You and Me(me): cyberspace phenomena and what they say about us

July 13, 2009 14:05

Combining her l33t skills of over-analysis and wild extrapolation with a tendency for pretentious academic drivel, Susan Smirk delves into the weird and wonderful world of cyberspace phenomena (or “memes”) to pinpoint just how cyberspace superstars find fame and why we are still obsessed with cats who can’t spell.

The internet is full of them, those strange little pieces of the cyber-scape that creep into lives. From linguistically challenged cats to sarcastic unicorns or even a chubby ginga boogying to a Moldovian pop song, these inexplicably infectious and often ridiculous media snippets are known as internet “memes.” A meme is a “unit or element of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, transmitted from one mind to another through speech, gestures, rituals, imitable phenomena.” The thing about memes is that, like nasty virus particles, or “authentic” Michael Jackson memorabilia, they seem to self-replicate. In fact, theorists think that these curious creatures of the cyber world are even subject to evolutionary principles: natural selection by variation, mutation, and competition, spreading through email, blogs, social networking sites, and instant messaging. In following Darwin’s well-preached paths, memes which are adaptable will survive … which explains why some of the most famous internet memes are the ones with hundreds, if not thousands, of parodies and rip-offs circulating cyberspace alongside them, and sometimes becoming even more popular than the original. So, why do some memes survive and thrive, while other cultural shrapnel perishes silently in the unending void of outdated media? It’s hard to call it a mere digital accident, because parodies are made by people, and popularity decided by the invisible public of the web. A brief analysis of just a few memes of digital infamy may reveal something about our social psyche. Or it may just prove once and forever that media analysts will find any excuse to waste work hours surfing the interwebz. Let’s find out…

An Abbreviated History of Me(me)

Accusers say that the internet is giving us the attention-span of a tomato and leaving advertisers and entertainment producers struggling to create media that will maintain popularity for any length of time. So, it is perhaps surprising that some of the earliest internet memes still appear all throughout popular culture. A simple GIF of a dancing baby amused us in 1996. The Hamster Dance drove us all crazy back in 1998, only to be superseded by Crazy Frog in 2005. In 2000 the infamous nerd humour, All your base are belong to us, was born from the mistranslation of a Japanese computer game. Ding, Fries are Done has been tormenting fast food workers since 2002. The popularity of Star Wars Kid is still going strong and the “O RLY” owl has kept up the odd appearance since 2003. 2004 gave us Tron Guy and 2005 was the dawn of Chuck Norris jokes, as well as the Diet Coke and Menthos trick (thank you, Mr. Internetz!) as well as the eternal creepiness of Salad Fingers. In 2006, Tom Dickenson began Will it blend? and we also enjoyed Sneezing Panda. 2007 birthed the Rick Rolling phenomenon, Dramatic Chipmunk and the unfortunate Miss Teen Carolina episode. Without enough time or bravado to even begin to analyse all the memes out there that have contributed to the conglomerate of global mass culture, here are a just a few samples of current or enduring memes sliced upon and put under the media-scope.

Lolcats

There are few people that would deny the inherent hilarity of the lolcat, which is undoubtedly one of the most popular and well-known memes out there. But why is it that the cats who can haz cheezburger have become so embedded in our everyday humour and expression? Can those adorable kitten eyes function as windows into the depraved soul of humanity? Or are they merely the comic tools of our digital masters? Our delight in the lolcat is not just because they’re funny, it’s because they are innocently funny. Not only are kittens the epitome of innocence themselves, but most of the inherent humour of the lolcat is “clean.” This is an age where comedians still resort to racism, sexism, and bawdy humour to win an audience, and your friends find innuendo in the strangest phrases, and it’s in this veritable poopstorm of depravity that lolcats are our salvation, offering a haven of guilt-free giggles. Once you become more familiar with icanhascheezburger.com (as tends to happen around exam time), clear patterns do emerge, such as the not-so-subtle parody of religion, including Ceiling Cat, Basement Cat, and door-knocking Jehovah’s Witnesses cats. But mostly we enjoy lolcats for the simple laughs at cats riding invisible motorbikes, plotting the destruction of man- and dog-kind, and begging for cheezburgers in severely misspelt English.

Charlie the Unicorn (1, 2 and 3)
YouTube: 59 036 356 views combined.
#7 most viewed (all time) – comedy.

What is it about an animation of a grumpy pony that warrants so much attention?
We live in the dark days that follow the soaring modernist days of progress and optimism, and in these days of post-everything there have been those who have summed up our general disposition as “cynical” and “disillusioned” – an attitude perfectly embodied by Charlie the Unicorn. Perhaps the sarcastic Charlie simply provides company for our proverbial misery, or perhaps we love these cartoons because each and every time, Charlie’s attitude is proven to be justified. It feeds our paranoia about everything from advertising (“Come to Candy Mountain!”) to organ harvesting (“They stole my fricking kidney!”). It affirms that we can’t trust anyone – not the media, not our friends, and especially not dancing candy-canes. It could be a warning that exploitation and betrayal is inevitable, or perhaps it warns us that despite this, if we do let life turn us into bitter, emotionally-closed off individuals unable to trust or accept love, we too will end up alone, and without a kidney.

“Leeeeroy Jenkins!”

If you have ever hear someone bellowing this, you have encountered a genuine meme classic, born out of a WOW player’s famous fail. In the original, one player, AFK (away from keyboard) while his group meticulously plans their attack on a high-level dungeon, returns only to charge straight in with the distinctive cry of “Leeeeeeeroy Jeeeenkins,” getting them all spectacularly killed. This meme is a poignant example of human ineptitude. It is also the equivalent of a social cautioning to “run with the pack,” a warning that if we deviate from the conventions and plans of the group, we will bring disaster and shame upon ourselves and those around us. This meme resonates with us because it teaches that life is a team sport, and if we leave the group we will experience a fiery death by dragon-flame. Ironically, this epic fail is only fully appreciated by the WOW-playing nerd community out there. And, of course, Leroy, wherever he is.

Make me(me) a celebrity

Hypnotic loops of animated badgers, songs about llamas or finger puppet parodies of Harry Potter – internet memes can come in almost any shape and form. But the most interesting cases are where the object of worldwide digital veneration is a real person, which occurs in a surprisingly strong majority of memes. We have, for a long time, loved to love (and loathe) the celestial bodies of the Hollywood hills – their beauty, glamour and riches provide us the perfect medium for escapism and fantasy. But a new breed of celebrity has begun to sneak into the media-scape. Without any of the wealth and plastic surgery of Hollywood’s heroes, how is it that these internet celebrities have become so revered? The secret is that they actually are what our politicians and celebrities have been trying to convince us they are, for years. One of us … average Joes … normal, everyday people. Al Gore’s movies feature lengthy scenes of his “rustic” childhood farm; Hilary Swank accepts an Oscar saying “I’m just a girl from a Trailer Park with a dream;” and J-Lo rewrites herself as “Jenny from the Block,” but they can never achieve what the internet can offer: a new breed of heroes who actually are people we can identify with (though we’d never admit it).

Numa Numa Guy
YouTube: 30 026 016 views
#4 top favourited (all time) – entertainment. #9 most viewed (all time) – entertainment

It’s not often that we find ourselves celebrating or celebritising a redheaded male, but there is one gingernut on whom we all smile fondly when we think of him: the numa numa guy. Gary Brolsma’s YouTube clip of himself singing along to a Moldovian band’s song Dargonsta tin die has spawned numerous mainstream media interviews, and a sequel. As well as this, thousands of video replies and copycats have formed around the joyous jive he performed that day. What is it about this simple clip that captured millions of hearts? The “numa numa guy,” as Gary will forever be to us, expresses the complete abandonment to joy that we all long for and envy. Gary’s lack of inhibition has since inspired thousands to shake free the societal constraints of “cool,” let loose, and boogie-out to that quirky tune from a country we’d never heard of and still couldn’t locate on a map. He represents self expression, abandonment to exuberance, and feeling the freedom to break out the dance moves for an audience of millions. We may think we are mocking the numa numa guy, but really we envy him.

Obama Girl
YouTube: 14 630 870 views

Yet another on-screen boogier found international fame in later 2008. Amber Lee Ettinger successfully rode the wave of Obama hysteria, contributing to making politics popular and transforming Barack into a sexy pop-icon, not only worthy of the Presidency but of a the “crush” of a hot girl. Obamagirl’s dance moves didn’t seek to win votes with wild, joyous abandonment, but proved that some memes are popular for more obvious reasons … two of them, in fact.

Scary Washing Machine

In June of this year, handily in time for exams, the auction of the “truly terrifying” Kelvinator washing machine on TradeMe provided many of us (and at least 806 220 other auction viewers) with some welcome exam-time stress release. As iconic as the wife-eating machine has become, the real hero is the humorous author of the hilarious TradeMe ad. This awesome new internet hero rose from our own humble nation … a hero to match the evil villain he has finally successfully sold on TradeMe for an astonishing $NZ5 160. The comic genius of Mark’s tale of dinosaur-ridden woe, the accompanying felt-pen illustrations, and his increasingly funny replies to the hundreds of comments spread to rapid internet stardom as he wove a tale of goldfish-harnesses, Icelandic spies, and prehistoric wives that had the occupants of cyberspace in fits of glee. Just as the meme-theorists suggest, Facebook, email, and IM alerted the masses, and even the mainstream media got wind of it, his website linking to eleven New Zealand sites, four Australian, and six in the UK. His dinosaur drawings are now making between $300 and $600 each for charity, not to mention his whole line of T-shirts, and an extended version of the original tale, all available to view on www.scarywashingmachine.com.

Lonelygirl15
YouTube: 16 612 899 Channel Views

As evidenced by our new delight in the new breed of everyday celebrities, we are obsessed with authenticity. The biggest complaint about reality TV is that it’s just not “real” enough. But we can’t help but watch, because we love to peek into other people’s lives, revelling in their hopes and heartbreaks in an attempt to forget our own. So, when lonelygirl15 began to ponder her pathetic life aloud on YouTube, we were captivated by the unassuming everyday angst of a real girl. Or so we thought. This is why there was a massive outcry of anger and betrayal when it was finally revealed to her followers that lonelygirl15 was an invention, with actors and a script. Why did we care so much about her? Perhaps because we thought we felt a connection of common humanity to the poor teen, locked in her room hour after hour. She was our real-life soap opera, but we were angry not just because it was the end of three lengthy seasons, but because even in the post-modern mess of man and machine that is the internet, she managed to break some kind of unwritten code of authenticity. The revelation of her true identity yet again shattered our belief in a world where there is little we can easily believe in or trust. It’s like the day you caught Mummy kissing Santa Claus and were simultaneously relieved and devastated that it was actually Daddy. Or the day you found out that “Cubby,” the baby polar bear in the film Alaska, was animatronic. Lonelygirl represents our longing for real connection, and our devastation at the insincerity of the world, where everyone has an agenda and your friends may be no more real than Michael Jackson’s snout.

Charlie Bit My Finger
YouTube: 105 289 232 views
#1 most discussed of all time, comedy, UK; #1 most viewed of all time, United Kingdom
#3 most viewed of all time, #2 top favourited of all time, #1 top favourited of all time, comedy, UK

The feeding frenzy of media-analysis continues on this cute home video in which a baby bites his brother’s finger. Steering clear of the suggestion that the video’s popularity harkens back to our repressed cannibalistic instincts, we could look at this in several ways. As psychologists, we might read its popularity as due to the poignant and dramatic representation of a dysfunctional family, with an accurate focus on sibling rivalry and aggression. As lawyers, we might see it as questioning the legal system around children’s age of accountability. Social workers might note it as satirising the failure of social services to identify or improve negative domestic situations. As philosophers, we would perhaps prefer to approach it as a clip exploring the realities of the physical realm and the causal links between transcendental emotional distress and the manifestation of bodily pain.

David after Dentist
YouTube: 24 038 455 views
#22 top favourited all time, #8 top favourited all time, comedy

Could this simply be the amusing ramblings of a little boy on drugs? Only if the arts student in me can resist analysing the clip as an exploration of post modern existential dilemmas (“Is this real life?”), an exposé on the psychologically damaging effects of legalised narcotics in children’s development, or as a serious critique of sub-standard dental hygiene centres in the USA. Then again, David after Dentist could be no more than the laughable after-effects of a trip to the dentist. Maybe.

Quiz Me(me)

From lengthy, ink-blotted epistles, to emails and internet blogs and onwards again to the 140-character updates of Facebook and Twitter, we may have gained instantaneous and effective communication with friends all over the globe, but we have lost the approval of psychologists, who have started pulling out their hair once again about our degenerating capacity for meaningful social interaction. Just 140 characters to express the complexities of our mood (Susan is bored), the inner workings of our mind (Susan is wondering what to have for lunch), and the exciting happenings of our busy existence (Susan is watching TV)? The service is now available even on cell phones, so you never need wait for an internet connection to let all your acquaintances know what you ate for breakfast. But some psychologists take an understanding approach to the charms of these electronic chortles. The term they use is “social ambience.” Apparently it is actually these little nothingnesses that make up most social interaction, so while Twitter may not provide you with in-depth insights into a person, it provides the titbits of our life which bring us closer together.

Twitter (and now Blipper) may be a streamlined version of Facebook, but Facebook has one thing Twitter doesn’t: the joys of multichoice! Facebook quizzes are probably more of an obsession than a “meme,” but their addiction is just as revealing. So, how is the addictive pastime of ticking virtual boxes indicative of the inner working of our generation? It isn’t. Just kidding – for a start, Facebook quizzes are a manifestation of our obsession with exercising our right to choose, over-emphasised because of our growing awareness of the dominance of the government, the education system, and the media on our lives. Perhaps we tick boxes and click options all day long just to prove we still have free will. On top of this, our obsession with Facebook quizzes is, at its most basic, part of our continual quest for self-discovery. The oddity of the matter is that, somehow, Ye Olde Book O’ Faces has convinced us subconsciously that comparing ourselves to inanimate objects, ‘70s rock stars, or Disney characters will somehow offer a deep insight into our identity. But quizzes are not only a personal journey to fulfilment. As an inherently social system, Facebook allows us to apply the same sets of information to our networks of “friends,” for the purposes of determining the viability of particular friendships or potential romantic engagements by relation to objects, activities, or Disney characters. In plainspeak: you get the warm fuzzies when you realise that Doris is the exact type of Medieval torture instrument that you are! And before you date anyone, you’d better make sure that you are compatible types of cheese.

It’s surprising how these internet phenomena have become part of our everyday routines. Never mind the morning paper – we wake up, make a coffee, flip open the laptop, take a quiz, look up a lolcat, and head out the door humming the “numa numa” song. The enduring enjoyment we get from even some of the earliest examples of internet memes is perhaps evidence that although the cyber world is moving (quite literally) at the speed of light, while our mice may move on, the memes of the past and the present will remain inextricably part of our lives. They gave us laughter; we gave them their fifteen seconds of fame. Do they reveal a complex and troubled society, or just a few souls looking for a laugh in a serious world? We don’t know, but while we think on it awhile, we can haz cheezburger, plz?