UNIT III: Blogger Assignment

Best Visual Meme Ever: STOCKING

This is one of my favorite visual memes. I noticed it awhile back, but I feel like it's only getting some real momentum now. The premise is simple: people choose a stock image to recreate on their own. The two photos are then posted side-by-side for comedic comparison. As someone who often works with stock photos, I especially appreciate this. Two software company employees Dennis Van Huffel and Jamie Graham are credited with starting stocking in August 2011 through a Tumblr blog: “Stocking is the new Planking.” Tumblr was the perfect medium choice for their “argument” because Tumblr is both highly visual and highly shareable. This choice is also well suited to their audience because it is a platform that they frequent. While anybody can appreciate stocking, I think that those who work in the graphic design and advertising industries would especially appreciate it since they often work with sometimes-silly stock images. I also thought it was interesting that they chose to title their blog “Stocking is the New Planking,” and effectively piggybacking on another visual meme, planking. Overall, I think that visual memes are more effective than any other kind. I’m glad that we were able to end our semester on this unit.

"Image macro" is officially a thing on Wikipedia. And we all know, if it's not on Wikipedia it doesn't exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_macro

Unit 2 Blogger Assignment

I've been seeing a couple of my friends posting this image on Facebook. It's an image meme that takes a stand against racism. It's original author is an organization called Wipeout Racism on Facebook. Posting this image is basically a pledge to not tolerate racism or prejudice. It also asks readers of the message if they will join the cause. When I saw this, I instantly saw a connection with the work we're doing with visual memes in Unit 2. I thought it was really smart and effective way to leverage the layout of Facebook's newsfeed and the way Facebook shows shared photos to the message's advantage. Instead of just posting a text status update, people passing along this meme post a picture. This makes it stand out from the clutter in people's newsfeeds, and it's also more appealing purely because it's an image. There's a reason why content platforms like tumblr or pinterest are mostly image based: images are just more compelling online. I think this is clear when you start looking at the most popular memes on the Internet today; most of them are images. I wonder how other memes will evolve when changes are eventually made to alter communication platforms like Facebook or Twitter.

UNIT I Blogger Assignment: "Stupid cancer."

This Facebook status message has been popping up a lot in my Facebook Newsfeed lately. And not only that, but different types of people have been posting it, from my friend-who's-always-drunk (not pictured; must protect the guilty!) to my best friend's mom. Despite having a grammatically dubious sentence in the middle of it, it's received some traction in the social media world.

Basically, this is a short ode to those who have died, survived, or is currently fighting cancer. The writing is short and simple, and the call to action is direct. Its author is unknown. Through simple copy-and-paste, this message has been passed along through Facebook. I'm not sure how long it's been going around either.

When I saw this, I connected it with the second chapter in Everything's An Argument on Pathos. It's using some pretty strong emotions to ensure that you do re-post the message. First it comes out and says something we can all agree on: "cancer is stupid." It then relates to its audience by acknowledging shared wants (it drives this home by using "we"). By directly calling out people for NOT re-posting it, it makes you to stop and think "wait, I'm not one of THOSE people." I wonder how long this will stick around.

META IS THE NEW META

Can one-liner blog posts about memes become a meme itself? Better ask the PHILOSORAPTOR.

IRONY IS ALWAYS VIRAL

I'm pretty upset I can't write this caption in Comic Sans.

PHILOSORAPTOR

This meme is kind of dated... but wisdom doesn't age.