O RLY? YA RLY!
To make up for the extra early post Monday, I'm posting an extra late one Tuesday (so late it's already past!). Because it's my blog, and I say so.Now I’ve got another confusing one for those not Internet-savvy. If Snakes on a Plane didn’t make you scratch your head, then the Numa Numa guy or Lazy Sunday will have you running for the door. Except that the world of “viral videos” is actually really interesting AND hysterical. But I’m not limiting this post simply to videos, but to all of the different types of Internet memes.
Instead of posing as a Wikipedia entry, I’ll actually quote one:
“The term "meme,” coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, refers to a replicator of cultural information that one mind transmits (verbally or by demonstration) to another mind. Dawkins said, Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catchphrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Other examples include deities, concepts, ideas, theories, opinions, beliefs, practices, habits, dances and moods which propagate within a culture.”
In actual English, a meme another name for a trend. Those songs, dances, and fashions that you JUST CANNOT GET RID OF (See the macarena, My Heart Will Go On, and leggings) are memes. Reality TV is a meme. The term isn’t used anymore, replaced by trend, as well as “that damn (insert annoying trend)", and it isn’t always used negatively. The word “meme,” however, is starting to be used in regard to Internet trends.
As long as there has been Internet, there has been Internet memes. I wonder if Al Gore invented those, too...Anyway, from the rise of l33tsp33k to The Juggernaut Bitch!!, these short videos have a long history of getting trapped in our Bookmarks and watched repeatedly until they die a horrible, groan-inducing death. Two of the earliest and most famous of the Internet memes are the Dancing Baby and the Hamster Dance.
How do these videos, websites, and unclassifiable become famous on and even off the Internet? First, it’s a simple matter of quality. Only the very best and the absolute worst rise to fame. For example, there is the series Red vs. Blue, based off of the extremely popular (and really fun!) video game Halo. The videos are short, although there are about 80 of them, and are well made (using actual game footage) and actually quite funny. Alternatively, there’s the truly horrible and ridiculous, such as - hold back your moans, please - William Hung. Yes, anybody or anything, regardless or origins, can end up on the Internet. It's a potluck, really. Just be extremely weird.
Memes are spread mostly by word of mouth - or, really, just word. They're sent in chain e-mails, posted onto blogs, or seen peering over shoulders at screens. There are plenty of websites more than willing to host these memes, even steal them - EBaum's World, I'm looking at you. One of the biggest causes of the rise of videos, particularly, is the website YouTube. YouTube is basically a site that hosts any type of video imaginable, short of the pornographic. Any short video that gains in popularity on the Internet is almost surely got its big start on YouTube. And...Well, that's really all there is to it.
One of the reasons memes have become so prevalent in our popular culture, on and off the Internet, is because of the ease of creating your own videos. Back in the olden days, when dinosaurs and Nazis roamed the earth, filmmaking was expensive and editing was extremely tedious and difficult. But now, thanks to digital technology (no, really, thanks), it's now cheap and easy to create and edit your own films. And thanks to websites such as YouTube, it's easier than ever to share them.
Why is filmmaking so appealing to so many people? While an entire library can be written on it, there are a few easily explained reasons. Well, the opportunity to express yourself is certainly an appeal. It's a chance to be creative and crazy that many people don't have the opportunity to be in real life. Also, it can be a chance to become famous, whether in Hollywood or the Indie film circuit or on the Internet. The Internet is certainly the cheapest, but is it the easiest to become famous on? There are so many people trying, and unlike Hollywood, everybody has an opportunity. Really, I think that it comes down to the same thing as in Hollywood: quality and the publicity it gets.
Why is the subject so often something already established? Well, to go back to the producer/consumer thing yet again, it' because it provides the fan an opportunity to create his own version of what already exists. Don't like that Kirk and Spock never hooked up, even though you knew that they were madly in love? Well, you can easily fix that now. Tribute films, or machinima for those made by video game footage, provide already-available material (like clips, characters, plot, and many other things), as well as something that everybody already knows about.
Because this post has been delayed all night (real life had a chance to be much better than blogging, and it was), I can't really remember what else I had to write on this. So now, if this post wasn't long enough yet, I'd like to simultaneously recommend my favorite memes, with a short - well, we'll see how short - explanation of why I think it became so popular.
Lazy Sunday - One of the rare jewels recently to grace Saturday Night Live's presence, Lazy Sunday is actually a digital short, not a sketch. It's a rap by Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg about the duo's lazy Sunday day going to see The Chronicles of Narnia. There are LOADS of reasons why this video is so popular. First, it's one of the few good things to come out of SNL since Will Ferrell left. Second of all, it's quality rap, and much better than half the stuff out today. For those few who really, really research it, this video is also very reminiscent of the very first rap video. Another thing is, is this perhaps a commentary on middle- and upper class white people trying to act like rappers and pimps (something that really, really pisses me off)? It would certainly seem so. Snacking on cupcakes and going to see The Chronic(What?)cles of Narnia hardly seem hardcore.
The Juggernaut Bitch!! - A dubbing of an episode of X-Men, where one of the villains, the Juggernaut, seems to think of himself as a pimp. It's really just funny because of the dialogue, which is deliciously inappropriate, especially for a children's show. One of the best things about this video, and probably something that greatly helps its popularity, is that somebody actually important appreciates it. Bryan Singer, the director of X-Men 3: The Last Stand put the most famous line of the parody ("I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!") in the movie. The character was almost certainly already in the movie when the video came out.
Trailer Mashups - Trailer mashups involve the splicing of film footage to create a trailer for a movie that already exists, except make it appear to be in a drastically different genre. The first of these was a trailer for Shining (obviously, The Shining), which makes the classic horror flick appear to be a funny father/son coming of age sort of movie. Many of these began to crop up, and unofficial rules were even created (such as that the film could not be altered, i.e. made black-and-white, or stretched, or have effects added in the background). The most famous of all of these were the numerous Brokeback Mountain trailer parodies, the most famous of those being Brokeback to the Future. It's really simple to explain: everybody loves good gay subtext, really. It's so funny. And most movies actually do have some sort of subtext, which in these trailers is shamelessly exploited. And why Brokeback? Because it takes itself so seriously, it's funny! Honestly, "I wish I knew how to quit you!" and all of those doe-eyed stares? Come on!
There were more, but I'm so tired I can't even see. I'm not sure what I'll write about tomorrow, but it’ll probably be on the Teen Queens. It'll be different, too, because a subject like that allows me to vent so much more and be nasty. So, until later today!
The Devil in the Details
Taylor Lauren Amato
posted by Taylor Lauren @ 7/12/2006 12:55:00 AM
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