Working Title: Writing on Design
by Michael Bojkowski
December 2017.
by Michael Bojkowski
December 2017.
Script for ‘Evrythings Alright Forevr: Know Your Memetic Dispersion’
Title
Know your Emergent forms of publishing.
Video number 1
Memes and memetic dispersion [visual, title]
This is a meme.
[visual, nyan]
This is also a meme.
[visual, distracted boyfriend]
And so is this.
[visual, Ice bucket challenge]
And all these.
[visual, loads of dat bois]
The definition of the meme is constantly evolving. [pause]
This much we know…
The coining on the term ‘meme’ is credited to an evolutionary biologist named Richard Dawkins, who used the word in his book, ‘The Selfish Gene’ first published in 1976.
In the book he uses the term to describe a “unit of Culture” that is passed on through non-genetic means.
[visual, Author]
[visual, year]
[visual, Selfish Gene]
The word was adopted as a way to describe digital media—images, videos, audio, text, use of language—easily shared online by internet users, often gaining popularity within message board groups before becoming more widely spread. [visual, message boards]
[visual, sales funnel]
Widely dispersed memes can start as one particular type of media and subject
[visual, doge]
before mutating into a wide variety of variations on the original
[visual, doges, doge coins]
But how does a meme start?
How does it become so widely distributed?
And how is this helpful to modern day publishers? [visual, text]
Maybe this tutorial—and associated case studies—will help answer some of these questions.
Tutorial
Step 1
Decide on a format
Memes come in all shapes, sizes and formats. [visual, doges, google search result]
Pretty much anything that you can post online can become a meme, even stories or conversations.
Let’s make choosing a format simple and focus on image files—i.e. gifs or jpegs
[visual, files]
[visual, I Can Haz Cheezeburger (slowly rotating)]
A decade ago, in 2007, Eric Nakagawa reportedly grabbed a picture of crazed, yet strangely articulate, looking cat from a Russian pet food website—added the text ‘I Can Has Cheezburger?’ in the space above it using a typeface common to most computers called ‘Impact’—This one post went onto launch a whole genre of memes that would come to be known as ‘lolcats’
[visual, lolcats]
Posting this single image on the community site, Something Awful, proved fortuitous for Nakagawa. He quickly developed an independent website to house the many lolcat images being produced The I Can Has Cheezburger? site became an overnight sensation attracting one and a half million visitors a day at it’s peak.
[visual, cheezeburger site]
The site featured a ‘lol builder’ that allowed visitors to select a preset image and add their own text over the top. This lead the lolcat genre to spawn it’s own unique take on the English language known as ‘lolspeak’.
[visual, text: lolspeak translations]
I Can Haz Cheezeburger is proof that you don’t need complex source material when choosing the content for you meme—you don’t even need to use any fancy formats(although you still can if you like). An image grabbed from a website with two short lines of cheeky misspelt text in a preloaded font could be enough.
As a sidenote: it’s probably best to avoid copyrighted images if you can help it—although there are plenty of popular memes that don’t—some even include copyright watermarks over the top of images directly acknowledging the source material
[visual, watermarked images]
Step 2
Create access points
Memes often start their lives as posts within online community forums hosted by sites such as 4chan and reddit. It’s in these forums that the germ of an idea can be expanded upon through the group effort of it’s members before finding it’s way into the wider realm.
[visual, typical message boards]
The 11B-x-1371 meme emerged in the form of a spooky video that contained puzzles for viewers to decode.
[visual, 11B-x-1371 video]
This video was quietly uploaded to YouTube in May 2015 but it wasn’t until October, when the original creator of the video posted a copy on DVD to tech blog, GadgetZZ that it started to spread. Reddit users begin to analyse the video,
sharing their findings with one another through the /r/creepy thread generating 2,200 comments on the video within the space of a week
Reddit users employed a vast array of diverse techniques to unlock the various hidden messages within the video. One user analysed the audio using a spectographic technique which created visual patterns out of sound. Hidden images and text were found.
[visual, 11B-x-1371 stenogphic video]
Another user broke down the title of the video, which appeared a a string of zeros and ones and and found clues there.
[visual, text by reddit user on title]
Another user managed to locate where the video was filmed using Google Image searches to match the house in the film with images online.
[visual, Google image search]
These were all ‘ways in’ that the originator of this meme created. The downside of this approach being that once the majority of clues were solved the meme lost momentum.
[visual, 11B-x-1371 sequel]
Know your Emergent forms of publishing.
Video number 1
Memes and memetic dispersion [visual, title]
Following this brief introduction will be a tutorial which will guide you through a series of steps that will show you how to use this new tactic in distributing content.
IntroductionThis is a meme.
[visual, nyan]
This is also a meme.
[visual, distracted boyfriend]
And so is this.
[visual, Ice bucket challenge]
And all these.
[visual, loads of dat bois]
The definition of the meme is constantly evolving. [pause]
This much we know…
The coining on the term ‘meme’ is credited to an evolutionary biologist named Richard Dawkins, who used the word in his book, ‘The Selfish Gene’ first published in 1976.
In the book he uses the term to describe a “unit of Culture” that is passed on through non-genetic means.
[visual, Author]
[visual, year]
[visual, Selfish Gene]
The word was adopted as a way to describe digital media—images, videos, audio, text, use of language—easily shared online by internet users, often gaining popularity within message board groups before becoming more widely spread. [visual, message boards]
[visual, sales funnel]
Widely dispersed memes can start as one particular type of media and subject
[visual, doge]
before mutating into a wide variety of variations on the original
[visual, doges, doge coins]
But how does a meme start?
How does it become so widely distributed?
And how is this helpful to modern day publishers? [visual, text]
Maybe this tutorial—and associated case studies—will help answer some of these questions.
Tutorial
Step 1
Decide on a format
Memes come in all shapes, sizes and formats. [visual, doges, google search result]
Pretty much anything that you can post online can become a meme, even stories or conversations.
Let’s make choosing a format simple and focus on image files—i.e. gifs or jpegs
[visual, files]
[visual, I Can Haz Cheezeburger (slowly rotating)]
A decade ago, in 2007, Eric Nakagawa reportedly grabbed a picture of crazed, yet strangely articulate, looking cat from a Russian pet food website—added the text ‘I Can Has Cheezburger?’ in the space above it using a typeface common to most computers called ‘Impact’—This one post went onto launch a whole genre of memes that would come to be known as ‘lolcats’
[visual, lolcats]
Posting this single image on the community site, Something Awful, proved fortuitous for Nakagawa. He quickly developed an independent website to house the many lolcat images being produced The I Can Has Cheezburger? site became an overnight sensation attracting one and a half million visitors a day at it’s peak.
[visual, cheezeburger site]
The site featured a ‘lol builder’ that allowed visitors to select a preset image and add their own text over the top. This lead the lolcat genre to spawn it’s own unique take on the English language known as ‘lolspeak’.
[visual, text: lolspeak translations]
I Can Haz Cheezeburger is proof that you don’t need complex source material when choosing the content for you meme—you don’t even need to use any fancy formats(although you still can if you like). An image grabbed from a website with two short lines of cheeky misspelt text in a preloaded font could be enough.
As a sidenote: it’s probably best to avoid copyrighted images if you can help it—although there are plenty of popular memes that don’t—some even include copyright watermarks over the top of images directly acknowledging the source material
[visual, watermarked images]
Step 2
Create access points
Memes often start their lives as posts within online community forums hosted by sites such as 4chan and reddit. It’s in these forums that the germ of an idea can be expanded upon through the group effort of it’s members before finding it’s way into the wider realm.
[visual, typical message boards]
The 11B-x-1371 meme emerged in the form of a spooky video that contained puzzles for viewers to decode.
[visual, 11B-x-1371 video]
This video was quietly uploaded to YouTube in May 2015 but it wasn’t until October, when the original creator of the video posted a copy on DVD to tech blog, GadgetZZ that it started to spread. Reddit users begin to analyse the video,
sharing their findings with one another through the /r/creepy thread generating 2,200 comments on the video within the space of a week
Reddit users employed a vast array of diverse techniques to unlock the various hidden messages within the video. One user analysed the audio using a spectographic technique which created visual patterns out of sound. Hidden images and text were found.
[visual, 11B-x-1371 stenogphic video]
Another user broke down the title of the video, which appeared a a string of zeros and ones and and found clues there.
[visual, text by reddit user on title]
Another user managed to locate where the video was filmed using Google Image searches to match the house in the film with images online.
[visual, Google image search]
These were all ‘ways in’ that the originator of this meme created. The downside of this approach being that once the majority of clues were solved the meme lost momentum.
[visual, 11B-x-1371 sequel]
This didn’t stop the original creator from launching a sequel, distributing a second video by posting a series of clues which then lead to a series of USB sticks scattered around the world containing the new video. The creator of the 11B-x-1371 meme, Parker Warner Wright, now unmasked, would go onto upload a self promotional website talking about the two projects as well as listing the various interviews and press he received as a result.
So your meme can be simple like I Can Haz Cheezeburger or complex like 11B-x-1371 as long as there is a way in for others to interact with your content, your meme should be fine.
[visual, text?]
Step 3
Set your meme free
Traditional media such as books, magazines and newspapers all rely on ideas of ownership. They all contain the names of editors, authors, publishers and other members of staff. Memes do not. Like information, Memes also want to be free.[visual, Whole Earth catalog author stating ‘Information wants to be free’]
The copypasta genre of internet memes is a great example of this.
[visual, message board]
Copypastas are bytes of text easily copied and pasted (hence the name) into community boards, messaging apps, twitter feeds… anywhere that utilises text as a core interface.
The more widely disseminated copypastas in recent times have incorporated emojis within their text such as the ‘clap emoji’ meme which takes new or copied and pasted text and inserts hand claps between words as added emphasis
[visual, clap emoji memes]
Whereas short copypastas are ideal for sharing via twitter or text message a subgenre has emerged via message boards thats revolves around story telling.
[visual, google campfire meetings]
Creepypastas are like campfire stories about ghosts and ghouls, created to send chills down the readers collective spines. The more successful creepypastas spawn genres of their own.
US Cable channel SyFy has picked up on the popularity for Creepypastas with their drama series Channel Zero, taking stories that have become well known within the creepypastas community and presenting these original stories to a much wider audience.
[visual, Channel Zero, Candle Cove]
[visual, Channel Zero, No end house]
So to recap… Once you have created your meme and the access points to let others in, the next step is to put it somewhere online that others can access and try not too be precious about what happens to it. The less precious you are, the more likely it will be picked up and spread online.
Step 4
Don’t panic
Pepe.
[visual, Boys Club cover]
Illustrator Mat Furies’ anthropomorphic frog started life as a care free kind of guy who liked to liked to pull his pants all the way down when he went to the toilet, somehow ended up branded a Hate Symbol and is currently listed in the Anti-Defamation League’s Hate Symbols Database.
[visual, page from Boys Club]
Furie has followed his characters journey from comic book to 4chan icon to hate symbol and has spent the past few years trying to wrestle back control of Pepe. At one stage he tried killing him off to try and halt Pepe’s popularity amongst alt-right trolls. When that didn’t work he set up a campaign to help Save Pepe via Kickstarter. [visual, various from The Nib]
[visual, Kickstarter video]
Recent reports suggest he has resorted to ‘aggressively enforcing his intellectual property’ in order to regain control of his creation. Especially after the release of an alt-right children’s book titled ‘The Adventures of Pepe and Pede’ which used a redrawn likeness of his character to peddle Islamophobic messages.
[visual, Pepe & Pede cover]
Pepe is a worst case scenario where by a perfectly innocent piece of artwork was co-opted and claimed by an aggressive online community that has refused to let it go.
[visual, alt-right Pepes]
Yet Pepe is also an example of the universality of the meme as a conduit for publishing. As Reddit user EndlessOrca said in response to another user asking how many Pepe’s there were in the world:
Rule 66 is ‘there uncountable number of Pepes in the world’.
Rule 35 is ‘there is a pepe for everything’.
[visual ‘Rules of the Internet’]
Pepe also shows us that there is no need to panic if you’re meme starts mutate in ways you couldn’t foresee because there’s always change and it can always change again in the future.
[visual, lots of Pepes]
[visual, rare pepes]
The Good News?
Publishers, don’t be distracted by that old ‘Death of Print’ chestnut.
[visual, David Carson book, End of Print, versions]
Sure print media is diminishing in terms of physical product such as books, magazine and newspapers but these are incredibly static methods of distribution compared to the energetic way memes spread through out the online world... and bleed into traditional media too.
[visual, Pepe in the news]
Memetic dispersion also means what might start off as a short and simple piece of easily distributed media could lead to:
the creation a whole new language,
[Visual, lolcats lol speak]
a new career as a video artists
[visual, Parker Warner Wright]
or as a binge-able drama series,
[visual, Channel zero]
or a canon of images eagerly discussed by newsmedia and academics alike
[Visual, Meme wars]
or even a regular print publication…
[Visual, Meme Insider magazine]
If you have watched this video until the end and found it useful at all let me know by leaving a comment or like below.
Thanks for stopping by.
Next time:
Newspapers on the fly
This didn’t stop the original creator from launching a sequel, distributing a second video by posting a series of clues which then lead to a series of USB sticks scattered around the world containing the new video. The creator of the 11B-x-1371 meme, Parker Warner Wright, now unmasked, would go onto upload a self promotional website talking about the two projects as well as listing the various interviews and press he received as a result.
So your meme can be simple like I Can Haz Cheezeburger or complex like 11B-x-1371 as long as there is a way in for others to interact with your content, your meme should be fine.
[visual, text?]
Step 3
Set your meme free
Traditional media such as books, magazines and newspapers all rely on ideas of ownership. They all contain the names of editors, authors, publishers and other members of staff. Memes do not. Like information, Memes also want to be free.[visual, Whole Earth catalog author stating ‘Information wants to be free’]
The copypasta genre of internet memes is a great example of this.
[visual, message board]
Copypastas are bytes of text easily copied and pasted (hence the name) into community boards, messaging apps, twitter feeds… anywhere that utilises text as a core interface.
The more widely disseminated copypastas in recent times have incorporated emojis within their text such as the ‘clap emoji’ meme which takes new or copied and pasted text and inserts hand claps between words as added emphasis
[visual, clap emoji memes]
Whereas short copypastas are ideal for sharing via twitter or text message a subgenre has emerged via message boards thats revolves around story telling.
[visual, google campfire meetings]
Creepypastas are like campfire stories about ghosts and ghouls, created to send chills down the readers collective spines. The more successful creepypastas spawn genres of their own.
US Cable channel SyFy has picked up on the popularity for Creepypastas with their drama series Channel Zero, taking stories that have become well known within the creepypastas community and presenting these original stories to a much wider audience.
[visual, Channel Zero, Candle Cove]
[visual, Channel Zero, No end house]
So to recap… Once you have created your meme and the access points to let others in, the next step is to put it somewhere online that others can access and try not too be precious about what happens to it. The less precious you are, the more likely it will be picked up and spread online.
Step 4
Don’t panic
Pepe.
[visual, Boys Club cover]
Illustrator Mat Furies’ anthropomorphic frog started life as a care free kind of guy who liked to liked to pull his pants all the way down when he went to the toilet, somehow ended up branded a Hate Symbol and is currently listed in the Anti-Defamation League’s Hate Symbols Database.
[visual, page from Boys Club]
Furie has followed his characters journey from comic book to 4chan icon to hate symbol and has spent the past few years trying to wrestle back control of Pepe. At one stage he tried killing him off to try and halt Pepe’s popularity amongst alt-right trolls. When that didn’t work he set up a campaign to help Save Pepe via Kickstarter. [visual, various from The Nib]
[visual, Kickstarter video]
Recent reports suggest he has resorted to ‘aggressively enforcing his intellectual property’ in order to regain control of his creation. Especially after the release of an alt-right children’s book titled ‘The Adventures of Pepe and Pede’ which used a redrawn likeness of his character to peddle Islamophobic messages.
[visual, Pepe & Pede cover]
Pepe is a worst case scenario where by a perfectly innocent piece of artwork was co-opted and claimed by an aggressive online community that has refused to let it go.
[visual, alt-right Pepes]
Yet Pepe is also an example of the universality of the meme as a conduit for publishing. As Reddit user EndlessOrca said in response to another user asking how many Pepe’s there were in the world:
Rule 66 is ‘there uncountable number of Pepes in the world’.
Rule 35 is ‘there is a pepe for everything’.
[visual ‘Rules of the Internet’]
Pepe also shows us that there is no need to panic if you’re meme starts mutate in ways you couldn’t foresee because there’s always change and it can always change again in the future.
[visual, lots of Pepes]
[visual, rare pepes]
The Good News?
Publishers, don’t be distracted by that old ‘Death of Print’ chestnut.
[visual, David Carson book, End of Print, versions]
Sure print media is diminishing in terms of physical product such as books, magazine and newspapers but these are incredibly static methods of distribution compared to the energetic way memes spread through out the online world... and bleed into traditional media too.
[visual, Pepe in the news]
Memetic dispersion also means what might start off as a short and simple piece of easily distributed media could lead to:
the creation a whole new language,
[Visual, lolcats lol speak]
a new career as a video artists
[visual, Parker Warner Wright]
or as a binge-able drama series,
[visual, Channel zero]
or a canon of images eagerly discussed by newsmedia and academics alike
[Visual, Meme wars]
or even a regular print publication…
[Visual, Meme Insider magazine]
If you have watched this video until the end and found it useful at all let me know by leaving a comment or like below.
Thanks for stopping by.
Next time:
Newspapers on the fly