Afraid to Dive

It is no secret that media franchises rule the world. Huge corporations which globalize and monetize art, have come into our life and changed the way we consume mass culture. There are, actually, the smaller companies which try to develop their product by all means, to endow it with a special corporate identity, emphasizing their individuality. Sometimes they also enter the world market if they achieve the necessary level of success, eventually turning their opuses into franchises. However, what generally can be considered a media franchise and is it possible to categorize them? A media franchise is, first of all, a collection of works of various forms of media united by a common entourage and characters. Many of them have a mascot, a symbol or a bright, memorable image that warms the brand and which the company operates to advertise and attract popularity to its product. Obviously, new products are sold better if they are associated with an existing and familiar universe. The pat...

What do you know about the Internet in China? I think that at least it is isolated from the outer web via the Golden Shield Project. It means that the Chinese online culture is different than the Western one, being more hermetic. Thanks to its impermeability, the digital world of China is unique and teeming with distinctive phenomena, and therefore is valuable to research. I have interviewed u/Elmwow who told me about the Chinese memes. Hello! Thank you for agreeing to the interview. First you need to know is that I’m not so far away from you: I’m from Russia, so I will reveal the situation with memes in our country, and there will be some cultural exchange. I hope it will be cool! Sure, me too. So, I'll start from afar: what's up with the Internet in China? You have the Golden Shield Project, including a powerful firewall that forces people to use internal services, right? Something similar to that. We can’t view something like YouTube, Reddit, Twitter etc...

During the Renaissance, when culture and arts were raising from the ashes of Middle Ages, the polymaths, people who succeed in many non-related professional areas, were highly appreciated. Obviously, the concept of homo universalis or Renaissance Man was created at that time. Leonardo Da Vinci, whose practical, theoretical and artistic works have changed the world, and whose physical strength amazed his contemporaries, became the brightest polymath in history. If we take him as an example, it turns out that a true polymath should have achievements in academic/research activities (mathematics, linguistics, philosophy) and art (architecture, visual arts, music, literature), as well as physical activity (sports). One also can add civilian activities, for example, the struggle for rights or even politics. In truth, becoming a professional polymath like Da Vinci isn't possible at the moment because of the amount of information accumulated in all areas of activity, and also simply be...

Today I declare my personal views on Memeology , the study of Internet memes. Memeology and progressive meme views are held on 20 fundamental statements: 1) Memeology is not memetics. Memeology pays attention to Internet memes, especially the postmemes , as well as their memeogenesis (history of a meme), from the point of view of culturology, philosophy, sociology, and linguistics, regardless of relevance. Memetics studies the evolution of society and the concept of viral ideas. 2) A meme is an idea that spreads in the society. In the context of memeology, it is an Internet meme, including a postmeme, the wealth of web culture. 3) A single meme is a meme . In most cases, when a mememe reaches an exploitable form, it gives birth to a new meme. This process is called protomemization. 4) Perception of memes is subjective, but it does NOT prevent to analyze and evaluate them from different angles. Meme analysis is based on three branches: Context, Form/Content (or Idea/Sh...

Like any element of culture, memes are subjective. However, one must be able to separate personal preferences from objective reality. The fact that everyone looks at the memes in their own way still doesn't interfere with assessing them from multiple angles. Objective Quality? Honestly, I am not sure if there such thing as an "objective quality", since the very concept of "quality" is pretty subjective. Nevertheless, there must still be some objective principles of meme analysis, on which every memeologist would rely. Personally, I identify three main criteria for evaluating memes: 1) Context — the connection of a meme with the community, author, certain events, and the conditions of its appearance, as well as all the individual incarnations of a meme. This is not a fundamental criterion, but it's no less important than the others. Since when acquiring a new incarnation, the meaning, and embodiment of a meme changes, each "life" must b...

What does a meme consist of? By the name of the article it is already clear that of the meaning (idea) and shape (form). Well, this is quite true, and it would seem that this is enough, but in order to accurately understand all the nuances, you need to deal with the semantics of the meme, its types, and characteristics. Although my articles focus primarily on Internet memes and memeology, in order to understand the classification, it is necessary to first analyze the concept of meme itself, starting with memetics. Simple Memetics To be honest, I am not fond of the generalizing nature of memetics, as well as the wording “unit of cultural information”. With all the diversity of cultural phenomena, it is almost impossible to single out the criteria of any "unit", even considering its abstract origin. Personally, I interpret this study as a theory about ideas and their spread in society. Memetics should not ignore the ways of disseminating cultural information studied by ...

Loss has become one of the most abstract, universal, minimalistic, and long-lived memes for many years. It is remarkable by that it is a symbol meme which image is incredibly easy to remember and represent. Simple, even strict forms make it elementary and brilliant as well. Having a whole story about a human misfortune under a memorable image, it has been gaining fame and "dying" for innumerable times, then becoming popular, then leaving underground again. It is worth thinking about, but this meme exists since 2008. During its ten-year history, the Loss has traveled an incredibly long journey, from a simple joke to an abstract meme and even a new golden ratio. To understand the whole essence of the Loss, it is necessary to dive deeper into the history of its origin. Initially, it was just a reflection of the life situation of Tim Buckley, whose girlfriend had a miscarriage. After this, Buckley drew the legendary 4 frames, but the comic triggered rather an ambiguous reac...

Some people consider 2000s as the time of depression, paranoia and intensification of international terrorism. However, for those whose childhood or youth came at this era, 00's is the best time of life. The new millennium was marked by many technological, economic and cultural upheavals. One of such upheavals was Bionicle. Bionicle is the quintessence of the noughties and of all the best things that were there, the reflection of the era, and its soul. It was one of several series that saved LEGO from a prolonged crisis of the 90's, returning the company to the world market. Because of its duration (10 years) Bionicle has captured the cultural image of its time, the zeitgeist. A huge amount of content and multimedia which is the attribute of any sufficiently large franchise provided the series an excellent background. Paradoxically, most of this filling has no connection with the canon itself. That is why Bionicle decently looks like an independent series without a backgro...

Which one are you out of your friends? Truck freak, Crazy ass, The fighter, or maybe друг? Using the Russian word meaning "friend", друг is especially dear to the inhabitants of that cold country, including me, so I could not pass by this meme, as it is a weighty reason of introducing the Russian memes, their features and problems. When a meme from the west comes to Russia, it is the norm, but a leak of our meme abroad is a whole event that happens once in a blue moon. This is the first time when a Russian meme has transcended the boundaries of the so-called "mass memes", and in the case of Russia, such memes mock stereotypes, communism, and hypertrophied soviet culture. Although this meme does not belong to the realm of surreal memes, it technically has certain similarities, and is pretty abstract. Paradoxically, the first Russian meme of such an orientation was originally created abroad, and not even by a Russian person. Друг was made by a Twitter user @korol...

Memes are an integral part of our modern society. It is not only one of the most powerful industries, but also an important cultural tool. To understand people's interaction with memes, read the ' Meme Theory ' article first. We live in a world of dramatically developing technologies, where the flow of information is increasing with each year, and the terabytes of data constantly circulating around us. On the other hand, digital technologies appeared not so long ago: about twenty or thirty years ago people had no idea about it. If the Internet has evolved to such an extent in such a short amount of time, a logical question arises: in what conditions will we and our descendants live? There is a great chance that in the age of the Meme Singularity. The Meme Singularity is a hypothetical moment in which the life of memes will be extremely difficult to track. New memes will appear every hour, or even minute. This will finally erase all the boundaries between normies and me...