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!

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!

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? 

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?