Millennials and Their Memes

Millennials and Their Memes Sid Corbin Senior Research Spring 2017 Corbin 2 Memes are an extremely recent cultural phenomenon that have grown to be the medium of choice for any and all political, social, and cultural movements in the west in the past few years. However, the prevalence of memes in every aspect of our culture has gone relatively unexamined. The average person regards memes as innocuous; they’re just some funny pictures with words on them that their friends share on social media. Memes are so much more important than that. I show that memes are a powerful new political tool due to their unique evolutionary nature, history, accessibility. I use Dworkin to understand what memes are. I read Adorno and Horkheimer’s view of mass media in order to evaluate the political potential of memes and show that memes are not eligible for Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique of mass media. Indeed, I show that memes are a positive political force in that they impact younger people politically by making them more skeptical traditional governmental authority and advertising. The force of these changes is obvious when one considers the primaries in the 2016 Presidential Election. Memetics Memes are quickly changing pieces of media. One of the most defining traits of a meme is its ability to mimic and be mimicked. Understanding exactly how and why memes evolve, as well as how they survive, is the key to being able to use them advantageously. Richard Dawkins, Corbin 3 credited with coining the word meme in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene1, has some incredible insight on the progression of memes. In his book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins makes note of the similarities between cultural phenomena and genes. He names these cultural phenomena “memes” and goes on to discuss what exactly defines a meme, how memes grow and evolve, the qualifications of a successful meme, and how memes become successful. “Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to via sperm of eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.” 2 Written in 1976, Dawkins had no sense of the internet, and is describing cultural events and trends existing offline. He focuses on both long term and short term trends from the concept of God to a catchy song you hear on the radio. With that, he does an astounding job of describing the life and death of internet memes as they currently exist. He lays out the three qualities necessary for a successful meme: longevity, fecundity, and copying-fidelity. He acknowledges that any singular copy of a meme is relatively unimportant to the longevity of the meme itself. While there have been memes that have endured short-term success in the way of popularity, the true signifier of a successful meme is its lifespan. Fecundity is the most important quality 1 Solon, Olivia. "Richard Dawkins on the internet's hijacking of the word 'meme'" WIRED UK. July 05, 2016. Accessed October 05, 2016. http://www.wired.co.uk/article/richard-dawkins-memes. 2 Dawkins, Richard, and Robert L. Trivers. The Selfish Gene. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976. 192. Corbin 4 when it comes to the survival of a meme as its ability to be imitated and reproduced is a core aspect of any given meme. If unable to be replicated, a meme will quickly die out. 3 While Dawkins approaches both longevity and fecundity with an almost flippant certainty, he addresses copying-fidelity with some hesitance. Recognizing that memes are almost necessarily being passed along with some deviance from the original copy, he admits that they are quite unlike genes in this way. While genes tend toward an all-or-nothing trend concerning transmission, memes do not suffer from being mutated.4 While Dawkins’ memes do not suffer from alteration, internet memes are necessarily altered in order to be successful. When a meme becomes static, its audience loses interest. There are few current internet memes that survive more than a few days without being altered. In order to achieve longevity, internet memes have to constantly change, more often than not to the point of absurdity. “Harambe”i is an excellent example of this. Originally a rather sad news story of a Gorilla being shot and killed at the Cincinnati Zoo, the meme escalated to be a sort of faux remembrance of the gorilla. Initially the meme started as a legitimate, or non-satirical demand for responsibility to be taken for unnecessary cruelty on behalf of Harambe5. Over the course of five months, a significant lifespan for contemporary memes, this meme has been warped to the length that the phrase “dicks out” is all that is needed to reference or participate in it. The question is, which part of this news story is the actual meme? This large overarching concept of “Harambe”, the story behind the gorilla, and the internet community’s response to the event makes this meme more complex. Dawkins tackles this problem as well in his writing: 3 Dawkins, A Selfish Gene. 194 4 Dawkins ,A Selfish Gene. 195 5 http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/harambe-the-gorilla Corbin 5 “…I divided the ‘gene-complex’ into large and small genetic units, and units within units. The ‘gene’ was not defined, not in a rigid all-or-none way, but as a unit of convenience, a length of a chromosome with just sufficient copying-fidelity to serve as a viable unit of natural selection. If a single phrase of Beethoven’s ninth symphony is sufficiently distinctive and memorable to be abstracted from the context of the whole symphony… then to that extent, it deserves to be called one meme.”6 When considering this, it would be safe to say that just the most recognizable parts of the event or reaction would have to be considered a meme. Dawkins also addresses one of the most important factors when considering internet memes. Time is the leading cause of death in memes. “The human brain, and the body that it controls, cannot do more than one or a few things at once. If a meme is to dominate the attention of a human brain, it must do so at the expense of ‘rival’ memes.”7 This is glaringly obvious when you look at the turnover rate for internet memes as they are today. If a meme doesn’t constantly grab the attention of its audience, or treads the thin line of “over-used”, it quickly dies out. There doesn’t necessarily have to be a new meme to replace it, though there usually is. The internet community collectively decides when a meme is dead, though this is not a democratic process; Memes generally die quietly at the hands of disinterest. Dawkins goes on to discuss the idea of “mutually-assisting memes”. Mimicking the evolutionarily stable sets of genes that do exist, mutually-assisting genes are self-perpetuating, 6 Dawkins, A Selfish Gene. 195 7 Dawkins, A Selfish Gene. 197 Corbin 6 reinforcing each other and “assist(ing) each other’s survival in the meme pool”8. He uses the example of the god meme and the hell fire meme. Religious observance is enforced with the threat of hell fire, and the threat of hell fire comes directly from refusing to acknowledge God. “The idea of hell fire is, quite simply, self-perpetuating, because of its own deep psychological impact.” While this concept only addresses a very strong, deep-seated religious system and way of life, it’s also important to look at for the future of internet memes. While there are some weaker examples of this phenomena e.g. Rick Rolling9 which has yet to die out despite its age due to the necessary condition of the bait-and-switch meme being properly executed as a surprise. If a culturally significant meme was to arise with another culturally significant mutually-assisting meme, we would be in the ballpark of potentially starting a very large, very stable, cultural movement. A Genealogy of Rick Rolls10 Before I get ahead of myself, it would be in everyone’s best interest to clearly define what a meme is. For the remainder of this paper, memes are defined as a phrase, concept, or piece of digital media that spreads, sometimes virally, among communities on the internet, generally through social media platforms. Though there has been much debate in the online community over which meme was the first, we know that memes have been around since the late 1990’s. Memes have also made their way into traditional media, but are used as supplemental material. While all memes are important, I will only be discussing the trends in 8 Dawkins, A Selfish Gene. 198 9 "Internet Memes timeline." World History Project. Accessed April 17, 2017. https://worldhistoryproject.org/topics/internet-memes. 10"Internet Memes timeline." Corbin 7 viral, or “Dank11” memes. These most accurately highlight the direction memes have taken over the past two decades, as they have the largest audience. Memes started in online gaming communities and internet boards. They tended to be used in place of typing responses or used as supplements to keep the conversation going. These boards also started the trend of using phrases as memes. The earliest phrases are crude, to say the least, with little historical context that exists in today’s memes, but lay the foundation for the current memes in use. While today’s absurdist memes are heavily riddled with irony, the first memes were used in full earnest. Examples of these would be: “ROFLcopter”ii, “All Your Base Are Belong To Us”, “It’s a Trap!”, “The Dancing Baby”iii, and “I Kiss You”12. Memes at this point existed almost exclusively in the online gaming community, and while new memes went viral, the older memes were still used just as frequently, a trend which has died out in the current online gaming communities. Viral videos were one of the earliest forms of popular memes. This was most likely because video was already a very popular source of entertainment, and viral videos were a comfortable way for people to integrate themselves as new internet users at the dawn of the popularization of email. They were used in online chat boards, but gained popularity through chain emails. The sharing of these videos through email increased the demand for a platform to easily watch and share videos, and thus YouTube was created. YouTube has been the platform of choice for most people uploading videos, and naturally most viral videos have come from 11 “Dank” is used colloquially to indicate that something is of good, or high quality. While being dank necessarily requires a meme be viral, the label can also point to the quality of a meme, referencing either the sociopolitical insights the meme offers or the adherence to the essence of a particular trend which can be lost in less accurate reproductions of a meme. 12 "Internet Memes timeline." Corbin 8 YouTube. Some of the earliest being “Chocolate Rain”iv and the “Sneezing Baby Panda”13 video. These examples highlight the dramatic qualitative difference that is possible between concurrent viral memes. “Chocolate Rain” is a song sung by Tay Zonday that discusses the problem of institutional racism while “Sneezing Baby Panda” is simply a video of a baby panda sneezing. These videos were viral at roughly the same time. While “Sneezing Baby Panda” was posted about five months prior to “Chocolate Rain”, memes tended to keep their viral status before the widespread use of social media. One of the first conceptual memes to gain popularity was the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Bless His Noodly Appendage). The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism14, was also the first meme to have political impacts and I will be discussing this case in a later section. Soon after, Chuck Norris factsv15 started circulating in the online gaming community. As with viral videos, Chuck Norris facts integrated the familiarity of traditional media with the new internet community due to Chuck Norris’ involvement with the popular Walker Texas Ranger television series. A familiar face made this new form of internet based media more comfortable for the average person. These memes were the first of their kind, being conceptual, though they were executed in different ways. Conceptual memes are unique in that they can be mimicked and distributed without the original content and still be considered a single entity. This is especially apparent in the Chuck Norris facts. Chuck Norris facts popped up in early 2005, and they generally regard Chuck Norris as being a sort of god-like person. Generally executed through text over a picture of the actor, with “facts” such as “Chuck 13 "Internet Memes timeline." 14 "Internet Memes timeline." 15 "Internet Memes timeline." Corbin 9 Norris doesn’t get wet, water gets Chuck Norris” and other absurdly hyperbolic claims, this meme was one of, if not the first of its kind. Most current viral memes fall into this category. The first example of what could only be considered a non-gaming web-based dialect made its appearance in 2007 with the founding of LOLcats.com16. This was at the point where the internet was gaining more non-gamer traffic, but interest in memes found in the gaming community was on the rise. Not everyone could game, but enjoyment of this new form of media was slowly becoming more popular. Some web designers realized there was a need for a social platform that was designed for non-gamers to share their “funny pictures”17 that wasn’t as dangerous and not safe for work as 4chan message boards. This was the first social humor based posting site geared toward the general public. The most famous LOLcats meme is “I can haz cheezburger?”vi. This was generally presented as text over a picture, as a majority of memes are. However, this seemingly unexceptional meme created a purely web-based dialect. Misspelling words intentionally as well as adopting new grammar rules when using said dialect became prevalent in online messaging boards. While rarely used now, LOLcats paved the way for current dialects and language trends online by establishing the web-only rule. During the LOLcat era, it was generally regarded as taboo to speak as if you were on the internet offline. Since then, memes have generally kept their taboo designation. Memes aren’t discussed in polite or professional company. As with most taboo subjects, they are discussed among close friends, but it can be uncomfortable to have meme-centric conversations with strangers offline. It is also generally regarded as unacceptable to speak aloud as if you were communicating 16 "Internet Memes timeline." 17 http://blog.cheezburger.com/about/ Corbin 10 through the internet. This may be a symptom of the tribal mindedness of the younger members of the online community. Internet dialects are attractive to younger people due to their exclusiveness and relatively inaccessibility by the older generations, so it is important for them, as it is for most subcultures, to try to retain this exclusivity. This social contract keeps memes primarily online, where only the most popular, or “dankest” memes make it offline. Even if memes do make it offline, there are certain parameters that people need to follow regarding meme etiquette in order to keep it alive. An example of a meme making it off the internet and failing would be the Meme Faces (Rage Faces)18vii. This particular trend was interesting because it was the first time we really saw the word meme being used colloquially offline. Generally regarded as the first true memes based on their acceptance of their title, Meme Faces made their way slowly into the mainstream. You could not engage in any sort of social manner online, whether it was message boards, online gaming, social media, watching videos or looking at pictures without encountering at least one Meme Face. Due to their popularity online, they made it offline. People would discuss these memes and use their catchphrases in spoken conversations. Large corporations caught on to the trend and started producing clothes and other material items with the Meme Faces on them. Once we started to see people wearing the Meme Faces, we saw a very dramatic decrease in the usage of them online. We saw a similar trend when Grumpy Cat19viii made it offline and there was merchandise available for purchase in stores. Even now when we see a large company attempt to use a meme in order to advertise their product or service, the meme being used almost necessarily dies and the offending company 18 "Internet Memes timeline." 19 "Internet Memes timeline." Corbin 11 may subject to heavy criticism from online communities, depending on the extent of the appropriation. I will be examining this phenomena at more length in a later passage, as this is one of the most important features memes possess when distinguishing them from other, traditional forms of media. More recently memes have tended toward the conceptual. From 2009 on, the main layout for memes was text over a picture. This came in many forms: advice animals were popular in 2009 and 2010; in 2011 and 2012, memes that mirror Chuck Norris facts became increasingly common such as Ridiculously Photogenic Guy20ix and Overly Protective Girlfriend21x. Currently, most memes regardless of popularity come in the form of text over a picture. This allows the ideas that the memes convey to spread quickly, and are more adaptable to change. Pictures can be shared quickly and quietly, qualities that viral videos or more general dialects do not have. Videos require the viewer to be in a space where they can listen to the audio, time to watch the content, and are not as easily altered and posted; internet dialects take time to understand and master, and are the most difficult to alter; pictures can be consumed in under a second and can be recreated, altered and posted easily with image editing software included in most computers and smartphones. These pictures reference a trending topic, idea, or event, and generally offer some sort of social commentary. Altering existing memes and pictures via Photoshop became increasingly popular in 2012. Some memes now consist entirely of one picture being altered over and over, or part of a picture being added into other pictures. This trend has only gotten more popular with the most 20 "Internet Memes timeline." 21 "Internet Memes timeline." Corbin 12 recent viral memes being almost exclusively of altered images. While this seems like an arbitrary point, the altering of an already existing meme on a specific thread on Reddit landed a very popular meme with the distinction of being a racist symbol. Pepe the Frog22xi was deemed by the Anti-Defamation League in September 2016 to have white supremacist connotations due to the offending frog being altered to resemble both Hitler and Donald Trump on a white supremacist thread on a popular website23. This did not have as drastic of an effect on the usage of Pepe the Frog on non-white supremacist webpages, or the general opinion of the internet24, however it did bring to the public light some unfavorable communities that the internet harbors, namely the alt-right, which I would argue helped give those communities a voice they did not previously have by bringing public attention to their platform. Memes have been used politically since 2012. One of the most popular memes in 2012 was “Binders full of Women”25, a phrase used by Mitt Romney in the second presidential debate in 201226. While this meme merely mocked Mitt Romney, more recent political memes have influenced political decisions and trends. During the presidential election of 2016, memes were the way most young adults got wind of any news. While memes are limited in how much information they can convey, they do offer a leaping point from where young adults can be made aware of an event and conduct independent research to get further information. That 22 "Pepe the Frog." Know Your Meme. April 02, 2017. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pepe-the-frog. 23 "Pepe the Frog." Anti-Defamation League. Accessed April 17, 2017. https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/pepe-the-frog. 24 Hnldesign.nl. "Pepe the frog - What did the internet think?" Whatdoestheinternetthink.net - What does the internet think? Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.whatdoestheinternetthink.net/stats/pepe%20the%20frog. 25 "Binders Full of Women." Know Your Meme. October 14, 2014. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/binders-full-of-women. 26 Parker, Suzi. "Mitt Romney’s ‘binders full of women’." The Washington Post. October 17, 2012. Accessed April 17, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2012/10/17/mitt-romneys-binders-full-of-women/?utm_term=.33cc3960be09. Corbin 13 being said, memes are a very effective way to spread news because of their fecundity and speed at which they reproduce. They are also easily accessible to those with a smartphone or computer, which is a majority of young adults who, as a generation, do not consume more traditional news media such as newspapers or TV broadcasts2728. Memes are as easily accessible as they are not only because they are free to make or use, the sheer mass quantities in which they appear, and their cross-cultural capabilities, but also because of their simplified composition of ideas portrayed through the easiest mode of communication: humor. Bernie Sanders29, a socialist from Vermont, led a grassroots movement for the Democratic Party nomination. His campaign was running almost exclusively through social media and the use of memesxii because traditional media news outlets rarely covered Bernie30 or his movement, yet he almost won the candidacy31. His popularity forced his opponent further left that she would have stood without his influence. This sort of deep-web grassroots organization perpetuated by memes has also been found in heavily conservative groups. More recently, the alt-right (a modern white supremacist ideology) has gained more visibility as one of the leading voices of the movement is the chief White House strategist for the Trump administration3233. The alt- 27Smith, Aaron. "U.S. Smartphone Use in 2015." Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. April 01, 2015. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015/. 28 Am, Published 03/16/15 12:01. "How Millennials Get News." American Press Institute. October 01, 2015. Accessed April 17, 2017. https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/millennials-news/. 29 "Bernie Sanders' Dank Meme Stash." Know Your Meme. June 21, 2016. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/bernie-sanders-dank-meme-stash. 30 Rima Regas / AlterNet. "Bernie Bias: The Mainstream Media Undermines Sanders at Every Turn." Alternet. September 02, 2015. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-bias-mainstream-media-undermines-sanders-every-turn. 31 "Polls." RealClearPolitics - 2016 Democratic Popular Vote. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_vote_count.html. 32 Rahn, Will. "Steve Bannon and the alt-right: a primer." CBS News. August 19, 2016. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/steve-bannon-and-the-alt-right-a-primer/. Corbin 14 right is notoriously pro-Trump, and they used their online presence using memesxiii in the same way the progressive movement did with Bernie Sanders, to boost Trump’s legitimacy as a presidential candidate which was in question due to his outlandish claims and unorthodox speeches. This is significant as it highlights the current political and social influence memes have garnered. Memes, Politics, and News Media It is no secret that memes have become a highly visible and pervasive form of media. They are just as prevalent in the minds and culture of young adults and adolescents as television and radio were to their parents and grandparents. However, unlike traditional forms of media like television, radio, magazines, and newspapers, memes are not created or distributed by industries, companies, or markets. Taking a look at Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s section in their book Dialectic of Enlightenment on what they call The Culture Industry, we can see why this distinction is so revolutionary. The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception is a critique of modern mass media in late capitalism. Adorno and Horkheimer express many radical views concerning our culture as well as how and why mass media can control its audience in this wholly critical review of culture and media in capitalist societies. They believe that all mass media leads to the 33 Frances Stead Sellers, David A Fahrenthold. "Steve Bannon: The unelected 'alt-right' figurehead running the White House." The Independent. February 01, 2017. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/unelected-far-right-figurehead-steve-bannon-making-white-house-policy-a7557496.html. Corbin 15 complacency of its audience and has generally been reduced to uninspiring trash for easy, profitable consumption34. The Culture Industry makes the claim that culture has become commodified, cultural products (television, radio, books, magazines, technologies), are controlled and distributed by companies with only the intention of making a profit. Because the focus is on gaining capital, media is forced to homogenize; the formula for profitable media is set, and so is rarely deviated from. This leads to a set schema that makes mass media impossible to engage with as an audience. “For the consumer there is nothing left to classify, since the classification has already been preempted by the schematisism of production“35. Any and all work that would go into engaging cultural products of mass media is useless, as the product was created with intention of profit in a system that has set schematics for its commodities. The familiar experience of the movie goer, who perceives the street outside as a continuation of the film he has just left, because the film seeks strictly to reproduce the world of everyday perception, has become the guideline of production. The more densely and completely its techniques duplicate empirical objects, the more easily it create the illusion that the world outside is a seamless extension of the one which has been revealed in the cinema. 36 “Entertainment makes itself possible only by… making itself stupid and perversely renouncing from the first inescapable claim of any work….Amusement always means putting things out of 34 Adorno, Theodor W., Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press, 2002., page 98 35Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 98 36 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 99 Corbin 16 mind, forgetting suffering, even when it is on display”37 Memes, which are without a doubt a source of entertainment, have done quite the opposite. Specifically, political memes and politically charged adaptions of viral memes force their audience to consider things outside of themselves and question previously unchallenged sources of information, regardless of the level of satrire the meme is functioning at. A good example of this would be “Bush did 9/11”38xiv. This phrase, a conceptual meme that has been popping up since 2012, usually followed by the claim that “Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” nods to the conspiracy theory that the 43rd President of the United States and his administration planned the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers on September 11th, 2001. Though rather tongue-in-cheek, this viral meme encouraged its audience to ask questions. Debates raged online about the legitimacy of the claims this meme made as well as inconsistencies in the initial reporting and video footage of the event by mainstream news networks and in turn the audience was forced to consider whether or not they could trust the government and traditional news media. Even more of an affront to the younger generation’s trust in news media was the television news networks’ deliberate exclusion of any coverage following Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign that didn’t simply dismiss his policies and growing support39. As previously mentioned, Sanders’ campaign gained traction almost exclusively from memesxv, and because of this media black-out, the campaign continued to rely on memes to spread word of any developments for the remainder of the season. One of the most astounding features of the campaign was its refusal to accept 37 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 115-116 38 "Bush Did 9/11." Know Your Meme. May 08, 2016. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bush-did-9-11. 39 "A Short History of the Media Smugly Dismissing Bernie Sanders’ Campaign at Every Step of the Way." In These Times. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://inthesetimes.com/article/19030/despite-the-medias-constant-dismissal-bernie-sanders-is-still-competing-wit/. Corbin 17 donations from super PACs, which is notable considering the companies that contribute to these super PACs are the same companies that own most of the major news networks4041. Sanders’ supporters speculated that this was most likely the cause of the media black-out, as the networks wouldn’t profit from covering a candidate who speaks out against the ethics of their political donations42. Regardless of the accuracy of these claims, the effect has been an increased skepticism on the reliability of the information presented and the intentions of news media. These are just a few examples of how memes have interrupted the seamlessness of the illusion that the outside world is an extension of the one portrayed in mass media that Adorno and Horkheimer concerned themselves about. Memes have a tendency toward the absurd, so it would naturally follow that many political memes center themselves on conspiracy theories. Though “Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” encouraged its audience to question the government, it did not have any direct political impacts; that is, the government did not respond in any way nor were any politician’s lives greatly affected. However, there are many examples of memes having direct political impacts. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (CFSM)43 is unique in that it was one of, if not the first meme to incite a reaction from a government entity. Created as a reaction to the Kansas Public School Board policy that included divine creation in public school curriculum, 40 "Sanders' People-Powered Campaign Smashes Record Number of Donations, Revolutionizes American Politics." Bernie Sanders. Accessed April 17, 2017. https://berniesanders.com/press-release/sanders-smashes-record-donations/. 41 "Not Just News Corp.: Media Companies Have Long Made Political Donations." OpenSecrets Blog. August 23, 2010. Accessed April 17, 2017. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/08/news-corps-million-dollar-donation/. 42 Hinckley, Story. "Bernie who? Why does TV media ignore Sanders even as he tops polls? ( Video)." The Christian Science Monitor. October 01, 2015. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2015/1001/Bernie-who-Why-does-TV-media-ignore-Sanders-even-as-he-tops-polls-video. 43 "Internet Memes timeline." Corbin 18 Pastafarianism has taken a life of its own and is now in some circles regarded as legitimate religion in opposition with Christianity. It was the first meme to involve the government when an individual was granted permission to wear a colander as a hat on their driver’s license under the premise that he was religiously obligated to wear it at all times44. These effects are significant when you consider that the entire religion is satire. People who identify as Pastafarian are acting entirely satirically, identifying with the CFSM to make a statement about organized religion, yet the movement has gained enough traction to be regarded as a legitimate religious movement. A more recent meme accomplished a similar effect on the primary election, namely “Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer”45. The premise of this meme states that Ted Cruz, one of the presidential candidates of the Republican Party in 2016, is actually the Zodiac Killer. The Zodiac Killer was a serial killer in California in the late 1960’s and 1970’s whose identity is still unknown. Memes started floating around revealing "proof”xvi that Ted Cruz was the Zodiac Killer, despite him being too young to even be considered a suspect. This particular meme also graced the general public when Cruz himself acknowledged the meme and made light of the situation46. Additionally, when polled, 38% of Florida voters believed that Ted Cruz could be the Zodiac Killer47. Much like Pastafarianism, the Zodiac Killer meme has become so popular it almost lost its’ satirical stance. This had effects for Ted Cruz politically and socially, as his wife 45. Moran, Lee. "'Pastafarian' allowed to wear sieve on head for ID photo." NY Daily News. August 02, 2013. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/pastafarian-allowed-wear-sieve-head-id-photo-article-1.1415677. 45 "Ted Cruz Zodiac Killer." Know Your Meme. June 21, 2016. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ted-cruz-zodiac-killer. 46 Jimmy Kimmel Live. “Jimmy Kimmel Asks Senator Ted Cruz Random Questions”. Filmed March 2016. YouTube Video, 1:11- 1:23. Posted March 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmI6JQz2M10&feature=youtu.be 47 Stuart, Tessa. "Is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer? Maybe, Say Florida Voters." Rolling Stone. February 26, 2016. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/is-ted-cruz-the-zodiac-killer-maybe-say-38-percent-of-florida-voters-20160226. Corbin 19 had to publically announce that her husband was not in fact the Zodiac Killer48. “Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer” was googled so many times that Google decided to take it off the recommended searches49, in an attempt to undo some of the damage the meme had caused Ted Cruz politically. I cannot definitively say that the meme affected the outcome of the primary election for the Republican Party, however that being said, he did not win the candidacy. Adorno and Horkheimer are concerned about the influence technology has on culture. “Technology is gaining power over society”50 Those who are economically strongest have power and control over technology Cultural products lull us into passivity. The culture industry sets the status quo, giving the audience false hope and has turned our culture itself into the medium for our own domination under capitalism. Their point in addressing technology comes from the accessibility it offers to the public. With the emergence of radio and television, monopolies are afforded a one-sided platform with which they can promote ideas and advertise commodities they produce without the worry that the subjects of the broadcast would respond or significantly interact with the content. Adorno and Horkheimer explain this phenomena with an allusion to the loud speakers broadcasting propaganda in fascist Germany during Hitler’s reign51. All traditional forms of mass media have this intentional quality of one-sidedness that memes, despite their intrinsic tie to technology and due to their platform in social networks, are able to side step. Audience participation is essential in the life cycle of a meme, for without a 48 Walker, Hunter. "Heidi Cruz responds to people who call her husband the Zodiac Killer." Yahoo! News. May 02, 2016. Accessed April 17, 2017. https://www.yahoo.com/news/heidi-cruz-responds-to-people-who-call-her-husband-175305796.html. 49 "Is Ted Cruz the Zodiac Killer?" NewsComAu. April 21, 2016. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/social/google-removes-is-ted-cruz-the-zodiac-killer-suggestion-despite-it-being-most-popular-search/news-story/59969347c2523683a579527fe783f657. 50 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 95 51 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 129 Corbin 20 proliferation of consideration, response, and modification from their audience, the meme ceases to be. This necessitated interaction leaves less room for a passive audience, which encourages, to a certain extent, freedom of thought that is inaccessible and discouraged in audiences of traditional media. The Culture Industry highlights the dissonance between the audience and those in control of the production of cultural products; only once an audience member proves himself worthy do they get to participate in the production. The more immeasurable the gulf between chorus and leaders, the more certainly there is a place among the latter for anyone who demonstrates superiority by well-organized dissonance…To open that industry to clever people is the function of the otherwise largely regulated market, in which…freedom was freedom of the stupid to starve.52 One of the most significant differences between traditional media and memes is the source of production. Memes are not produced with intentionality by large media conglomerates; they are made by any average internet user with photo editing software for the sake of entertainment or social commentary. There is no regulation of content other than what can only be considered natural selection, and no regulation of the spread or audience. Memes are made by the general public for the general public. They are created independently by individuals of the general public, and use crowdsourcing to spread. The audience decides the value of the meme and only through general consensus does it succeed in reaching a larger 52 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 104 Corbin 21 audience for a longer period of time. This marks an interesting shift I have observed in the economic beliefs of the younger generations. As I have shown, memes are a unique form of mass media. They have little in common with traditional forms of media in regard to their production and the way in which they connect with their audience. However, one of the fundamental characteristics of a meme, in which it is perpetuated through mimesis, is exactly the concern Adorno and Horkheimer have with the products and effects of mass media. The homogeny and passivity of audiences is a symptom of mimesis in cultural products. They claim that mimesis within media does not allow individuals the freedom or ability of authentic expression. Mimesis is propagated and controlled by the Culture Industry of their already “perfected” cultural products which manipulate its audience into repeating ideas and actions they witness in the media. When a person submits to this and acts and thinks in a way that intentionally resembles the media they have consumed, they are losing their authentic expression. An inability to do anything other than interact in a mimetic way with their manufactured cultural products homogenizes a culture politically and economically and ultimately eliminates authentic self-expression53. Because memes rely almost exclusively on mimetics much in the way traditional media does, there is a fair chance that Adorno and Horkheimer would not believe my claim that memes foster an authentic expression of the younger generation. I argue that despite Adorno and Horkheimer’s reasonable concern with the effects of mimetics in mass media, there is still a distinct difference between memes and traditional 53 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 129 Corbin 22 media that allows the audience to engage in authentic expression, even when participating in a media entirely reliant on mimetics. The most distinctive feature memes have in direct opposition to traditional media is a lack of connection to capital. Memes are not produced by companies to make a profit, they are not collected and redistributed for profit, nor have they been able to be successfully appropriated for advertisements with the intention of making a product for profit. That is not to say companies have not tried to capitalize on memes, they simply have not been successful in securing long term profitability when an attempt is made. Gucci, a luxury fashion brand and a part of the Kering luxury goods conglomerate, recently attempted to create a viral meme “#tfwgucci” in order to advertise their new line of watches. They hired popular artists, bloggers, and social media personalities known for creating memes to design and distribute memes advertising their product using their social media platforms due to their large follower account54. Gucci received backlash from the online community under the pretense of trying to capitalize on their appropriation of internet subculture55. As I mentioned in my first section, meme usage exists within a social contract that renders memes taboo in polite and professional company. This is in attempts to foster exclusivity and prevent appropriation by older generations. Gucci broke this social contract initially by acknowledging memes in a professional setting, and exacerbated the offense by not only appropriating, but attempting to commodify already existing memes and the subculture itself by advertising products very few members of 54 "#TFWGucci: A collaborative Meme project." Page Not Found. Accessed April 17, 2017. http://digital.gucci.com/tfwgucci/p/1. This page has since been taken down for unknown reasons 55 "People can't handle gucci capitalising on their 'sacred' meme culture | read." I-D. March 19, 2017. Accessed April 17, 2017. https://i-d.vice.com/en_au/article/people-cant-handle-gucci-capitalising-on-their-sacred-meme-culture?utm_source=vicefbuk&utm_campaign=global. Corbin 23 its audience could afford with memes people were paid to create. The exploitation of memes for profit is an uncomfortable bastardization of the media platform that gained popularity because of its disconnection from capital. The culture centers on users spending time and effort to create memes for the sake of it, without ever expecting to profit economically from their labor. When companies try to advertise with memes, what they are essentially doing is taking content produced by the general public and trying to sell it back to them, capitalizing on their decidedly free labor that has no interest in being capitalized upon. This is understandably frustrating for members of the subculture, and further perpetuates the resistance to incorporating capitalistic practices into the community. Advertising and the culture industry are merging technically no less than economically. In both, the same thing appears in countless places, and the mechanical repetition of the same culture product is already that of the same propaganda slogan. In both, under the dictate of effectiveness, technique is becoming psychotechnique, a procedure for manipulating human beings. In both, the norms of the striking yet familiar, the easy but catchy, the worldly wise but straightforward hold good; everything is directed at overpowering a customer conceived as distracted or resistant56. Since memes are the only form of mass media that are not controlled in some way by media companies and driven by capital, any meme could go viral. This unpredictability is attractive to the younger generation as a break from the passivity and homogeny we are indoctrinated into when consuming traditional media in precisely the same way Adorno and Horkheimer see mimetic systems in the Culture Industry; they feel manipulated by traditional 56 Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 108 Corbin 24 media controlled by monopolies. There is no pretense that memes are trying to profit from the consumer; by putting the power of producing free mass media in the hands of the general public, we gain access to innumerable perspectives never before afforded to us. The lack of focus on capital also allows these varieties to be available in larger numbers than traditional cultural products since there is no market competition and a wider audience to appeal to, as memes are readily accessible to any person on Earth with an internet connection. Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate in the creation and perpetuation of memes, but in no way are they required or even necessarily encouraged to do so, which allows for complete freedom of expression in the exact way traditional media does not, despite their mimetic nature. The way that memes are used and the online culture that utilizes them signifies a shift in the political and economic beliefs of the younger generations. No longer content with being manipulated by companies through traditional media, young people have taken to making their own media for one another. They have become aware of the capitalistic intentions of the culture industry and therefore are more skeptical of the biases in the news that result from a profit driven agenda. The content of this new media is resistant to being capitalized upon, and fewer and fewer young adults are using traditional forms of media to stay informed about the world around them. Millions of content producers allows for millions of perspectives previously inaccessible to the general public. The unique lifecycle of memes necessitates participation from their audience and promotes cross cultural collaboration since they are so widely accessible in ways that traditional media necessarily cannot be due to its relationship with capitalism. This unparalleled accessibility fosters both social and political movements at the same time that the cultural resistance memes have to capitalism has altered the younger Corbin 25 generation’s relationship with the economic system. Memes have already revolutionized the way millennials regard politics, as is evident by the effects memes had on the primaries of the 2016 Presidential Election, and I expect that they will play a major part in the political climates of the future. Not all memes are politically or culturally significant, however, considering their current impacts on the ideologies of the millennial generation, it would negligent to disregard their potential as powerful political tools. Visual Index of Memes Referenced Corbin 26 i ii iii iv Corbin 27 v vi Corbin 28 vii viii Corbin 29 ix x xi Corbin 30 xii xiii Corbin 31 xiv xv xvi