An Anatomy of 'An Anatomy of a YouTube Meme'
Your Blogger: Wesley Rupel
First and foremost I would like to apologize for the lateness of this post. I have some stupid hours that do not seem to get any better, but enough about my trials and tribulations let's get into some fun stuff.
I did enjoy reading this article, mainly because it felt as if I was able to follow along as I read. Normally, it might take a couple of reads on several lines in an article to fully or somewhat understand what is being said. I don't know if I am just not used to the double spacing or if the word usage was just simpler. Whatever it might be it was somewhat of a breeze to read through. There were a few things I noted down as I read through to remind myself to make mention in this very spot. The entire article is a qualitative (mainly) and quantitative analysis on the memetic videos on our good friend YouTube. We know how much YouTube is for us to watch, well Shifman attempts to break down the draw to YouTube and the particular videos that thrive on said site.
I am going to go over some of the few aspects that intrigued me and hope to get some nice little responsive posts out there...
I am not a huge YouTube person, definitely not a YouTuber at all. I usually only watch when someone tells me, "Dude! You've gotta watch this! It's F'n hilarious." Then they proceed to put their iPhone or whatever phone in my face as it loads. I'll admit for what I've watched... pretty funny stuff. I have used YouTube to find clips of some of my favorite shows, Family Guy mainly (cough), to show a friend or two or seven. The first thing I did when I finished this article I went right to YouTube to find some on these "memetic videos" that Shifman used in the article. Since 2009, when the data from the table was collected, it appears YouTube's layout has changed a bit to reflect a more categorized look than just, "here are the top viewed," "These here relate that video you just watch!" "Most Popular". Now they have, what looks like channels you can go to like, music, news, sports, and trending. This is different than what I remember of YouTube, but it does have nice feel to it. Anyways, the site did not instantly pull the "memetic videos" up, I had to search the titles that Shifman used through out the article just to watch some of them. My how things do change...
Shifman quotes Burgess (2008, 6) on page 6, "successful internet memes incorporate textual hooks or key signifiers that cannot be identified in advance, but only after a video has become prominent through the active selection of users." This particular passage, I found intriguing for the simple fact that we will never be able to preemptively figure out a meme before it is a meme. A person can think their new video is going to be successful, but the nature of a meme, which this article explores, depends on some social factors on how successful the video might be.
Shifman identifies common features among the sample taken in the study. These synonymous features are 'Ordinary' people, Flawed masculinity, Humor, Simplicity, Repetitiveness, and Whimsical Content. I believe Shifman nailed this one pretty straight on the head, because a good combination of these aspects will lead to a memetic video on YouTube.
I believe the most powerful of all features is the combination of the 'Ordinary' people and Humor. These two features lead to simplicity, because they have a way of making the audience watching the specific video relate easy to an 'Ordinary' person and if that 'Ordinary' person is going through something humorous, then you might just have a winner there. Then again, you will not know, because you can not determine a meme before it becomes a meme as it takes the response to a particular video to determine it as such. Why does Simplicity come from 'Ordinary' people and Humor? I believe it is what I am going to call, the "Common Ground Effect" (don't coin that, it's mine, unless it is already a real 'effect'). It means just what it states, the idea of having common ground or similar interest between two or more people or groups. We see an "ordinary" person doing something that we, ourselves, are very capable of doing and we can then place ourself in their shoes. Then if this "ordinary" person falls or does something, again in the realm that we can do this "something" too, idiotic, moronic, or accidental tends to lead to laughter (humor).
This could be scoped vision, because I do not know many people who get serious, credible news from YouTube. YouTube seems to be more of an entertainment type web site. This is why critical thinking skills should developed much earlier, because the exposure level is hitting much younger ages and they need to be able to identify and differentiate what is a "good," credible source of information and what is just crap, for lack of better words.
I did want to make quick reference to page 11 where Shifman makes a descriptive comment about a particular video. Is midget really the word you chose to use. Is it not more politically correct to say little person? I do not know why that hit me when I saw it, but it struck me out of place with how the entire article went. I have seen a few documentaries, specials, and shows where little people have said they prefer the term "little person" instead of "midget". It was just something I noticed and wondered if anyone else thought the same in regards to that. No where else is it mentioned in the article, but still to me... odd.
Let me know what y'all think in regards to my thoughts and overall thoughts to this article...
Oh and for fun I built some more Wordles (couldn't resist):
Let me know what y'all think in regards to my thoughts and overall thoughts to this article...
Oh and for fun I built some more Wordles (couldn't resist):
Good stuff Wesley...
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article, I found myself thinking about some of my favorite Internet memes from the recent past: the Bed Intruder, Double Rainbow and Wedding Entrance Dance, to name a few. Each of these inspired lots of parody videos and created "stars" out of its performers. In the case of the Bed Intruder, a song mash-up was created that was as famous as the actual news clip from which it was inspired. The television show the Office even spoofed the wedding dance video for one of its episodes. The fact that there are now television shows like Tosh 2.0 which exist only to comment on viral videos and memes speaks to how popular and ubiquitous they have become. So much so that they can be spoken of in shorthand - just say Bed Intruder and people know what you mean. This is what the author means by the "cultural vernacular of viral video."
As the article makes clear, memes have been around in one form or the other from the beginning of our culture. I particularly liked the author's point about the Internet accelerating the way memes can be propagated and distributed. Something can be posted today and become an Internet sensation in less than 24 hours. That's unprecedented in human history. But the Internet does more than just speed up the process of dissemination; it creates an environment in which new forms and genres of memes can be created.
I thought it was interesting how the author differentiated between memes and viral videos, and also between videos that are popular because of how many people watched them and videos which are popular because of how many people did something with them.
I also thought the analysis of the memetic videos to be enlightening. The six common features of the memetic videos - a focus on ordinary people, flawed masculinity, humor, simplicity, repetitiveness, and whimsical content - are not the features which have typically helped to propagate news events or urban legends. "People tend to spread texts they find to be trustworthy, relevant and useful as well as those that provoke strong emotions"(18, which isn't the case in the memes that were analyzed. However, there are certainly memes out there that fit the bill. Kony 2012 is technically a viral video more than a meme, but it certainly has created massive buzz due to its strong emotional content. And the fact that it is a 30-minute video makes it that more remarkable. Kony has its detractors and has also inspired some parody videos, but not to the extent that other memes have.
I also agree with the author's concluding point that people are driven to create and replicate videos because of our "attention economy" and our fixation on personal branding and identity formation. YouTube has helped to "blur the lines between private and public, professional and
amateur, market- and non-market-driven activities"(22). Sometimes when you watch a clip on YouTube you can't even tell if it was professionally produced for commercial purposes or made by amateurs just for fun. And I suppose that proves the author's point.
I agree with your agreement :)As someone who wants to produce films/ videos proffesionally, youtube acctually poses a big problem for me in the sense that it opens up opportunities for just about anyone to make there own videos. There used to be a day when you had to go to film school and have the right connections in order to distribute your product. The author says that an important component of pop-culture is the postmodern representation system of simulacra and pastiche (Jameson, 1991). The "proffessional look" of cinema can now be replicated by anyone who has a descent camera and access to a computer. Even the professional's work is replicated in the form of re-edited movie trailers. There is no longer any way to differentiate professional and amateur.
DeleteYes, times have changed. Its amazing to look back and see how much they have changed. I really like how he brought up the book about textual poachers and that meme really existed prior to mass media.
ReplyDeleteIts interesting to think that a meme cannot be determined in advance. The videos have to be common knowledge to a mass amount of people in order for those individuals to appreciate the paradigm within the meme. Even more interesting is that even though they existed prior to mass media they would never have been able to gain such popularity without it.
The one thing I love about youtube is how it is so normal, that they focus on normal people and I think that is why it is so popular. I am not a big youtuber myself but will go on to check out a video someone is raving about, but I know people who are huge youtube junkies, and they have made memes out of popular videos. I think people feel they can trust everyday normal people hence why youtube memes and videos spread so rapidly.
For those you with Iphones, check out an app called Viddy. It is a 15 sec video archive and users can follow people and watch there viddy archives on a daily basis.
I think your right when saying that of Shifman's features of a meme video the most important are ordinary people and humor. I appreciated the videos you hyper linked to they were great examples. I think another example of a video that has been taken and replicated to death is "Shit Girls says Say". To be honest I'm not even sure if that is the original video. The video features ordinary people's stereotypical view of a demographic. People flock to the video because when they see the title they want to see if this "shit" rings true in their own experience. The more accurate the stereotype is the more famous the video becomes.
ReplyDeleteI agree with these comments. I have actually seen a few of the "Shit Girls Say" videos, and some of them are actually pretty funny. Those videos are a perfect example of the importance of Shifman's concept "ordinary people and humor". When people can relate to these videos and find them funny, they are going to be interested in them. Has anyone ever seen the Jenna Marbles videos? A friend of mine showed me a clip of hers about a year ago, and I will admit I was intrigued. Some of her YouTube clips are annoying, but some are hilarious. She simply makes fun of many different kinds of people in society. Some of her YouTube clips have over 10,000,000 views, which amazes me because the majority of them have no point to them at all.
ReplyDeleteIf you get a free second, look up "how to trick people into thinking you're good looking". This was the video my friend had shown me a year ago, and has 38,000,000 views.
Interesting article in the Journal Gazette about young girls posting "Am I Hot or Not?" vlogs. Check it out. Speaks to the article's point about the "look at me" egocentric nature of YouTubers....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120319/FEAT/303199934
Thanks, Wesley.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the six meme characteristics Shifman identifies in this piece and the concluding thoughts regarding “attention economy,” I find Shifman’s posits regarding cultural impact of particular interest. Shifman’s final point, in which he offers another “…prism through which the miming phenomena should be examined” (21), discusses cultural and esthetic logics of engagement in participatory culture. Shifman argues for viewing internet memes as cultural frameworks, suggesting we attempt to understand memes and their potential for cultural impact and representation by moving away from particular texts, focusing on the cultural practices that give rise to memes; in other words, Shifman encourages abstract thinking as a means of gaining rhetorical perspective. He points to Burgess (2008) for support in “…treating YouTube videos as mediating ideas that are practiced within social networks, shaped by cultural norms and expectations” (21). This section of the piece’s conclusion recalls for me notions of social ontology, a concept briefly discussed in the Nissembaum (2004) text exploring hackers. I hope we can revisit this concept throughout our classroom discussions, as I think concepts such as social ontology and cultural/esthetic logics will facilitate our thinking about digital rhetoric in ways Shifman alludes to here.