For this assignment, we were asked to research a digital genre that interests us, using the readings we discussed in class as well as outside research, to gain practical experience writing a wiki-style entry. The chosen genre had to be computer-based and involve audiences interactively. After finishing the project, we each uploaded our individual entries to a class wiki site, where I gained practical experience formatting within particular genre conventions.
I chose to focus my project on Internet memes partly because I enjoy viewing and interacting with memes in my free time, but also because I find the intense audience interaction particularly interesting. People of all ages in all parts of the world find ways to connect through a shared enjoyment of different memes, which I think is a fascinating phenomenon and is something I would enjoy researching further.
I chose to focus my project on Internet memes partly because I enjoy viewing and interacting with memes in my free time, but also because I find the intense audience interaction particularly interesting. People of all ages in all parts of the world find ways to connect through a shared enjoyment of different memes, which I think is a fascinating phenomenon and is something I would enjoy researching further.
Internet Memes
Description
According to professor Patrick Davison in his book The Social Media Reader, Internet memes, typically known simply as “memes,” can be defined as “a piece of culture, typically a joke, which gains influence through online transmission” (122). He goes on to distinguish Internet memes from in-person jokes by the rate at which they are transmitted across the globe. Memes’ uniqueness lies in “the speed of their transmission” and the ability to replicate the memes or their basic ideas (122-23).
In the book Engaging 21st Century Writers with Social Media, professor Kendra N. Bryant adds, “Another fundamental attribute of Internet memes is intertextuality: memes often relate to each other in complex, creative, and surprising ways” (104).
In the book Engaging 21st Century Writers with Social Media, professor Kendra N. Bryant adds, “Another fundamental attribute of Internet memes is intertextuality: memes often relate to each other in complex, creative, and surprising ways” (104).
Kairos
According to the article “7 Things Marketers Should Know About Memes,” there are five main reasons why Internet memes as a whole have surged in popularity and are suited for the current online environment: memes are simple and easily digestible, easily shared through the emergence of social media, easily identifiable, and funny, and they allow people to feel connected to a larger community (Quinn).
In “Blogging as a Social Action,” Kairos is said to describe the way in which any particularly discourse can “seize the opportunity of a fleeting moment to create new rhetorical possibility” (Miller). This idea of a “fleeting moment” is particularly relevant in determining any individual meme’s success.
A new meme’s success depends primarily on its timing in relation to its original content. There is typically a small window of opportunity for a meme to find an audience that will spread this content. For example, Bryant said one must “pay careful attention to the time that the meme was originally posted. For example, if a meme concerns a football game, then the meme needs to be posted within 24 hours of that game … If a great meme is created 4 days after the game, then the meme creator has lost their Kairotic moment, and the meme will not have the same popularity it might have had days before” (Bryant 104).
In “Blogging as a Social Action,” Kairos is said to describe the way in which any particularly discourse can “seize the opportunity of a fleeting moment to create new rhetorical possibility” (Miller). This idea of a “fleeting moment” is particularly relevant in determining any individual meme’s success.
A new meme’s success depends primarily on its timing in relation to its original content. There is typically a small window of opportunity for a meme to find an audience that will spread this content. For example, Bryant said one must “pay careful attention to the time that the meme was originally posted. For example, if a meme concerns a football game, then the meme needs to be posted within 24 hours of that game … If a great meme is created 4 days after the game, then the meme creator has lost their Kairotic moment, and the meme will not have the same popularity it might have had days before” (Bryant 104).
Audience
While Internet memes can be shared and viewed by anyone with an Internet connection, the audience typically depends on the platform used by the viewer. For example, Reddit, a popular online forum where users create and share content such as memes, is composed mostly of 18- to 29-year-old males from the United States (“The Top 8”). In contrast, Imgur, a popular picture-hosting site often used to view memes, is made up of a more international audience. These users are primarily males between the ages of 25 and 34 (“Imgur”). The demographics of a site’s audience contribute to determining which memes are spread in which regions of the world.
Content
While the most common form of Internet memes is pictures with text, memes can take the form of pictures, videos, hyperlinks, and hashtags (“Internet Meme”).
According to communications professor Limor Shifman, many memes are produced through some form of imitation through mimicry or remix (Shifman “Memes” 365). Mimicry involves mass emulation, such as participation in challenges like the cinnamon challenge or planking. Remixing involves recreating the meme, where users “download, re-edit, and distribute content” (365). Remixing is particularly popular in photo memes, where only the text is changed. Viral memes often involve the same pictorial content with changed text.
According to communications professor Limor Shifman, many memes are produced through some form of imitation through mimicry or remix (Shifman “Memes” 365). Mimicry involves mass emulation, such as participation in challenges like the cinnamon challenge or planking. Remixing involves recreating the meme, where users “download, re-edit, and distribute content” (365). Remixing is particularly popular in photo memes, where only the text is changed. Viral memes often involve the same pictorial content with changed text.
Examples of remixing using the "Mocking Spongebob" meme
Formal Features
While memes as a genre can take on a number of different forms, photo memes in particular can take three main forms: reaction Photoshops, stock character macros, and photo fads. In reaction Photoshops, content from real or previously-manipulated pictures is manipulated through the use of photo-editing software (Shifman “Cultural” 344). In stock character macros, a stock photo character is placed against a colorful background with bold white text surrounding the character. Other image macros include regular photos accompanied by text. Finally, photo fads are “staged photos in which the subject poses in a specific manner” (“Photo Fads”). Video memes also typically take the form of fads.
Ancestral Genres
Internet memes directly descended from the “meme” as defined by Richard Dawkins in his 1979 book The Selfish Gene. Dawkins used the term to refer to any behavior not inherently genetic, thus separating human behavioral characteristics into “genes” and “memes” (Davison 121). These memes “are either taught … or learned through experience,” and they “rely on the mental processes of observation and learning” (121). These memes are not physical entities, but rather they encompass cultural ideas and values (122). In this way, Internet memes are a subgenre of Dawkins’ original memes, as they reflect ideas and values “specific to the culture and environment of the Internet” (“Internet Meme”).
Another branch of the meme family tree is viral marketing, a marketing technique emerging in the 1990s in which marketers spread their campaigns virally through the use of technology to “produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives … through self-replicating viral process” (“Viral Marketing”). Because both are spread to a wide audience through the use of new media in order to increase the number of views, memes and viral marketing campaigns are closely linked. Many viral marketing campaigns center around previously-established memes, and many viral marketing campaigns themselves become the subject of memes, such as the FreeCreditReport.com video ads (“Internet Meme”).
Another branch of the meme family tree is viral marketing, a marketing technique emerging in the 1990s in which marketers spread their campaigns virally through the use of technology to “produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives … through self-replicating viral process” (“Viral Marketing”). Because both are spread to a wide audience through the use of new media in order to increase the number of views, memes and viral marketing campaigns are closely linked. Many viral marketing campaigns center around previously-established memes, and many viral marketing campaigns themselves become the subject of memes, such as the FreeCreditReport.com video ads (“Internet Meme”).
Notable Examples
The Doge image macro meme became popular in 2013. The original meme pictured a Shiba Inu dog with colorful Comic Sans text. The text displayed small phrases with modifiers such as “so,” “such,” and “many.” The meme spread through Reddit before spreading to other social media sites (“Doge”). Remixes of the meme soon spread, where creators substituted the original text for their own while keeping the initial identifying characteristics of colorful Comic Sans text with phrases and modifiers. Photoshop memes based on Doge became popular as well, with the dog’s face edited onto other images and scenes.
The Evil Kermit image macro meme first appeared in 2016 based on a screenshot from the 2014 Muppets Most Wanted movie, where a Twitter user captioned the still “me: sees a fluffy dog / me to me: steal him.” The meme features Kermit the Frog looking at his look-alike dressed in a black hood. The meme takes the form of the narrator talking to themselves in a conversation with the format “Me: […] and “Me to Me: […]” or “Also me: […],” with the second voice telling the first to do something lazy or irresponsible (“Evil Kermit”). Remixes include Photoshopping another person’s or character’s face onto the “evil” Kermit’s, and other remixes use Miss Piggy in place of Kermit, particularly for memes that are more relatable to a female audience. This meme was particularly suited to gain popularity due to the wide audience of other memes featuring children’s show characters such as Kermit’s “But That’s None of my Business” meme and various SpongeBob memes.
A notable example of fad memes is the Harlem Shake, a video fad meme in which a group of individuals start to dance and convulse, often in costume, during the beat drop in the song “Harlem Shake” by Baauer. This gained popularity in 2012 with a wide variety of audiences and was even mimicked by the U.S. Army.
A more recent video meme that exemplifies remixing’s definition of “download[ing], re-edit[ing], and distribut[ing] content” (Shifman “Memes” 365) is “(Blank) But It Keeps Getting Faster,” in which creators download an existing movie, song, or video game soundtrack and re-upload it to YouTube with the content sped up every time a character says a particular word or a certain sound is made. A derivative of this meme is “(Blank) But the Lyrics are in Alphabetical Order.”
Works Cited
Bryant, Kendra N. Engaging 21st Century Writers with Social Media. Hershey: IGI Global, 2017. Google Books. Web. 18 Feb. 2018.
Davison, Patrick. “The Language of Internet Memes.” The Social Media Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2012. 120-134. JSTOR. Web. 15 Feb. 2018.
“Doge (Meme)”. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 9 Feb. 2018. Web. 21 Feb. 2018.
“Evil Kermit.” Know Your Meme, http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/evil-kermit. 21 Feb. 2018.
“Imgur Traffic.” Quantcast, https://www.quantcast.com/imgur.com#/trafficCard. 19 Feb. 2018.
“Internet Meme.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 13 Feb. 2018. Web. 18 Feb. 2018.
Miller, Carolyn R. and Dawn Shepherd. “Blogging a Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog.” Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs, University of Minnesota. Web. 19 Feb. 2018.
“Photo Fads.” Know Your Meme, http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/photo-fads. 20 Feb. 2018.
Quinn, Jana. “7 Things Marketers Should Know About Memes.” BrandingBeat, Quality Logo Products. Web. 18 Feb. 2018.
Shifman, Limor. “The Cultural Logic Of Photo-Based Meme Genres.” Journal of Visual Culture 13.3 (2014): 340-358. Web. 20 Feb. 2018.
Shifman, Limor. “Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18.3 (2013): 362-77. Web. 19 Feb. 2018.
“The Top 8 Reddit Statistics on Users, Demographics & More.” MediaKix, http://mediakix.com/2017/09/reddit-statistics-users-demographics/. 19 Feb. 2018.
“Viral Marketing.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 28 Jan. 2018. Web. 18 Feb. 2018.
Davison, Patrick. “The Language of Internet Memes.” The Social Media Reader. New York: New York University Press, 2012. 120-134. JSTOR. Web. 15 Feb. 2018.
“Doge (Meme)”. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 9 Feb. 2018. Web. 21 Feb. 2018.
“Evil Kermit.” Know Your Meme, http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/evil-kermit. 21 Feb. 2018.
“Imgur Traffic.” Quantcast, https://www.quantcast.com/imgur.com#/trafficCard. 19 Feb. 2018.
“Internet Meme.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 13 Feb. 2018. Web. 18 Feb. 2018.
Miller, Carolyn R. and Dawn Shepherd. “Blogging a Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog.” Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and Culture of Weblogs, University of Minnesota. Web. 19 Feb. 2018.
“Photo Fads.” Know Your Meme, http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/cultures/photo-fads. 20 Feb. 2018.
Quinn, Jana. “7 Things Marketers Should Know About Memes.” BrandingBeat, Quality Logo Products. Web. 18 Feb. 2018.
Shifman, Limor. “The Cultural Logic Of Photo-Based Meme Genres.” Journal of Visual Culture 13.3 (2014): 340-358. Web. 20 Feb. 2018.
Shifman, Limor. “Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18.3 (2013): 362-77. Web. 19 Feb. 2018.
“The Top 8 Reddit Statistics on Users, Demographics & More.” MediaKix, http://mediakix.com/2017/09/reddit-statistics-users-demographics/. 19 Feb. 2018.
“Viral Marketing.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 28 Jan. 2018. Web. 18 Feb. 2018.