VII Международный конкурс научно-исследовательских и творческих работ учащихся
Старт в науке
Интернет Мемы
Автор работы награжден дипломом победителя III степени
Полная версия работы доступна во вкладке "Файлы работы" в формате PDF
ntroduction
The aim of the research is to study the appearance of such a popular phenomenon as internet memes, their types, according to different authors, their influence on the culture and the language.
The meme is one of the most important concepts to understand in today's digital culture. As a mode of behavior communication, memes are vehicles for societal wants and needs. The understanding of these vehicles will lead to a better perception of the world's standards, values, and trends [11].
Different internet sourses are used, both in English and in Russian. There are examples of the most popular memes as illustrations.
The Definition
Due to Internet memes representing popular ideas, they are useful as indicators for how societal behaviors and desires evolved over time. By studying memes, we can understand what is going on in our culture.
A meme is an idea or a behavior that is passed on through generations, and evolves along the way. The term was coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins in his book "The Selfish Gene." An internet meme, the focus of this presentation, is an idea or behavior that gains popularity via online transmission. [1]
A meme is a unit of cultural information. Any picture or any sound or any gesture which becomes viral on the Net can become a meme. Any meme cn be used in the appropriate situation.
Memes are typically found and created on websites such as Tumblr, 4chan, and Reddit. However, following the popularity spike and onslaught of new memes, certain websites have been created specifically for their reproduction and sharing. [11]
Most definitions of Internet memes rely on a concept in evolutionary biology, coined by English evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins. He proposed the term 'meme' (based on the Ancient Greek word mīmēma 'something imitated') to denote all non-genetic behaviour and cultural ideas that are passed on from person to person, spanning from language to the conventions of football [4]. The concept became highly debated, and “[s]ince then, like any good meme, it has infected the
culture” [1]. The debate mainly concerns what is and what is not a meme, but so far, creating a substantive definition has seemed impossible (Knobel & Lankshear). With the emergence of the Internet, the term 'meme' was also applied to content that spread from user to user online. The first “academically rigorous” definition for this particular variation was proposed by Patrick Davison in 2009 in his essay The Language of Internet Memes: An Internet meme is a piece of culture, typically a joke, which gains influence through online transmission. [4]
Types of Memes
There have been numerous studies of memetics published, and along with them, numerous classifications. Some include:
Borzsei gives two types according to the place of popularity :
Global memes- memes that are universally applied, no matter what country or region. Popular topics include gender and animals.
Local memes- memes focused on topics specific to an area. These types of memes have become popular over the past several years. Examples include "Kanye Interrupts" (USA), Nijmegen Uni memes (Nijmejen Uni), and "Sarkozy was There" (France) [11]
[7] gives three major types according to their origin
Coopted memesare memes appeared after some events and quickly became popular. It can be a phrase, a facial expression, an action well-remembered.
Memes from films are the most popular among others. This is usually a scene from a film or a TV series, or a cartoon, taken out of the context which can be used in any other context, according to the situation. i.e. Robert Downy Jr. rolling his eyes in the scene of “The Iron Man”
There is another classification [7], according to the content
Emoticons, or textual portrayals of a writer's moods or facial expressions in the form of icons.
Image Macro is a broad term used to describe captioned images that typically consist of a picture and a witty message or a catchphrase. On discussion forums and imageboards, image macros can be also used to convey feelings or reactions towards another member of the community, similar to its predecessor emoticons.
Faces (Trollfaces) are drawn faces of people, denoting different emotions.
Advice are pictures of people or animals with signs at the top and at the bottom
Demotivators are pictures in a frame with a sign. Initially they were supposed to me the opposite of Motivators, but gradually became a more popular kind.
The First Memes
One of the earliest (and maybe even the first) Internet meme was the emoticon. The “sideways smiley face” composed entirely of punctuation marks was created on 19 September 1982 by Scott E. Fahlman. An avid USENET user, Fahlman realised that the lack of a visual channel in online communication needed to be overcome to avoid misunderstandings, for example while using humour or sarcasm. He suggested the usage of ':-)' as a way of marking posts that were not meant to be taken seriously. He also created ':-(', which he proposed to be the sign indicating that the post is indeed serious. [11]
Another experimentation with new technologies was the website Bert Is Evil, which hosts images that can easily be considered examples of the first modern remixed Internet meme . Bert is Evil is the name of a parody website, founded by Dino Ignacio on March 30, 1997, which featured Bert, a character on the American children's television program Sesame Street. In 1998, Dino Ignacio, Wout J Reinders and Jasper Hulshoff Pol accepted the Webby Award and the People's Voice Award for Best Weird Website at the Palace of Fine Arts auditorium in San Francisco. [3]
"All your base are belong to us" was a popular Internet meme based on a broken English ("Engrish") phrase found in the opening cutscene of the 1992 Mega Drive port of the 1989 arcade video game Zero Wing. The quote comes from the European release of the game, featuring poor English translations of the original Japanese version.
The meme developed from this in the early 2000s, as the result of a GIF animation depicting the opening text, which was initially popularized on the Something Awful message forums. [2]
The Most Popular Memes
In the author’s opinion, the most popular memes are so called “”LOLcats” A lolcat (pronounced /ˈlɒlkæt/ LOL-kat), or LOLcat, is an image macroof one or more cats. The image's text is often idiosyncratic and grammatically incorrect, and is known as lolspeak. [6]
Lolcat is a compound word of the acronymic abbreviation LOL (laugh out loud) and the word 'cat' A synonym for lolcat is cat macro or cat meme since the images are a type of image macro and also a well-known genre of meme. Lolcats are commonly designed for photo sharing imageboards and other Internet forums.
But some sites give their own statistics [9]
|
Rank |
/pol/ |
|
|
|
1 |
Feels Bad Man/Sad Frog |
Manning Face |
Roll Safe |
|
2 |
Smug Frog |
That’s the Joke |
Arthur’s Fist |
|
3 |
Happy Merchant |
Feels Bad Man/ Sad Frog |
Evil Kermit |
|
4 |
Apu Apustaja |
Confession Bear |
Nut Button |
|
5 |
Pepe the Frog |
This is Fine |
Spongebob Mock |
|
6 |
Make America Great Again |
Smug Frog |
Reaction Images |
|
7 |
Angry Pepe |
Roll Safe |
Expanding Brain |
|
8 |
Bait this is Bait |
Rage Guy |
Demotivational Posters |
|
9 |
I Know that Feel Bro |
Make America Great Again |
Cash Me Ousside/Howbow Dah |
|
10 |
Cult of Kek |
Fake CCG Cards |
Conceited Reaction |
|
11 |
Laughing Tom Cruise |
Confused Nick Young |
Computer Reaction Faces |
|
12 |
Awoo |
Daily Struggle |
Feels Bad Man/ Sad Frog |
Conclusion
Internet memes showcase a new kind of understanding of the world, and a new kind
of creative and social outlet. The Internet meme is undoubtedly one of the most widespread modes of online communication, and it is not only the emoticon any more.
This development also often serves as proof of the idea that the attention span of the younger generations is decreasing dangerously. Internet memes would not be this popular if users did not know how to read them. Remixed Internet memes are intertextual by nature, and consequently, people who enjoy and create memes - like readers of cartoons and comic books - are drawn towards a more non-linear way of
Memes.
Sources
http://www.amazinginfographics.com/the-history-of-internet-memes/history-internet-memes/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_your_base_are_belong_to_us
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_is_Evil
http://fall2015.veryinteractive.net/content/6-library/20-the-language-of-internet-memes/davison-thelanguageofinternetmemes.pdf
https://knowyourmeme.com
http://www.lolcats.com
https://memepedia.ru/about-memes/
https://memepedia.ru/about-macros/
https://qz.com/1296094/most-popular-memes-finally-a-scientific-list-of-the-most-popular-memes-on-the-internet/
https://prezi.com/_l2p6gnsjuij/the-history-and-evolution-of-internet-memes/
https://works.bepress.com/linda_borzsei/2/