Memes

The Truth

OBJECTIVES

  1. FIRST: You will find a successful meme & create a visually exciting 8.5″x11″ explanatory poster (due at the start of class) explaining the meme’s subject, form, content, and context. It can be printed or made by hand, and it can be larger than8.5″x11″ (but not smaller than 8.5″x11″).
    To learn what subject/form/content/context are, let’s view this presentation:
  2. SECOND, you will create and post a meme of your own creation to the internet with the intention that it will spread as far and as fast as possible.

GRADING

  1. For your poster,  you will be graded on the following
    – Did you try to make it visually appealing? How? (1pt)
    – Did you identify the subject? (1pt)
    – Did you identify the form? (1pt)
    – Did you identify the content? (1pt)
    – Did you identify the context? (1pt)
  2. Your original meme is graded on effort, originality, and popularity. (5pts) These must be publicly posted to an online sharing site, and 1 hour before class starts you must submit the link to canvas in order to receive credit. Emphasis on publicly shared – when I click the link, I must be able to see the content. We will track each person’s meme and see whose is the most viral at the end of the semester.

BACKGROUND INFO ON MEMES

A meme is cultural info copied by imitation (credit). 

A meme can be a simple idea, or a complex idea. The most important point about a meme is that it propagates. In other words, a meme is an idea, value or pattern of behavior that is especially attractive and is passed from one person to the next – or even one society to the next.

Let’s take an idea of a simple meme: ‘love, love, love (music) love, love, love …’ If you are familiar with the Beatles you probably are humming that tune right now. That tune is a meme (at least as it is understood by the experts – references below!). It is passed around the world through the radio, people singing, etc. The Beatles were very good at creating musical memes, and the life of their music continues on beyond their own lives.

A more complex meme might be the idea of democracy. Many feel that this is the best system in the world, while others might vehemently disagree. It’s an idea that’s very attractive and has been passed down through the generations.

Some people (Richard Dawkins who originated the idea) claim that religions are memes.

The great thing about thinking about ideas, values, etc. in terms of being memes is that it allows you to distance yourself from memes. If it is just an idea that is propagated effectively, it is not necessarily THE TRUTH.  (credit)

Smithsonian Magazine likens memes to human genes, since “ideas can replicate, mutate and evolve.” Colin Lankshear and Michele Knobel report in New Literacies: Changing Knowledge in the Classroom that geneticist Richard Dawkins even believed that memes cause actual biological changes in our brains.  Memes are part of the collective consciousness, part of our vocabulary, and they seem to arise spontaneously and simultaneously, filtering through our email, our Facebook pages, and even on commercial TV shows and advertisements like a contagion. (credit)

Examples of Memes (credit)

Gangnam Style: popular dance video parodying “Gangnam Style,” a Korean term similar to “swag” used to describe upscale fashion and lavish lifestyle associated with trendsetters in Seoul’s Gangnam district

Ermahgerd – engendered a new vocabulary (remember pig Latin?) based on the use of an orthodontic retainer. For a related activity, see the Ermahgerd Translator.

Photobombing Stingray – an accidental meme based on a school teacher’s vacation photo gone awry

LOLcats – funny cat pictures – need I say more?

Rebecca Black – Friday – a monotonous sounding music video, with over 11 million views in four days.

Makayla is Not Impressed – United States gymnast McKayla Maroney was photographed with a scowl on her face during the 2012 Olympic Games in London. In a show of his knowledge of popular culture, President Obama mugged with Makayla during her November 2012 visit to the White House.

Any wedding dance (Macarena, Hustle, YMCA) or the first dance