Afraid to Dive

In our rapidly and constantly developing world everything is changing, gaining new forms and meaning. Starting from the second half of the 20th century, when society became a prisoner of postmodernism, deconstruction turned into a necessity, the only opportunity not to tire of the endlessly circulating flows of information which loses its relevance and starts bothering us in days or even hours. The permanent rethinking, mocking, and hunting for new meaning is a vent of our society of artists-consumers living in the conditions of permanent revisionism. Since all phenomena of culture are subject to deconstruction, such elemental force as memes, is no exception. In fact, meme deconstruction is no different from deconstruction in art and in a general sense implies a process of transferring a composition or its part into a new context or environment, where all the contradictions arise, and thus the phenomenon acquires a new meaning, moving away from previous ideas. There are two kind...

Many have heard of such a thing as Homestuck , the legendary web comic, a real Internet phenomenon rich in artistic content, an infamous community, as well as a confusing and dramatic history of relationships, both between characters and authors. Today, on April 13th, this web beast turns 10 years old. Its creator, Andrew Hussie, is quite an extraordinary man who brought many ideas of varying degrees of madness to life, but few know that he was one of the very first ironists. But what kind of ironic memes in those times can we talk about? Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff Usually the birth of ironic memes is considered by the appear of Dank Memes or Coaxed Into a Snafu. However, origins of ironic memes lie deep, back in 2009, precisely in the Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff webcomic. On March 17th, Hussie published his first attempt of such a work in order to parody the 'Higher Technology' comic, posted on Penny Arcade forums. He managed to mock amateur low-quality webcomics, using such...

Video memes are one of the turns in the evolution of Internet memes, which often offers slightly more than the usual images. Basically, they are more interactive and complex, containing both visual and audio information. Such memes can be "screen versions" of picture memes or be completely original. Although the first video memes appeared long before the creation of video hosting sites and were mostly in the form of .swf animations (for example, Numa Numa), they found their new place with the creation of YouTube in 2005. It should be said that I don't compile a list of all the memers in general; I will talk about those whom I am aware of. Also, YouTube is not a center of all the video memes, and there are many of them on the platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and much more, but the most of video memes are eventually being uploaded to YouTube. Montages which have many genres and microgenres have become one of the most popular video memes by the personal form. F...

Few can deny that Discord is one of the brightest discoveries in the field of online communication right now. It has replaced the inconvenient and faceless Skype and combined the comfortable and practical Slack interface with multi-functionality, thus becoming the unofficial master of the chats, a symbol of informal communication. By positioning itself as a chat for gamers, it, however, lost this label among "knowledgeable" people and became the common heritage, the folksy chat, from users to users. The company's strategy is that they don't take themselves too seriously, following the friendly and playful image of an "Internet-frequenter" which is used everywhere, from Twitter posts to changelogs inside the chat. What else is included in the Discord's formula of success, beyond the obvious server system, interactive bots, the mascot, and so on? It's something sociocultural, something that makes the communication process unique. Culture The firs...

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 ...