memes

Archive for the ‘memes’ Category

“Meme” is the least understood word on the Internet

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Today’s unusual disappearance of the original “RickRoll” video file uploaded to YouTube (which has amassed over 30 million views and was forever prominently featured on Rick Astley’s YouTube channel), has led popular übergeek Chris Pirillo to declare the Internet meme of RickRolling “dead” (update: ok, it looks like he understands the word ‘meme’ a bit more than I gave him credit for).

As much as I admire Chris, I’m not so sure he loads of other people don’t understand the meaning of the word “meme“. A meme is an idea spread from person to person, not a single item or piece of so-called intellectual property. Physical artifacts, or, in this case, Internet content items, can be used to spread ideas, but the ideas themselves exist only in the minds of those people exposed to them. Simply removing one digital iteration, one copy, of a content item used to proliferate an idea does not effectively kill said idea, no matter how popular the content item might have been. (Besides, the RickRoll video itself is so widespread that boundless digital copies and variations exist in numerous forms.) Rickrolling is an idea, not intellectual property, and it therefore can never be subject to copyright, and it can never “die”.

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Tags: Barbara Streisand Effect, Chris Pirillo, copyright, meme, memes, music video, Rick Astley, RickRoll, video, youtube
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Canada’s History – The Colbert Nation Insta-meme

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

During Tonight’s Colbert Report, host and Real American Hero™ Stephen Colbert called upon his Nation of followers to flood Urban Dictionary with the true definition of the term “Canada’s History”.

You see, nearly 100-yr-old vaunted Canadian cultural and historical periodical, “The Beaver”, was recently forced to change its name because of popular euphemisms which I won’t bother attempting to explain here, because if you don’t know you’ve been living under a rock or you’re over 55.

So, to correct this injustice and teach Canadian’s to never back down in the face of silly double entendres, Stephen posited what will forever be the magazine’s lament – the absolute truest definition of the term “Canada’s History” as it stands in Real America.

“Canada’s history: A depraved American sexual act involving moose antlers, maple syrup, and the Stanley Cup.”

Colbert added:

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Tags: Canada's History, colbert, memes
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Memes and the Brand Underground: Crossing the line from egoboo to real profit

Thursday, October 30th, 2008

Rob Walker wrote an article about the brand underground in New York City for the NYT Magazine back in 2006. It details how brands like aNYthing operating out of NY, which exist for the sole purpose and sake of being a brand, rather than having a branding initiative attached to an existing product, are emerging and how they’ve become viable business models. As Walker rightly points out, we’re living in an age where emotional connections are being developed towards brands by consumers, in part due to the efforts of agencies and businesses to market their brands within certain social or cultural contexts that elicit those emotional connections. He uses the example of certain fast food chains or beer bottlers and how they use iconography associated with so-called masculinity to develop emotional connections with their target demographics. In other words, Joe the Consumer, who likes Miller Beer and Burger King, will associate certain male-centric imagery and messages with those products due to their respective branding, and feel empowered or supported in his personal idea of masculinity by consuming those burgers and beer. So, in essence, the product existed before the branding and the branding was a means of pushing the product.

In stark contrast to that then we have brands like aNYthing, where the branding exists first and then the tangible goods are added to the mix. Meaning, instead of Hanes tees, it’s Hanes tees with the aNYthing logo attached (although I don’t know who manufactures the goods in this case; that’s merely an example – and before you say, “hey, wait, brands like Nike push tees with their logo on it”, I will point out that in those cases the tee itself represents a product that existed first and is therefore selling an overall image associated with those pre-existing products, e.g., sports and athletic apparel/equipment). With an underground movement like aNYthing, you create the brand then find ways to exploit it. In that, it becomes adaptable to any number of durable goods or services.

So what is the strength of the brand, what makes it sell, and what the heck am I getting at in that headline about memes and egoboo? (more…)

Tags: branding, memes
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Debtris, Raids, and the Social Media Movie Studio

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

One of my favorite sites is YTMND.com. YTMND isn’t news to a lot of people on the intarwebs, but its relevance as a social media tool remains viable. Its hordes of users constantly submit loads of new content, plenty of which contains sharp insights into a plethora of cultural, political, and social matters – but mostly it’s just there for the lolz. The submitters at YTMND could pump out enough fresh memes, or at least recycle oldies-but-goodies frequently enough, to sustain the internet underbelly all by their collective selves. It’s a machine. In 2006, Frank Ahrens at the Washington Post wrote up a more thorough examination for the uninitiated as to just what the site is all about. He actually labeled the site’s central conceit, more or less, “a new art form”. I guess for myself I’ll just call YTMND a backwater meme manufacturing center; you’ll certainly find it firmly planted as another island in the internet subculture on XKCD’s “Sea of Memes” map. (more…)