Medium Specificity

http://www.quickmeme.com/meme/3tby5c/

http://www.polleverywhere.com/multiple_choice_polls/geDOScEJTsv88bX

Artist’s Statement

A meme is defined as "an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture; acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena; supporters of the concept regard meme as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme). Or in much simpler terms a meme is a combination of humorous pictures and captions that go viral almost instantly. What’s interesting about memes is a majority of the time there is no necessary structure or punch line to the joke and yet they are still considered funny. It can be any random picture with some sort of caption at the bottom and chances are the meme will be shared and looked at by thousands of individuals. This type of medium that’s becoming widely popular among society makes me wonder how much comedy has changed over the years. Are memes trying to tell us that everyone’s becoming more or less clever with humor? Is posting a picture of Willy Wonka and commenting on how random it is necessarily funny or is it a lazy approach to make some kind of joke? Regardless, the “joke” is ultimately on us. More often than not, memes address the fact that they are absolutely ridiculous, and whoever views them is a “sucker” wasting their time. This may be true and yet we still give into its absurdity. A large variety of memes have been created using this picture of Willy Wonka and this fad will not be soon forgotten. Even if memes eventually go out of date, people will always remember how they were considered so funny and they may even inspire future joke references.

             We see the functions of memes in several other forms of media. It can be found most especially in television series and programs. The show, “The Office,” which has been airing for nearly nine years now is nothing but a mockumentary about a dainty paper supply company. It is funny even though the overall setup is not particularly clever or unique. There are other types of programs, like reality shows that demonstrate hardly any signs of creativity, but they are still viewed by millions on a weekly basis. YouTube is another example of how society has embraced the idea of praising complete nonsense by making preposterous videos about random subjects, posting them online, and becoming major hits overnight. At the end of the day, it’s like anything can be considered funny without any real effort. Memes relate to how comics are formatted, which is something we saw in the reading from this past week. Comic books and strips usually present some kind of picture with a silly caption included. The comic isn’t always hilarious but it does demonstrate elements of humor that are similarly found in memes.