this weekend). This is an optional post, and can be approached any way you feel would be most appropriate (you can browse the national conversation happening online to get inspiration) … feel to be as creative as you’d like!
Kenny and Cohen derive the idea of a meme by using Limor Shifman’s definition in explaining to their readers that a meme, is “(a) a group of digital items sharing common characteristics of content, form, and/or stance, which (b) were created with awareness of each other, and (c) were circulated, imitated, and/or transformed via the internet by many users” (98).
The circulation of memes have created a discourse community in which people participate in creating variations of scenarios through imagery. Memes spread through the behavior that they generate within different discourse communities on the web. For instance, the very familiar Leonardo Dicaprio memes:
http://www.quickmeme.com/Leonardo-Dicaprio
https://imgflip.com/i/rfg6y
https://imgflip.com/meme/Leonardo-Dicaprio-Cheers?page=79
As you can see, a snippet of imagery from the film The Great Gatsby was acquired and circulated around the web to create various memes whether to share humorous context or a more serious one. One shot can be looked at and manipulated a thousand ways and that in itself, creates a discourse community in that users of the web like to create memes. This photo may be updated and reupdated whenever someone has a text that can draw attention to the photo and create an idea.
“According to Limor Shifman, there are two types of remix meme: the juxtaposition image meme and the frozen-motion remix meme. The juxtaposition meme takes a facial expression or an act out context and inserts it into an image that deserves the punch line” (Cohen & Kenny 104). The memes of Leonardo Dicaprio shown above is the very definition of a juxtaposition meme. “Shifman explains that juxtapositions call for mimetic response because the photos are taken out of context, and their reappropriation to other context feels almost natural” (Cohen & Kenny 104). Users of the web who experiment with memes may not know the context of Leonardo’s facial expression if they did not watch the movie, however, the way Shifman puts it, the facial expression is open to interpretation to create memes and generate ideas of thinking within discourse communities or just in the realm of the web as a whole.
To use Leonardo Dicaprio again, his photo was taken in mid-motion in the scene of his film Inception as he is seen walking awkwardly but happily and people use out-of-context information to crate a meme. The original photo is shown below.
Look at the variations people came up with as a result making it a frozen-motion meme.
*All photos located at The 23 Funniest Strutting Leo Pics.
The variations of this photo has generated so much buzz within the discourse community of the web that it is known as “Strutting Leo.” Because of the popularity of the photo, people are successful in producing a desired or intended result via the internet and by using this particular photo. Same goes for thousands of other photos that continue to circulate the web. Ultimately, discourse communities are encouraged to participate in creating memes by using shared photos or videos of interest on the web.
When thinking about this project, it was easy for me to pick “Got Milk? as an example of a viral visual image. Got Milk? is an advertisement campaign designed to help increase milk sales in the United States. Since the launch of the campaign thousands of parodies and imitations have been created. Greis explains that “…new technologies afford opportunities for amateurs to create, publish, and distribute and social critique at viral speeds, making possible, in part, what Henry Jenkins (2006) has dubbed a “participatory culture.” (340).
Mid-Semester grades will be coming to you this Thursday (10/22), and I’d like to hold another round of individual conferences with you next week to touch base, go through you work in more detail, and address any questions/concerns we might have at this point.
These are the slots that I have open. It’s first-come, first-serve (though the earlier spots will be reserved for those who do not have class after ours, in the Voorhees building). Just drop a comment here, indicating which slot you’d like, and I’ll reserve that for you.
Tuesday (10/27)
Thursday (10/29)
As always, we’ll be meeting in my office, N520.
The readings for this post were heavy! Not because of the amount but solely on the complexity of the language and connections that need to be made. One word that stands out is “topoi”. Topoi, singularly topos, is a theme or connection piece. When tying this into the understanding of memes it all goes back to discourse communities. Memes are single ideas that together, connect entire discourse communities. Regardless of the chosen affinity, a well constructed meme “will be one that triggers the appropriate set of conceptual and emotional associations for a given audience within a given cultural context” (Wetherbee 2).
The meme comes from the Ancient Greek word mimeme which means “imitated thing” (Cohen & Kenny 86). The meme as described in Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, starts as a single idea or piece that crosses cultural and ideological barriers to connect single thought strands. These single ideas evolve into a world of strategic discourse.
To take an independent case not examined in the texts, The Willy Wonka meme. This since still image is a topoi that paved the way for a funny image that covers the everyday thoughts and belief behind each meme that covers the internet. These memes encourage each person to contribute their individual ideas in a cultural context.
Another overlooked effect of the meme is the breakdown of language. In many of the memes circulating the internet, it is common to see “iz” in the place of “is” and other letter replacements.
In the above meme, the first image shows the use of language in a way that fits the context of the idea while deconstructing the English language as many have come to know it. Shortened languages known as “txtspk” and “lolspeak” (Cohen&Kenny 92-93), contribute to language breakdown. While the shortened language becomes more convenient on the quick exchange of ideas, when switching back to basic communications there is some confusion.
I know I’m going off into different ideas but the do all tie back together. Going back to the topoi, this connector contributes to the interaction across social media platforms. The meme connects users for Facebook to Instagram and Instagram to Twitter. Sites such as Tumblr, Reddit, and individual blogs in WordPress are a part of a larger idea. To take the case of the “binder of women” comment made by presidential candidate Mitt Rodney. The meme launched the election into social media spotlight across platforms with a common agenda. The need to speak out against gender inequalities broke down political barriers and at the same time, used visual and textual ques based off of a single moment.
The moment when used correctly, can lead to the longevity of the meme. As it reaches across topics there are three questions that I have.
Memes are one of the greatest accidental inventions of all time. By some miraculous chance, Internet users are able to search and find over a million different memes of various backgrounds. Being that I am a millennial, I am very familiar with memes and how much of a major impact it has on popular culture. In Chapter 4 Cohen and Kenny eloquently says “some memes enter our culture in the form of slang or knowledge, such as the terms “bae”, selfie, or fail, and some enter our mind as something culturally relevant and unforgettable” page 109. I found this to be extremely important because it is signifies how slang terms whether from online or while spoken, it somehow enters the ecosystem and we have to learn to incorporate it in each of our lives. No matter how old you are or wherever you are in the world, memes will touch your life.
Memes provide an opportunity to connect with people of all sort. To say that memes has not had any effect on popular culture is like saying global warming has had no effect on the world. Memes have become similar to emojis— you use it like anything else. Often times when I am texting my friend, we communicate by sending memes to one another to try and convey our emotions or just have a lost. Sometimes when I am texting the first thing that comes to mind is “OMG let me find a meme for that.” It is the easiest way for me to communicate. In happy moments, in sad moments, in moments of confusion, memes are the way for millennials to express themselves. Memes have absolutely affected every part of popular culture as well as our emotions. Sometimes when individuals see a meme they experience many different emotions such as joy, sadness, happiness, fear etc.
Another added bonus of memes is that it encourages participation and shareability. Memes have the ability to be shared across a wide range of platforms and on smartphones as well which is major. Memes encourage collaborative community while also cultivating a new form of discourse community— they are unlike traditional culture. It allows you to be part of a community and be able to contribute to the community. Many meme composers within the popular culture realm participate with memes on platforms such as weblogs, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat just to name a few. These platforms allow a user to interact with their friends and loved ones using memes and incorporating other multimodal features. The composer has the ability to create, remix, repackage, redistribute the content. Being a part of the content generating community allows for individualism and the composer has given a voice. The community has many affordances and it can add to the digital ecosystem. With all good things comes the bad. Although you can create and redistribute the content you create, once it goes viral that’s it– you’ve have lost “ownership” of it, it becomes a product of the Internet.
There is no doubt that memes have had a significant impact on our culture, our ways of knowing, the emotional self, how we see the world and how we interact with it. It is extremely important for content composers, content consumers to keep in mid the effects of memes and new digital literacies and what effects it will have on the population.
There is more that what meets the eye with Shia Labeouf’s “Just Do It” viral video. The video has transformed the Nike logo. In this video we are able to see the true effects of circulation of a medium. The video is to say the least subtle and gives a hard push to anyone who has been lazy in following dreams. Mr. LaBeouf, Luke Turner and Nastja Säde Rönkkö created the video with the intention of it being used for transformation. Since then the initial video has been remixed and transformed into various medias ranging from still images to song parodies. These have in turn have lead to more participation and involvement. This only leads to question what mediums have been created in such a way that not only provokes creation but also allows it as a part of its own creation.
http://prezi.com/c09d67nrvtcr/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
The idea that a single image is capable of generating so much discourse over such a large scale is amazing. Internet memes have become an indespensible part of the web and woven in our culture. For example, Advice Dog, as seen below, originated from a Mario fan-site, The Mushroom Kingdom and was created in 2006. It started with a picture of a dog’s head with a multicolored color wheel background behind it. From there, Advice Dog developed into many variations of memes.
As mentioned in the Lauri Greis article, “Studies of transformation are especially useful in tracking how images undergo change in ways unanticipated by the “original” image’s designer and spark unexpected consequences.” (344), Advice Dog shows how an image can be circulated and transform with space and time. Whether the text changes with the same image or the image changes with the same text, it contributes to a rhetorical collaboration.
According to Cohen and Kenny “to participate in the meme requires an understanding of the linguistic nature of the meme itself.” (89). This can be seen with Advice Dog in which it is typical to combine two completely unrelated pieces of advice together. The genuine good advice, given at the top, is usually followed by a bad or humorous advice given at the bottom. While the linguistic nature of the meme is culturally understood by the participants who create and post, each meme has its own identity and its own message.
The OpenLab is an open-source, digital platform designed to support teaching and learning at City Tech (New York City College of Technology), and to promote student and faculty engagement in the intellectual and social life of the college community.
