Memes vs. Tropes
Today’s Topic:
Memes vs. Tropes
Opening Musical Playlist:
Readings:
Theories:
Memetic Artifacts:
Spongebob Squarepants is a farm for memes
Bird Box Trailer – The Office Recut (HD)
Summary:
We began the session with the students bring up their questions and thoughts about the assigned readings for the day. There were a couple of points raised about if the term “lingua franca” being the right term to use for memetic communication given the nature of cultural exchanges online should be narrowed by that term. There was a short discussion over the origin of the term, and I believe we decided to keep working through this discussion point throughout the course of the class.
“Time for Review” was next and we addressed the two main review questions: “what are some useful tools, skills, and knowledge to have when studying memes” and “why have memes become the “Lingua Franca” of the Internet?” Some of the answers given for the first question included the ability to remove biases when examining a memetic artifact as their own bias could blind a person that they fail to see some of the underlying messages and information embedded in the work), cultural knowledge (to understand the subtext of the visual elements in a memetic artifact), and being more emphatic in the studying of other culture and their works.
I decided to pick three points to discuss given the nature of the readings for the day. First, I chose to define the term artifact as a way of explaining how I was using the term and as a means of showing the value of study the works the class will be studying over the course of the new few months. My definition of an artifact for the purpose of this class is “an individual cultural element that can be studied in the context of the larger culture and society it exists in.” The larger point I was trying to discuss as there is typically an institutional structure that develops media artifacts (movie studios, publishers, etc.) and uses some sociality means to either transmit, deliver, and embed that artifact into society. After writing this out, I just realized that I was essentially riffing on John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” and applying it to modern media artifacts (which itself was a riff on Walter Benjamin’s “Art in the Era of Mechanical Reproduction”).
The second point that I felt was important was describing how a memetic artifact was different from most mediated artifacts. I made the argument that memetic artifacts are “multilayered communication constructions that allow the whole to be greater than the sum of its parts.” One layer is the visual “background” of the memetic artifact; there’s a cultural layer that is placed “on top of” the visual content. There’s a textual layer that might have more than one layer of context that a person could get from the language. Finally, the design of the meme adds another layer as it “trains” the person how to read the meme for what it is.
It seemed appropriate to introduce Gestalt theory as we were discussing the multilayered nature of this type of content we are studying. I use the farm or classroom example in the process of explaining Gestalt. If one were on a train and outside you saw a red silo, a cow, a field of wheat, a tractor, and a person wearing overalls, one would assume that they are viewing a farm. The farm has a deeper level of understanding than the individual elements have as an aggregate. We began to discuss the complex nature of Spongebob Squarepants memes as being the memetic example of Gestalt.
The third and final theoretical point I raised is using intertextually as a means of understanding memetic artifacts as multiple layers within the artifacts work together in the form of “interplay” that goes to how people can read the memetic artifact. The example I used was the “Use the Force, Harry” meme. There’s is textual form of intertextually occurring as the phrase is a mish-mash of three intellectual properties (I.P.) (“Star Wars,” “Harry Potter,” & “Lord of the Rings”), the typography allows represents intertextually as the parts of the quote are mismatched with the fontface associated with that I.P. (“Use the Force” is using the “Lord of the Rings” font instead of the “Star Wars” font, “Harry” is using the “Star Wars” font, and “Gandalf” is using the “Harry Potter” font instead of the “Lord of the Rings” font). Finally, there is visual intertextuality as Patrick Stewart is included in the meme, where he is best known for being in the Star Trek I.P. and not in the three other I.P.s associated with this meme. A reading of the intertextually of the meme would show a good reading of the work would be that it is designed to “upset” fans of these I.P.s as they are being misrepresented in this image.
The rationale for discussing intertextuality for a good portion of the session was in a small part due to media companies being aware of the power of intertextual representations as it gives those companies an outlet to promote, hype, and embed I.P.s into popular culture. I used the “Bird Box”/“Office” parody as a means of tying those arguments together.
We spent the rest of the time addressing the four focus questions based on the readings for the day.
Focus Questions:
- What are the common themes between memes and Snapchat filters/Facebook overlays?
- Why do “Photoshop memes and templates involving visual juxtaposition and composition […] offer humour and commentary?”
- What are the differences between memes, tropes, and gifs?
- Are “fixity, novelty, and vernacular creativity” the only criteria in the cultural definition of a meme?
The third question was the most important one as it tied into the theme of today’s class. We used the theory and artifacts to define what was and was not a meme for future analysis. Memes could be in the form of a gif, but not all gifs are memes. Gifs are a platform of transmission of content. However, some gifs are merely single layer presentations of information with no complexity. A trope is a traditional shorthand that content creators use that the audience already has been trained to read. The trope we used in class was “How We Got Here” complete with the lead-in of the “*record scratch* *freeze frame* ‘Yep. That’s me. I bet you’re wondering how I got myself into this situation…’” explanation of the trope. Tropes are also not really a standalone meme, but could represent on the layers within a given memetic artifact (e.g., The “record scratch/freeze frame” meme is built from the “How We Got Here” trope because there is a level of absurdity in the visual layer of the memetic artifact that is traditional missing from the trope).