where do we go from here?

Now that our research blog is coming to an end *tear* it is time to begin work on the main event. After blogging our ideas and insights surrounding all things memes, we need to refine our ideas (we have already begun this process by narrowing our definition of a meme is in relation to our web feature) - and focus on a few prominent ones that will provide great stimulus for reader discussion and comment.

Each member of the group will be designated a feature which they will work on. So in total we should have four feature articles. Then tasks will be split again depending on skill set - we will need a layout designer, graphic designer, timeline/ slideshow creator and video animator as well as someone to work on the 'history of memes' and 'how to build a successful meme' (these could easily be group tasks). 

Our next point of call is to decide on the feature each member wants to work on and start collating any research material and contacting any interview subjects whilst beginning to build the foundation of our web feature layout and accompanying graphics so we can get a better feel for the ease of navigation and overall aesthetic.

We have also decided to stick our initial publication choice Vulture, as we all agreed that our intended style of writing, the content and target audience is a perfect fit. We will use mainly American examples to illustrate our points (geared towards New York specific content also) and will also maintain a similar format and voice to articles written in Vulture.

So long as we stick to completing tasks in line with our proposed work plan, we should be heading in the right direction to creating an insightful, thought-provoking,  entertaining and informational web feature.

Video Ideas: Comic-based

The group has agreed for quite some time that we would definitely want to include a video made by us on one of our feature pages. Jonno posted earlier about the possibility of creating a typography-based video, as it suits the topic very well and they're always a very engaging way of discussing a topic in the format of a video without the need to physically film anything.

But we've since realised that none of us really knows how to go about putting together a typography-based video. While they seem simple, they are actually incredibly technical pieces of art that requires a very specific form of animation and video editing using programs such as Adobe After Effects to achieve effectively.

The main draw for using a typography-based video was that due to our topic - memes, in particular image-based memes - there really isn't any reason to film any actual real-life footage. But on the same vein of videos that do not require camera footage, there is actually an alternative genre that is very appropriate considering the topic we will be discussing.

Zero Punctuation is a game review web series produced by The Escapist magazine that has really popularised the comic-based video genre. What's great about this form of video is that it is essentially just a slideshow of static images, in this case single frames of drawn comics. No fancy animation or video editing skills required - just place the images one after the other. It sounds tacky, but that's the allure of it.

Another reason why this genre is so perfect for our purposes is the fact that so many memes originated from or are expressed via comics. Take for example trollface and other rage comics or the more recent "Dolan" meme.

I think this will be a much easier format for us to produce, and it's an appropriate genre for our feature on memes!

Focussing in

After discussing all our ideas for our feature and all the different kinds of memes, different perspectives and different mediums, we came to a realisation - we have too many ideas.

Source: MemeCenter

We don't want our final feature to be a mess of a dumping ground for everything meme, with nothing really connecting or reaching a coherent goal. So we've decided to confine our exploration to to a more specific theme and medium.

Our feature will be focussed on image-based memes. In previous blog posts we've examined viral videos, ideas that have become memes, and memes outside of the internet. All of this has been great as a foundational scatter-gun approach to the whole concept of memes, but not necessarily appropriate for a standalone feature based on a single unifying theme.

The problem is, the concept of "memes" as a whole is just way too broad. But confining our research and discussion to the social significance of image-based memes will allow us to more effectively bring our feature together with a clear focus.

There are a number of terms floating around these days that are connected with image-based memes. Demotivators were an early form of the medium, for example the above image. Characterised by their black backgrounds with a typically white or sometimes coloured border around the image, demotivators were used to signify a single word or idea by placing them in a large serif font accompanied by an illustrative (usually humorous) image and a tagline. These were originally created as spoofs of motivational posters often found in corporate offices in the late '90s.

From demotivators, we now have the term image macros. This is a terms used to describe, broadly, captioned images that typically consist of a picture and a witty message. Demotivators were a relatively early form of image macros (relative to the time in which modern internet memes have been popular), but these days most image macros almost always use large white text in the font "Impact". Within the genre, snowclones can be seen as a sub-set or sub-genre of image macros, where the text typically follows a specific format. For example, "X all the Ys," "In Soviet Russia, X Ys you," or "X is the new Y." In particular, these have been made popular by sites such as Meme Generator.

So from here on out, we're going to endeavour to focus our discussions and research on image-based memes. Other types of memes are relevant and they will certainly deserve a mention, but we envision that our feature will now be a far more coherent and directed product.

Video Ideas: Typography

So we've been trying to think of ways for how we can "use the medium" to it's full potential.  A typography video would be a neat (yes neat...) way to explore some of our ideas, perhaps about the origins  of memes or even any of the issues we cover.

The video below is way more complicated than what we would probably be able to do, but still pretty inspiring and a good watch.  It was one of the first typography/animation style videos that I ever saw, back when I was in high school.  Ever since then I've really liked the style and I've seen tonnes of videos utilising the form as a really informative and entertaining way of getting information across. 

It's definitely way more complex than what I was thinking, but something more along the lines of the next one, purely word-based, could be a bit easier?  I don't have much experience with making these sort of videos, my use of Flash or Adobe After Effects is limited to a brief dabbling in high school classes but nothing ever so sophisticated.  Perhaps one of you have some experience?  Otherwise maybe we can discuss a way of doing it that would be easier...

Let me know what you guys think!

the meme network.

When I found Sydney Uni Memes earlier this year I thought it was the funniest thing ever. I practically liked every post and shared them all on my wall. University meme pages represent a shift from specialised meme and image sharing communities like Know Your Meme, 4Chan and Reddit and towards more broader, widespread platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Know Your Meme notes the earliest Facebook memes pages was created for Florida International University of Miami in October 2011, uploading a 'Y U No' image macro related to their football team. More university meme pages started appearing en-masse around February of this year and have almost become a necessary component of every tertiary educational institution. This has since encouraged high school meme pages (just the other day I saw old high school acquaintances like HGHS memes) and now even narrowing it down to suburb or area (that's Hills Shire memes for me). 

So why are university related memes so popular? It references certain experiences and in-jokes that only students of a particular institution will understand - from wi-fi connectivity frustrations to avoiding USU election candidates on Eastern Avenue. It gives viewers a sense of belonging (yes that dreaded word) and inclusivity into a certain group of like minded individuals. It's just like the cultural currency  you hold when someone makes a pop culture reference/ joke and you understand its source (therefore giving you authority to partake in the humour).

While we had previously discussed the idea that the internet meme is to some extent a new form of communication (in terms of expressing particular feelings and frustrations with day to day life), it was brought to our attention during our proposal that memes are also a form of networking and bringing people together. Although Sydney university has over 50,000+ undergraduate students and in our four years or so of tertiary education we would have only encountered a small portion of USYD population, we can all come together share a laugh or two and vent our annoyances through the convenience and familiarity of a social media platform.

When any cultural trend or phenomenon has the power to change the way and channels in which we connect and communicate with one another, it's certainly more than just a passing fad. I think our web feature will certainly be testament to just how influential memes have been in shaping society (and also how sociocultural ideals are embedded in the meme format). 

More than just a meme.

Source: Meme Centre

The 60's was defined by Vietnam War, The Beatles, Woodstock and the first man on the moon. The 80's were known for arcade games, bad hair cuts, Michael Jackson and boomboxes. But what cultural products will symbolise our generation?

In considering our high culture perspective on a low culture topic, I pondered the significance of memes in popular culture. While it is easy to dismiss memes as nothing more than a joke, the fact that internet material has been spread profusely over the last ten years (we traced it back to 1998 and All Your Base Are Belong To Us) and has grown exponentially in terms of exposure means that it probably not just a passing fad or a trend. From my observations thus far I think it would be safe to say that memes both reflect and shape our cultural realities. 

Popular culture has always been influenced by and is a commentary of significant events of our time. If music, television and movies have the power to shape our understanding of culture, then surely the internet and memes are not different?

I see our web feature as being able to answer this question, to uncover and deconstruct the internet meme genre and document its effect in popular culture. I think it's a great time to be asking this question as well as there is very little material on this topic. There are plenty of platforms and forums of which to share meme content but none detailing its significance or the nature of viral content. Especially since memes have gone beyond that of specific forums like Reddit and 4Chan which are catered to a very specific audience with an extensive knowledge of certain pop culture topics like film and games to a broader mass medium like Facebook. The actual content of memes themselves indeed have a more mass appeal (as I detailed in my first post) allowing for wider reach and much of the humour is no longer specific to a particular event or issue - in fact it can be reshaped and catered to suit the experiences of any one (like the way colleges and specific suburbs have meme pages on Facebook).

It's obviously quite a heavy question, one which we we can endeavour to provide answers (or at the very least insight) to our target audience, the meme user. We hope that our audiences' daily interaction with memes will spark a need to understand what significance their meme sharing and creating has on the shaping and reflection of culture. It will be interesting to see historians looking back on our generation one day and wondering how something as ridiculous as planking was legitimate trending behaviour or how pictures of funny cats with incorrect grammar was found to be so humourous to so many people.

But wait... what about real life?

We know by now that the term "meme" was originally coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976, adapting the Greek word mimeme (something imitated; pronounced "mimema") to explain the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Nowadays, the term is more commonly used to describe digital creations of various mediums that are passed electronically from internet user to internet user and are often adapted or remixed with each transfer.

Source

But whatever happened to memes before the internet? The term obviously existed well before the internet became so widespread, but where did they live during those prehistoric times?

One example you might remember was the popularity of the late Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter. His show was a big hit both in Australia and overseas (with particular success in America) during the early 2000s, and one would have been hard-pressed to find someone that did now know his name. But what was far more well-known were his iconic shouts of "Crikey!" upon sighting an animal in the wild or whenever a croc lunged. As a result, Irwin had people all over the world imitating him in everyday life.

In the same vein of nature programs, Sir David Attenborough's celebrated wildlife documentaries was another platform for the birth of a meme without the need for the internet. His recognisable British accent and the classic opening line "...and here we see the ____ in its natural habitat..." have been imitated and appropriated and again and again in popular culture. 

Source: EPA

Caleb has also discussed the creation of memes based on television shows, and Mel has written about Olympics memes which have spread via television and print media. Does this mean that memes always require such a medium - the internet, TV, print, radio - to carry them and allow them to spread? I would suggest not, but it certainly makes it a helluva lot easier.

What about another famous figure - Queen Elizabeth II. Her iconic wave - fingers together, arm unmoving, minimal wrist rotation - has come to symbolise the Queen as a person or royalty in general. Here is a meme that has spread (arguably) without the intervention of any medium.

What's interesting, particularly from a semiotics perspective, is the way in which words, phrases or the smallest of gestures can come to symbolise a person or idea. The term "meme" has truly reflects its Greek roots - the creation and growth of these ideas are catalysed by imitation and mimicry. The question is: what's required to elevate something like an expression or a wave to viral status of a meme? And what avenues exist that do not rely on the internet? This is definitely an area for further enquiry and research in the course of our feature.

Television memes

(This post contains offensive language, if you're under the age of 10, please stop reading now) So I'm here surfing Facebook while on graveyard shift (pardon me if I appear to be incoherent in this post!) for my job as a concierge and it hits me that we missed out on something in our unpicking at the realm of Internet memes, memes referencing television programmes.

Having sat through today's lecture on copyright and the laws protecting intellectual property, what caught my attention was the smart and hilarious 'Hitler reacts to the Hitler parodies being removed from Youtube' video.

The creator of the video made a great point in that the fat cats in suits working for the studio companies do not appear to understand the bigger picture, that these spinoff memes actually possess great marketing value for the programmes/or movies that the memes parody.

Scanning through my newsfeed on the great time-waster that we all know as Facebook, it would appear that Breaking Bad comic memes are trending (For the uninitiated, spoiler alert!) based on the fact that 5 friends from different social circles shared the following image.

                      Walter White exercises some tough love      Source: Knowyourmeme

Prior to me watching Breaking Bad and becoming a fan (only managed to get through 3 seasons though), whenever I saw the comics, it gave me a general idea of the premise of the show. What got me to actually watch the show was the frequency of these memes being shared and me wanting to know what the fuss was all about.

Linking this back to the notion that memes have the power to provide an audience with awareness of a television programme/movie/product, it would be interesting to see if the corporates manage to catch on to the idea that meme production, if anything, should be encouraged rather than suppressed like the examples we saw in lecture.

what do?

While I believe our presentation and proposal went quite well last week, we had much to consider after being proposed the challenge of writing from an American perspective, for a predominantly American audience. This meant reconsidering some of the Australian entertainment blogs and websites we had initially brainstormed in the first week. However after some analysis of these Australian publications, I feel that Vulture is still the best fit given our topic, approach, writing style and target audience. 

The style and general vibe of these Australian entertainment and pop culture publications are more relaxed, informal and conversational. The topics of their articles are quite often obscure and at times trivial which I see as being catered to more niche audiences with a particular sense of humour and really specific knowledge of certain topics (their perspective is somewhat against the conventional and the mainstream). I'm also not a fan of the way many of these articles include swearing, and I feel this would discredit our perspectives and does not align with our 'high' approach to a 'low culture topic'. 

Thus I still feel that Vulture.com is the perfect 'home' our web feature even though we face the challenge of writing for American audiences. Given that the meme genre is universal and that they have spread rapidly throughout the western world, I believe that this would still be achievable. As Caleb said last Thursday, meme audiences hold cultural capital and do not necessarily need to live/ exist in a specific physical environment to be able to appreciate and understand the references. 

For example, the meme 'The Rent is Too Damn High' was adapted from Jimmy McMillan's political party slogan in November 2010 when he ran for the New York state's gubernatorial election. Although I have absolutely no idea what that gubernatorial election is, I still understood the humour from the original video. The idea around most memes is not about whether you understand the source reference, but more so relates to the feeling that stems out of that particular meme. In this case it is about intense frustration about a certain subject - for McMillan it was the rent being too damn high, for me it is the amount of university work being too damn high. That is the reason why internet memes can be transferred so easily from one country/ culture to another - because they are easily adapted to suit people's social experiences.

Obviously this means we might not be able to include references to Sydney Uni memes/ Law School memes/ Citirail memes, but this trend of Facebook University meme pages emerged from the United States (the earliest known account was the International University of Miami in October of last year) so we should be able to find plenty of examples to use to describe our point about how they connect people through specific shared feelings and experiences. Also Jonno and I discussed briefly today about how the Aboriginal Facebook memes page would still be a newsworthy/ relevant example to international audience (Huffington Post from the UK reported the issue) as it could easily have occurred in any other country.

I'm still set on Vulture being the host publication for our feature, and I haven't been able to find anything of a similar quality based in Australia. I'm willing to run with Vulture despite the challenge of writing for an audience that we may not be a part of, but feel free to make any other suggestions/ objections in the comments below. 

Notes from the class discussion

So here are the main points from the class discussion of our presentation the other day.  A lot of them were actually something we'd considered doing anyway or stuff we'd covered in our posts already.  I'll write each point and a quick comment responding to it, feel free to add some more in the comments below!

Memes connecting groups (Uni, Areas, Schools etc.): We've spoken quite a lot about these groups, it's something that I think has really fueled the spread of memes, involving people that would have previously stayed away from them.  This is something we would cover in our articles part of the site.

Experts in memes: It's something we've spoken about already, and something I'm sure we can manage, whether it's just an email to someone from Know Your Meme or an actual academic, such as Jean Burgess (the one Fiona mentioned in relation to "vernacular creativity"). Additionally, contacting someone who has been turned into a meme, and what it's like to be on the other side of it all.

The humour behind the memes:

 This is something that was raised by a few people in the class, but covering a whole range of issues.  The ideas behind it mainly were concerned with the perception of the humour of the meme. 

• Both how humour can be used positively, and in an intellectual way for satire and parody, and the negative side of the humour.  The negative side of memes stretches from issues like racism (Aboriginal memes etc.), sexism, cyber bullying, and even hidden agendas behind memes. 
• Similar to "fair use" of material, the idea of defamation was raised, and the case of the girl who couldn't get in to law school, and is now being used as a meme.  When is it satire/parody and when is it offensive? 
• Where is the line for comedy? How far is too far?
•  As I mentioned in my post about cyber bullying, people can post something offensive, but due to the author-less nature of memes, they can hide behind them and essentially say whatever they want.  It's taking that idea of people cyber bullying and hiding behind their screens to a new level.
• Fiona raised the idea of detournament, and how the meme only works amongst people with shared values or who can recognise the humour behind it.  
• The idea of elitism and if this exists in meme creation 

Our Audience

After we were trying to figure out who the audience is for the big meme sites like Know Your Meme and 9gag, I tried to do a bit of research into it.

It's pretty difficult to get information on the demographics of the website visitors, because to do that, they would need to make an account and identify their sex, age, and nationality.  Websites like these don't really need you to do this unless you want to post.
 
Finding for individual sites may have proved to be too difficult, but I did manage to find some statistics on Quantcast for the Cheezburger Network (which includes Know Your Meme, FAIL blog, I Can Has Cheezburger, Memebase and more).  The statistics are based on the US visitors, which account for over half of their monthly visitors (26.8 mill out of 49.9 mill)

The stats all reflect what we assumed, with Males apparently making up 55% of the visitors, and the 18-34 age group making up 49% of the audience.  The latter stat is actually not as significant as I expected although still is pretty sizeable.

So who's going to visit our site? Presumably a very similar demographic to this, but they will also be tech savvy, more interested in the intellectual side of memes (surprisingly exists!), and so forth.

Why blog all the memes?

When conceptualising our blog and the topic of interest, our group came to a unanimous decision to blog about Internet memes. This posed us with the problem of how would we make our blog different from the others?

knowyourmeme.com

Rather than copying or styling ourselves after knowyourmeme.com, a popular database that chronicles the popularity and origins of memes circulating the Internet, our blog will take a sociological and scholarly approach in looking at how memes shape areas of networking, communication, self-expression and participation in online spheres.

Most websites on memes such as Memebase and Memestache are just sites packed with visuals of the latest trending memes. We aim to be more than just that, we intend to have an original and investigative approach (will have to get started on writing before we find our own distinct style and unique selling proposition) to the task.

Majority of website about memes such as Memebase.com feature visuals of trending memes

So then, why are we blogging about memes, what purpose does it serve? Memes, specifically, Internet memes, are interesting Internet phenomena that are increasingly shaping popular culture and vice versa. In an era where the majority of Australians have access to the Internet, daily conversations amongst people are not so much about what was shown on the telly the night before, but more about what's trending on youtube or of the hilarious new meme that was uploaded on the 'Sydney Uni Memes' Facebook page.

With its increasing impact on online and popular cultures, the understanding of memes and everything about it will provide us with a better understanding of society itself. This, coupled with the fact that in the digital age, there are many more tools and ways to produce or replicate a message through the Internet, presents us with many areas of the topic to explore.

Memes outside of the Anglosphere

Good Guy Greg, Overly Attached Girlfriend, U Mad?, these are all memes which much of the English-speaking population on the Internet would have come across in their browsing of the Interwebs. During our group meeting, I thought of exploring the idea of looking at memes that originate from other societies and cultures outside of the English-speaking world. 

Being a regular reader of chinasmack, a website which translates posts that are trending on popular Chinese forums and news websites such as Tianya and QQ into English, one meme which I recall being popular in the Chinese websphere is that of the 'floating Chinese government officials'.

                               Origins of the floating Chinese government officials       Source: Chinasmack

The origins of the meme stem from when the Huili county government website posted a poorly photoshopped photo of three government officials who appeared to be busy inspecting a newly paved road (and also happened to be floating above it, what sorcery is this?!). 

Not long after, Chinese Internet web users caught on to the failed PR attempt and posted it on forums which were met with reactions of disgust, anger and amusement, leading web users to making their own improvements to the image as seen below.  

                                         Chinese Government officials parodied                 Source: Chinasmack

What struck me was that even in a repressive society such as China where the media, including the Internet (see Great Firewall of China) is tightly controlled, memes like this that poke fun at the government manage to slip past the censors. 

This example also highlights the universality of memes, from memes of floating Chinese government officials (same thing happened in the Philippines) to memes about Mitt Romney, societies as opposite and different as China and America can find a commonality in memes. Memes unite the world!

I can haz interview

I've found a few interviews with Cheezburger Network founder, Ben Huh which could be useful for us to understand just how significant this platform has become for the generating and spreading of memes. Before I Can Has Cheezburger, one of the only places you could reliably find memes was on the community image site 4Chan however they had little organisation and moderation of these images. Since 2007, the Cheezburger Network has formalised, categorised and certainly shaped the internet meme genre. I think it's particularly interesting to see the amount of advertising profit the network is raking in (because of the sheer size of their audience base) - considering the site is based around a series of image macros, most of which have incorrect grammar, as opposed to news/ article based websites. Huh estimates there are more than 16 million unique users monthly and more than half a million submissions per month.

Photo: Eugene Hsu

(With Wailin Wong from the Chicago Tribune. January 25 2012)

Q: What is the typical life cycle of an Internet meme and how has it changed since you founded the Cheezburger Network? 

Huh: We started the company back in 2007 when the life cycle of a meme was much longer. People didn't know what a meme was. You had to educate them as to what it was, although you didn't have to know it in order to enjoy it. You knew that it was a format of a joke. Now what's happening to memes is they're getting smaller and smaller. So the life cycle is actually much, much faster. It's a matter of days at most. There are very few memes that break out of that life cycle.
*Worth mentioning when discussing the spread of memes over time to a broader audience base.

(With Michael Learmoth from Advertising Age, Vol. 80, Issue 34. 10 December, 2009)

Q: Is it OK to call you a blog mogul? Do you aspire to be a big media company?

Huh: We're just going through the process of creating content that makes people happy for just a few minutes a day. We are not trying to be a TV network; we're not trying to be a big media company. We are growing small things that are gathering loyal audiences. When you show up and you want to laugh or take a break from your daily work, then we have this little blog for you. You go, load the page, you scroll, and you're done. 

Q: If users are submitting the photos, and the captions, how do you keep it funny (and clean)? 

Huh: Everything we do is screened by a moderator. We see 10,000 submissions a day across all the blogs. So they look at everything that comes in to see that it meets our terms of use, that it is editorially appropriate, and then they classify and tag it. So if there is nudity, violence toward animals, racism-the stuff advertisers fear, their worst nightmare-we guarantee that that does not happen. Then the editorial control is turned over to the users, who tell us what is funny. But before something is promoted to the home page, there is one more check to make sure it is advertiser-friendly, and then we put it on the blog.

(With Johanna Ambrosio from Computerworld, Vol. 44, Issue 10. 24 May, 2010)

Q: We live in an increasingly politically correct world, yet you have sites that some might find offensive, such as "Engrish Funny." Are you worried that this kind of humor might become outdated or irrelevant at some point?
Huh: Our data seems to [show] that people will share less but will still come to visit. People are very much in pursuit of happiness - human beings do that naturally - and as long as we can deliver on that promise, we'll still have an audience.

Q: Are you at all concerned about contributing to the grammatical delinquency of a generation?
Huh: I'm halfkidding, but educators do point to more "iM-speak" showing up in term papers and homework. And some Of the names of your sites.... [Laughs.] One of the beauties of the English language is its ability to adapt. We've been complaining about our children for thousands of years. It is a valid concern, of course, but that's how English works - and the language will hopefully continue to grow.

Creating Timelines

As part of our web feature, we came up with the idea last week that we'd create a timeline of some of most popular memes throughout the last 12 years or so just to track how far memes have come, how they have manifested over time as well as identify any that have 'stood the test of time' so to speak. 

Our thought was to create an interactive timeline complete with the year that the meme became popular,  an accompanying picture and a brief caption detailing its origins and definition. While unfortunately our skills, time and resources limits us to making a slick, well designed and easy to navigate timeline like the BBC or the NY Times, there are Wordpress widgets available that will provide us with at least with a similar effect.

Out of all the timeline widgets available to us for free, the one that looks the most professional is TimeRime. TimeRime allows you to add key images, multimedia (music and videos) and text to your timeline. By hovering the mouse over the image it brings up any associated text and when you click on it, an information box below the timeline displays any extra information. This widget should easily allow us to successfully create our meme timeline and is particularly handy if the meme originated from a video as you are able to embed that kind of multimedia material.

Source: Screenshot

While we aim to provide a comprehensive list of popular and memorable memes, we will have to be extremely selective with our choices as a timeline with too many events can become difficult to read and understand. We want to pick the key memes that defined the year and we can use reference articles (such as 'Best Memes of 2011') from the database website Know Your Meme. As I have said before I still think it is important for us to define the boundaries of what a meme is and whether it extends to viral videos (although certainly there are crossovers like Overly Attached Girlfriend which was originally a YouTube video but became an image macro) as the Know Your Meme articles do tend to include YouTube videos in them - this will also help us narrow down our options.

From our preliminary research, some of the memes we'd like to include are:

• 2001: All your bases are belong to us
• 2003: Pedobear, Orly, Trololololol
• 2005: Chuck Norris
• 2006: Lolcats, demotivators
• 2007: Rickrolling
• 2009: Kanye 'Imma let you finish'
• 2010: Bed Intruder song, Old Spice
• 2011: Planking, Friday (Rebecca Black)

Vulture.com analysis

Vulture is an online blog component of New York Magazine which describes itself as "the entertainment destination... a beacon for passionate fans who want a smart, comprehensive take on the world of culture and offers around-the-clock, wall-to-wall coverage of movies, tv, music and beyond. Vulture's writers and editors celebrate culture both high and low, because you never know where the next truly brilliant moment will come from."

New York magazine was founded in April 1968 and is a weekly magazine concerned with the life, culture, politics and style of New York City. Today, the magazine reaches 1.8 million readers each week, while the website (which allows those outside of NYC to access content), recognised as one of the industry's most innovative and success, receives seven million users monthly.

The blog is described as having the mindset of "a critic and the heart of the fan," bringing smart and funny analysis to all things popular culture. The writers are intelligent, well-informed and articulate and  convey their ideas in such a way that posts are both easy to read and interesting enough to want to keep on reading. 

The layout is minimal (as we all seem to aesthetically agree on), easy to navigate, with a categories bar at the top next to the header (movies, TV, music, books, art, theatre) and again at the bottom of the page (below the fold) with the top three stories from each category. A slideshow style banner features important articles to read while 'The Feed' to the right of it shows the latest posts (time stamped).

Unfortunately the media kit for Vulture doesn't include demographic information (fail whale), so I'm relying on the demographics for nymag.com to shed some insight into the reader of Vulture. The readership is split 40%/ 60% (men to women) while the median age is 30 years. The majority (59%) of users are 18 - 34 and 76% of their readers have a college degree. Basically for us this means that our target users will be university educated ranging from the ages of 18 - 30 (?), have an interest in popular culture and entertainment and be internet and tech savvy. This last quality is particular important given our topic is memes and so must appreciate and/ or engage in meme making. 

Vulture and the other New York magazine blogs are also popular for their blog commenters (as we noted in their Pop Culture Mysteries article about Under the Bridge with 42 comments and counting). This would be ideal (not only for the potential 'troll' factor) but to focus our web feature on stimulating thought and discussion around our topics, allowing others to contribute to ideas and even question what we put forward.

I believe Vulture would be a great publication for us to utilise for our web feature because a) They have a clean, sleek layout which we can all appreciate b) Have the target readership and demographics that match our topic c) Have a writing style that would work well with our meme investigation and is easy to follow d) Have a reader base that enjoys commenting and contributing to features. 

Although there is no 'internet' category at this point, Vulture does publish a weekly wrap up of the best viral videos which definitely poses potential to include a meme or internet phenomena type section which would be the basis of our web feature. As we're looking to analyse and break down certain memes and capture their success, track their history and significance to popular culture, I think Vulture would be a suitable publication for us allowing us to put a more serious, academic, in-depth perspective on a rather 'trivial' or 'shallow' topic (as some outsiders might say although from our research so far there is more than meets the eye) which is in line with Vulture's mission statement of the celebrating and blurring of high and low culture.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Know Your Meme's YouTube Channel

Despite being familiar with most of the popular memes, I haven't actually spent that much time on Know Your Meme.  This morning I stumbled across their latest YouTube episode, Know Your Meme: Futurama.  They give a great run through of the show, as well as where each of the appropriated memes started.

Their YouTube channel is filled with videos explaining the origins of memes including Ermahgerd, Dolan, and even video style memes such as Shit People Say. 

The videos run for about 3-5 minutes each and are surprisingly informative for videos about memes.  They're really worth a watch if you want to know how the meme started and the popularity surrounding the meme.

It's Banner Time

Mel had the idea of titling our blog "All your memes are belong to us," as an homage to one of the earliest memes to ever exist (1998!). So this was a simple banner concept based on that...

Check what you meme: Cyber Bullying

Given the domination memes currently enjoy in social media, it is inevitable that the phenomenon would garner some attention in the press.  Whilst a majority of memes are harmless, there has been a rise in memes acting as an excuse for "antisocial behaviour", a.k.a. cyber bullying. 

At the beginning of August we saw headlines centering around a certain Aboriginal memes page that was set up on Facebook, a topic which Jeremy covered in his most recent post.  In the article published by the SMH, once the Aboriginal meme page was taken down, the discussion posts sparked the debate of the right to free speech versus hate speech.  Debate aside, it definitely shadows the advent of memes, given their ability to be used as "jokes" even if or when offending communities of people.  

A less debated but equally damaging occurrence is cyber bullying through memes.  This has not been given as much publicity as the racist pages, but it is an issue that could very easily escalate, should  the "meme" fad stay around for long enough. 

Memes catering towards very specific, personal humour, has led to the creation of countless Facebook meme pages.  On a larger scale, we have pages like NBA Memes (with around 800 K "likes"), on a smaller level, the Sydney Uni Memes (13 K "likes), and even smaller, pages for individual high schools.  

Now the biggest problem that occurs here is on such a small scale like a High School page, there is far less "generic" jokes that can be used for the memes.  Less content could lead to more personal targeting of both students and teachers.  Meaning for the page to have some success amongst the School group, they will need to push the boundaries and do as much as possible to get attention.  

Just this week in Rotorua, New Zealand, meme pages for high schools were featured in the national newspaper after a Principal was informed of the groups on Facebook.  Whilst there has been no "bullying" actually recorded from the pages, the Principal saw the red flag and acted on it.  The administrator of the page responded, as mentioned in the aforementioned article, by saying "if anyone finds any of these offensive just let me know and I will take them off."

This is all well and good, but to think a high school student, who presumably has limited access to Facebook during school hours, can moderate a page containing 350 members, is a somewhat naive notion.  We all know how quickly things get shared over the internet, so all it takes is one smart ass kid to post a meme aimed towards a fellow student, and BAM, everyone has seen it before the moderator even gets to their computer.

Cyber bullying through memes could just be a moral panic led by the older generations who struggle to grasp the humour of memes, or it could become a very serious issue.  Only time will tell, but for now, can we rely on the education system to guide them towards "ethical" meme creation? 

Videos gone viral

What does the video footage of a pubescent-looking teenager with an unusually baritone voice singing about chocolate rain and a video recording of what sounds like a drugged-up hippie chronicling his sighting of a double rainbow both have in common? They are viral videos which have a greater number of hits on the video-sharing website, Youtube, than the population of Australia.

Of the seemingly mundane, to the downright outrageous, viral videos are constantly springing up with increasing frequency. This especially so with the exponential growth of the Internet and convergences in technology that result in cheaper and handier gadgets allowing for more of these Internet gems to be produced and uploaded.

With all that said, one does not simply 'make a viral video' (meme reference!). Viral videos often gain popularity much to the surprise of the producers of these videos. Of all the videos cached on the Interwebs, who would have thought that a video of a infant boy chomping on his older brother's finger would be able to garner more than 470 million views and 940,000 likes?

                                                      "Charlie, that really hurt!"                          Source: Youtube.com

So what then is a recipe of a viral video? They can range from the humorous, to the controversial, professionally made in a studio, or filmed with a camera-phone by the man on the street. There is no precise formula or equation for the makings of a viral video, it organically gains popularity through a series of sharing and likes from web-user to web-user. Much like the spread of a viral infection which lends its name to the term.

One thing that is certain about viral videos, however, is that there is a common element of human interest in them. Viral videos achieve the attention that they get because there is something in them which compels the viewer to stay on to finish watching the video rather than clicking on another link. Until the day scientists and brainiacs in lab coats are able to formulate them, viral videos will remain the holy grail for marketing practitioners and attention-seekers the world around.

Trollface: Origins

These days, a troll is no longer a fearsome creature who lives under a bridge, eating everyone that passes. Although they may just serve the same purpose on the internet.

The original "trollface" comic. Source: deviantART

"Trollface" has quickly become one of the most popular memes on the internet today, thanks to the viral power of the infamous 4chan. What's interesting however is how the word "troll" has evolved over the years, and the majority of today's youth would barely recall its origins as a mythical creature.

Today, the term is used to describe a person who posts inflammatory or off-topic messages in online communities such as blogs or comments on YouTube videos, intended to evoke a negative emotional response and disrupt on-topic discussion. But the idea of the troll and the perpetuation of the term's new meaning has resulted in far more than providing a word to describe a certain person.

How far can one go before a troll becomes insidious and offensive? And can we excuse racism, sexism and religious hate by the mere fact that "they're just trolling"? Of course, this depends on personal tolerances, but what's certain is that when it gets past a point, humour is no excuse.

This is precisely what occurred just over a week ago, when the creators of an "Aboriginal memes" page on Facebook were asked to take down the offensive content after Facebook refused to take action. In its help section, Facebook states that they "allow clear attempts at humor or satire that might otherwise be considered a possible threat of attack". Apparently, in their view, the page did not constitute hate speech.

It is clear that, at least on the internet, the line between humour and vilification is a fuzzy one, and it's sad that it has gotten to this point. Roland Barthes suggested the idea of "myth", which is the representation of our dominant ideologies when meaning is conveyed through "signs" - which can be anything from images or symbols to words. Today's meaning of a "troll" has unfortunately carried with it a way for people to pass off offensive and discriminatory content as humour. Sure, we've seen insult comics and stand-up comedians, but it's a far greater issue when it's so readily accessible via the internet - including by children.

What's in a meme?

Source: Getty Images

The Olympics have come and gone for 2012 and all that we are left with is the sting of defeat and an abundance of silver medals. But one thing endures the two weeks spent in front of the couch, sacrificing sleep and throwing off our body clocks: the memes. Seeing me through the games of the XXX Olympiad was a companion Facebook page appropriately titled 'Olympic Memes' which commented on everything Olympic related, from long and unpronounceable last names, to captioned  sports action shots and everything in between.

16 year old gymnast from the United States, McKayla Maroney, shot to internet stardom when her now famous scowl after being awarded the silver medal (she was expected to win the gold) made its way onto Tumblr, her 'not impressed' face superimposed into the background of historical or spectacular scenes.

Source: Flickr

McKayla is not impressed has shown us that no one is safe from the trolls and internet enthusiasts out there. Anyone or anything has the potential to become a meme. Take for instance Zeddie Little who you probably know better as 'Ridiculously Photogenic Guy'. Little was snapped amongst a pack of runners at an annual marathon, his Colgate smile, charm and effortlessness while running 10km in South Caroline heat became the perfect formula to creating a successful meme and generated growth through the platform Reddit.

Memes were once centred around popular culture and fandoms (see 'One does not simply walk into Mordor', 'Conspiracy Keanu' and 'Strutting Leo'), forming somewhat of a subculture of meme-makers and appreciators worldwide where only certain people 'in the know' or with the right knowledge could understand the references made but now the internet is looking broader for inspiration. Memes are becoming more universal in their content (anything from a global event such as the Olympics or the Royal Wedding can bring about new memes - meaning more people can understand and appreciate memes) and also being more accessible for those who wish to create or generate their own meme.

I think it's important for us to define what exactly a meme is (although sometimes problematic given the dynamic movement of the internet) and how it differentiates from viral material on YouTube. In an article by the BBC, Chris Quigley, the organiser of a meme sharing meeting in London states, "A meme is a cultural thing that is re-mixed and changed by the community."So something like the Nyan Cat video which has over 82 million views on YouTube is viral because of its reach and spread but it is when users take the original and change, morph and mould it into their own tastes, is when it becomes a meme.

This links back to the original meaning of the word meme (mind was blown when Fiona told us) coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena (he gives the example of melodies and catch-phrases LOL and fershunz fashion). Memes evolve through the process of variation, mutation, competition and inheritance - which influence a memes repetitive success. Memes that cultivate less become extinct while others can flourish through circulation and mutation. Sound familiar?

Meme origins

Just a video compilation of memes and their original context.

Starting out...

Example publications:

• Pedestrian TV
• Vice
• Thought Catalog
• The Vine

Meme sites to explore:

• Know Your Meme
• Meme Generator
• FAIL Blog
• Memebase

Reference articles:

• U Got Meme'd: The new student activism
• Contents removed from racist Facebook page
• Internet Memes: The Mythology of Augmented Society (the article explores how memes are the myths of our generation)
• How Internet Memes went corporate
• Internet Memes and Cultural Touchstones