Make-up/Home-work for Tuesday

Apologies for missing class today—this cold really knocked me out!  To make up for our classtime lost, please complete the writing we’ve begun this week on memes, Drake, and Caraminica’s article on “Hotline Bling”–a short assignment in which we are working on building connections between your own thoughts about memes, Drake’s music video, and Caraminica’s text.  I’m copying below the guidelines for this work.  Note that there are 3 steps, but the writing you produce doesn’t need to be a numbered list of responses to each step–you could, for instance, have 2-3 paragraphs of prose in which you touch on the prompts given below.
Please post your work on Drake and memes here.  In addition, prior to Monday’s class please be sure you’ve read Jace Clayton’s article on Vince Staples (handed out in class and available online) as well as K-Hole’s “Youth Mode” (p. 34 in Packet II).

15 thoughts on “Make-up/Home-work for Tuesday”

  1. What is a meme? A meme is an image/video with a piece of text meant to be funny or relatable to people and spread rapidly throughout the internet. The main purpose of memes is for people to have a good laugh. Other forms of memes would be that they’re used for advertisements for people to promote their company/brand and attract customers also in a way memes are considered a form of art. Drake’s music video and Caraminica’s text are a perfect demonstration of a meme meant to be funny. For example, Caramanica’s text states “it’s less a video than an open source code that easily allows Drake’s image and gestures to be rewritten, drawn over, repurposed”. This portrays that with Drake’s music video it was easy to make many memes that would fit the image and make the audience laugh. Another example of this is when Caramanica stated “however, did more than marry the video to new audio they tweaked the video…” This emphasizes that within minutes of Drake releasing his music video he instantly became a meme due to the interesting dance moves and setting of his music video. Overall, memes are a large part of social media and go viral instantly with tweaks and modifications that are shared with friends and family all around the world and meant to be comical.

  2. A meme to me is taking a photo and writing captions over it to make it funny. It is spread throughout social media, the purpose of memes are to make people laugh because they are funny or sometimes just stupid. What I noticed from the video was that there was changing of colors in the background. Something else is drake can’t dance he’s off beat to his own song. There were shifts to different screens and drake would be in different clothes. This can relate to what Caramanica says about drake, “Drakes released video is mostly of  made up of long shots of him dancing in front of a plain background that’s constantly changing colors.”

  3. A meme is a millennial idea or invention in which a photo/video is taken out of context in most cases, giving a funny and/or relatable caption then posted on social media. Memes can be used as an advertisement tool or to make a statement. For instance, Drake’s video for his iconic song, ” Hotline Bling” , consisted of a blank set that was lit with different colors throughout the video. Instead of having many background dancers, for the majority of the video, Drake himself danced, which had been said to be off beat by many; was used to create a meme. This connect to the article, ” Drake: Rapper, Actor, Meme”, in which writer, Jon Caramanica states, ” The ” Hotline Bling” video is built exactly for that task. It’s important at its full length, but even more so in the screenshots and few-seconds-long GIFs that it’s designed to be broken down into. It’s less a video than an open source code that easily allows Drake’s image and gestures to be rewritten, drawn over and repurposed”.  This highlights the overall cleverness that is displayed in the music video, whether it was Drake’s intention to make himself into a meme or not, by doing so he brought more attention to this song and video which gotten in streamed and viewed more. After all, isn’t that the goal for most artist?

  4. Throughout the history of mankind, people have always felt the need to express their ideas or thoughts to others. This impulse led to inventing language and then writing. Technological progress on the other hand, has also played a role in the evolution of people’s ways of communicating. Interestingly, each time it seeks to generate shorter messages. In the beginning this limitation had to do with rather technical issues, but at present, the excessive amount of information to which the person is exposed every day forced to have to draw attention quickly with the message, Without a doubt, the Social networks and the Internet have had a profound impact on the evolution of communication. One of the variants of this type of communication that has gained special strength and popularity today, to share ideas, are “The memes”, is used to describe an idea, concept, situation, expression or thought manifested in any type of medium virtual, comic, video, texts, images and all kinds of multimedia construction that is replicated through the Internet from person to person until it is widely disseminated. The memes today have taken a place of distraction to people causing them a different and exciting mood; as one of the memes that were created with Drake when he produced his music video for the song Hotline Bling. Jon Caramanica argues that “The Hotline Bling video is built exactly for that task. It’s important at its full length, but even more so in the screenshots and few-seconds-long GIFs that it’s designed to be broken down into. It’s less a video than an open source code that easily allows Drake’s image and gestures to be rewritten, drawn over and repurposed. ”With this it can be stated that the initiative to show something different to the public from Drake has turned his music video more recognized thanks to the memes that were obtained with the captures of funny movements, although perhaps that was not Drake’s intention, the so-called memes that attract people, with any mimicry act have caused an exciting impact on social networks. Currently the memes are giving a good point of view on the subject of humor since, it is a fun way to get a smile from people, in addition to expressing different thoughts.

  5. The definition of meme for me is something fun with a caption and picture that connect with the caption. Also, the meme has to be something that people can relate too. And it has to be funny. Also for me, a meme has a lot of creation, has to be thoughtful takes a lot of time to make a meme and finding the right picture that goes with the captions. Drake music “ Hotline Bling” he wasn’t dancing like a normal person. His dance moves were really weird. In the article Drake: Rapper, Actor, meme Caramanica states .“ The most ambitious memes, however, did more than marry the video to new audio; they tweaked the video. One took a segment where Drake was swatting his arm and put a tennis racket in his hand, making thwack balls fired at him”. I remember there were so many memes about his dance moves all over social media. With his dance moves, people created so many different memes. Memes become parts of our lives every time I go to social media I always see more than 10 memes in 2 minutes. And sometimes I go to Instagram to see mems, it makes me happy.

  6. What is my definition of a meme? To me a meme is a funny image with a funny caption. But in order, for there to be a good laugh, it has to make sense. They have become very popular over the years and it is almost everyone’s source of entertainment. There fun to see and also make. Some Parts of Drake’s music video and Caraminica’s text  is a good example of a meme. The colors in the background with his off beat dancing can be funny with almost any caption. You can also get creative with it and add stuff. Caraminica states ” It’s less a video than an open source code that easily allows Drake’s image and gestures to be rewritten, drawn over and repurposed”, indicating that memes are easy to make and are a good laugh. It is a fun way to make people smile. 

  7. A meme is a entertaining joke. It can be a image, video or a piece of text. A meme is created by taking a funny picture from a cartoon or a video or  a general picture and putting silly jokes on to it that everyone can understand or relate to. The purpose of a meme is to make people laugh and relate to it. People also made meme’s out of drake’s song video “Hotline bling”.  Drake’s song video was a interesting video.  The background stood out to me from the video. It had different and many colors lighting up like a disco dance floor. The outfits were decent and nothing too expensive. At the start of the video it started with a lot of females doing the same thing and wearing the same outfit. Light pink top and light blue bottom. They were all talking on the phone. The empty space of Drake’s video can be connected to Jon Caraminica’s analysis of it for example,” The video is mostly made up of long shots of him dancing in front of a “plain background that’s constantly changing colors”. The empty space connects to the plain background. The room he shot the video in was plain and empty. Earlier I mentioned how memes have to be funny and can be from a video. This connects to Drake’s video. People  made memes out of the way drake was dancing and moving is hand in one one direction like he was playing a tennis game or throwing things like toppings on top of a pizza. People made memes out of his facial expressions where sometimes he showed how he felt good sometimes how he didn’t feel good. The memes were funny and relatable. It was all over Facebook when the song came out.

  8. My definition of a meme is an internet joke that has a set up in text or quoted and then the punchline is the picture. what makes a good meme is that it has to be funny and relatable. Memes can also be made from a video too. people were making memes out of drakes “hotline bling” video. some of the memes that were made were actually really funny because the video is interesting. Drake does a funny dance where he’s dancing as if he doesn’t know how to dance at all. the background was also very plain besides the fact that the white wall was changing colors due to the light. the rooms that he is dancing in are all empty and there is one room with stairs that he is sitting on. Most of the memes that were made from the video were still framed screenshots from the video of him mid dance move, and mostly had to deal with throwing something. there was one where he was throwing yu-gi-oh cards and he had a gauntlet on his arm. it was funny to me, but it would only be funny if you watched or played yu-gi-oh.

  9. My definition of a meme is an internet joke that has a set up in text or quoted and then the punchline is the picture. what makes a good meme is that it has to be funny and relatable. Memes can also be made from a video too. people were making memes out of drakes “hotline bling” video. some of the memes that were made were actually really funny because the video is interesting. Drake does a funny dance where he’s dancing as if he doesn’t know how to dance at all. the background was also very plain besides the fact that the white wall was changing colors due to the light. the rooms that he is dancing in are all empty and there is one room with stairs that he is sitting on. Most of the memes that were made from the video were still framed screenshots from the video of him mid dance move, and mostly had to deal with throwing something. there was one where he was throwing yu-gi-oh cards and he had a gauntlet on his arm. it was funny to me, but it would only be funny if you watched or played yu-gi-oh.

  10. My definition of a meme is a picture that has a specific meaning to it, that came from a movie a show or just a picture that was tooken and has a funny caption. many memes so good is that is that they tend to be very relatable. one specific picture don’t one caption its always different captions for the same picture. memes were made form drake’s “hotline bling ” video because of the way he was dancing . in the “hotline bling” video a lot of things that occurred did not make any sense , it probably had a meaning but I don’t know what it is. Normcore being a fashion trend that normal people follow in drake’s video he used plain backgrounds, it is not so much going on which make his video “normal”. In the beginning of the video all the females have on the the same outfit, which is a light pink shirt and blue jeans, that is a form of norm core. Drake does not have one authentic style. Based on the movement drake made in the video is what the meme was made about, same video different parts of the dance.

  11. the definition of a meme for me is an image/videos that can be use with different funny captions that match the picture/video, people use a lot of imagination when they do this type of images/videos. memes are viral because it make a lot of people laugh, like in the video Hotline Bling video you could see drake dancing very weird. In his video there were empty backgrounds with colors that were changing almost every ten seconds, he had neutral face expression. This aspect of Drake’s video can be connected to Jon Caraminica’s analysis of the propose of drake making the video like this, so he can go viral by people making memes about him and his song also get popular. Earlier I mentioned how memes are made to make people laugh, this connects to Caraminica’s text were she talk about how drake knew that type of dance would make him a meme.

  12. A meme is an image that could express a feeling of humor which has a caption attached to it which relates to the viewer. A lot of them are copied from one another and have slight variations. They are spread rapidly across the Internet and social media often times becoming really popular. I enjoy them because of the creativity behind them and how there are so many which someone could relate to. They could either make you laugh or make you take a step back and think how one could relate to it. In Drakes Video, he was in an empty space room that was white which. He went to a few different rooms with different shapes in a few of them. The rooms displayed different colors while he was dancing throughout the video. With the expressions Drake made and the way he danced, he could have easily been made into a meme.

    That is an example of Drake in the video where at this moment he was paused making a funny face which could have a caption added to make into a meme which could go viral.

  13. The definition of a meme, can be a meme on itself. There isn’t a real definition of a meme, a meme can be anything that’s depicted as a relatable joke or a scenario induced with shock humor. Sometimes memes are not meant to be funny, they are just made to raise stupidity levels just for the sake of entertainment. Overall they are meant to be just visual jokes or the classic text template jokes (Which is something that barely anyone uses nowadays’s.).

    Drake’s music video has already been a gold mine to many memes. Especially the way he dances, as I’ve seen countless memes being made out of it. One time I saw someone had edited the WII tennis racket, where as he’s dancing, he’s catching tennis balls with the WII sports music in the background. Perhaps maybe this was Drake’s plan overall? To create a music video that can be used for the attraction of meme material, to further gain more publicity.

  14. In my opinion, a meme can be a video or image of something the viewer may find entertaining. Memes can have text on them and sometimes they don’t make any sense at all. Sometimes there could be a meme inside a meme but the whole point of them is for the viewer to find it funny or relatable. Drake’s “Hotline Bling” was an entire meme because so many things about it just didn’t make sense so it would’ve appeared funny to watchers. He makes weird dance moves in a white room with different colored flashing lights and the entire thing was easily turned into a meme. Drake’s “Hotline Bling” can be connected to Jon Caramanica’s article since Caramanica explains the aspects of the music video that makes it a meme. Caramanica says that the “slight shifts of weight, quick hand gestures, head bobbles and side-to-side steps” makes the vibe of the video clunky. Drake knows this will make him viral because of the nonsensical nature.

  15. A meme is an image with a picture or writing that’s meant to be funny and relatable. Memes are made though a reference. That reference can be from your own culture, society, emotions, etc. With that, it’s spread throughout social media and gets reposted/retweeted. Memes can be a form of advertisement. For example, I remember reading that air pods were not as popular until memes of the item was created. The surprising part of this was that Apple was the one who started the memes. This gave them the opportunity to advertise their product. It’s a smart way to advertise the product because social media is a huge way to get to people.In Drake’s video,”Hotline Bling”, all the different scenes are simple. It opens with a hotline office with women who are all dressed the same. In other scenes, you can see Drake dancing with a background that changes colors. Drake’s dancing stood out to me the most. It seemed like the purpose of the plain white background was for Drake’s dancing to be the center of the video. Drake wanted his dancing to be noticed. Caramica, explains, “No celebrity understands the mechanism of Internet obsession better than Drake.” Drake knows that by doing these things he will be noticed and possibly become a meme. This is Drake advertising himself and his music.

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