Making Sense of Memes: Where They Came From and Why We Keep Clicking Them

[KoKo]

(BTW: Check out the Rest of the Articles at the Link Below. They look very interesting as to what International Students are Thinking About)


By Marion Provencher Langlois
2014, Vol. 6 No. 03 | pg. 1/2 | »
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/879/making-sense-of-memes-where-they-came-from-and-why-we-keep-clicking-them

Are memes mere distractions from our normal office boredom? Funny, stupid, or poignant, this most simple digital medium captures our attention in particularly unique ways. But how and why did this form of cultural transmission become so popular, and potentially, so powerful?

Richard Dawkins was the first person to use the term, referring at the time to a cultural unit that is reproduced and transmitted over time through imitation and self-replication. Dawkins (1976) wrote in The Selfish Gene:

“We need a name for the new replicator, a noun that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. ‘Mimeme’ comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a monosyllable that sounds a bit like ‘gene’.” (p. 192).

In his book, Dawkins (1976) provided as examples of meme melodies and tunes, items in fashion, architectural features and other cultural units that have been spread or replicated over a certain period of time.

There is much irony in seeing a Batman Slapping Robin meme that addresses greater debates like "nature versus nurture" or the previous Presidential elections.

The word meme has changed since its creation by Dawkins. It now refers, in Internet language, to pictures, sounds, videos or websites that are shared or reproduced from person to person through social media and user-generated content websites like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Tumblr, Reddit, etc. This examination considers Internet memes that are composed of an image, either an illustration or a photograph, accompanied by text. Under this form only what is written changes. This way, a new story or a new joke is created, however with the restriction of having to use the same image and the same framework of image each time.

Fig 1. The Batman Slapping Robin template.


How Did Memes Come to Be?

Memes are the result of our capacity for digital reproduction. Walter Benjamin (1998) argued in 1936 that mechanical reproduction of a work of art had, technically, always been possible, but that with the growing mechanical and technological advances of the 20th century, the capacity to reproduce certain works to perfection is growing at an unprecedented pace. In The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction, David Douglas (1995) updated Benjamin’s argument to our reality: we live in a digital era where we have, virtually, the capacity to reproduce images flawlessly, and endlessly (p.382).

Given our technology, and given our opportunity for digital reproduction, we now have ways of engaging with images that did not exist in the past. For Douglas (1995), the difference between our relationship to images on the Internet and the one with printed images lies, as previously mentioned, in the capacity of endless and flawless reproduction, but also in the capacity of endless variation, and our further ability to share those variations (pp.282-283). Software exists to give individual users the opportunity to manipulate and change images, turn them upside down, change the colors, the background, superpose other images, alter the size of what is being portrayed, etc. In Douglas’ words (1995), “Each of these programs in one way or another unlocks for the individual user a pluralist world of visual imagery, transmitted on demand and by personal choice” (p.382). The only requirements for participating in that reproduction, sharing and variation of images are access to the Internet and basic computer skills.
Who Creates Memes?

CONTINUED AT:

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/879/making-sense-of-memes-where-they-came-from-and-why-we-keep-clicking-them

[merrily]

1. Manipulation by meme.

It's deadlier than death by chocolate and nowhere near as yummy, except possibly to those who succeed at it.

[defacto7]

2. The definition has changed so much

you can't recognize the word anymore. To bad because it's original meaning was much more descriptive. Now it's just digital pix? Jebus. What a way to cheapen an important concept. I don't mind an evolving language as long as it's adding to, not subtracting from. The evolution of language is its opposite most of the time, it's devolving and is part of the dumbing down process.

memes? Bet most don't have a clue what it really means. It's pretty likely studentpulse does not.