The Whale Swims On

I thought it'd be interesting, since the semester is ending, to go back and find out what has become of the iphone whale meme that we discussed in class a while back. In doing so, I went on the trusty Knowyourmeme page and found the following results....

While the peak of the meme occurred in early September, it still has some momentum and prominence in the meme world...even experiencing a small spike in search query's over the past couple of days according to knowyourmeme.

The live Twitter feed for the iphone whale even has an iteration as recently as 4 hours before this blog post was created. What I find most interesting, and ridiculous, and hilarious, however, is what there is to be seen under the derivatives section of the page...

And to further compound the ridiculous nature of the meme, people started creating iterations such as these....

After having a class discussion, and deciding that this meme's lifespan would not be very long, I think it is safe to say that we were sadly mistaken. With no end in sight, the iPhone whale continues its selfish demand for attention, and it would appear that the sky is the limit, for the mobile Free Willy.

Accounting produces memes, too: Unit III Blogger Assignment

For our accounting class, there was a Facebook group established in which people would gather to help each other out on the practice problems and arrange time to study together, etc. As the semester wore on, and people became attuned to the quirky habits of our teacher, a meme arose in which a background picture of him was coupled with one of his goofy sayings. It started out with this image macro that a student in the Facebook group made...

After the original image, many others were created in which people merely copied this background photo, and added on their own commentary. A few others are....

The last two, as well as many of the iterations not posted here, refer to our class custom of playing lemonade tycoon to learn useful insight about the accounting material we were being introduced to. People were so taken aback by the teacher's jovial approach to teaching that a meme arose in response. The target audience is only people who have been in one of this teacher's classes, since it would be pointless to attempt to understand the meme if you could not identify with the commentary about the teacher's style.

This is an excellent example of the life and death of a nanostory. I believe that this meme will be abandoned very soon since the semester is coming to an end, and people will no longer have a reason to get on the Accounting Facebook group, signaling the death of this meme as it exists within that conversation. Isolated iterations might no doubt still pop up, but I would argue that the meme has seen its peak popularity and will now start to quietly vanish into the troves of other memes who have experienced the same fate.

In the Arms of the Angel

I did my second essay on the ASPCA advertisement featuring Sarah McLachlan. I focused my essay on the overwhelming abundance of pathos in the ad to elicit funds for the ASPCA. The advertisement was so effective in its use of pathos that it became construed with a negative connotation. There have been countless re-iterations of the video that replicate its structure and appeals to pathos while incorporating funny content to add a new twist. This video, titled "Date a Geek" has a written and recorded remix to McLachlan's "Angel" to mock one of the integral appeals to emotion in the original video. The video also has a comical direct address from a women identifying herself as Sarah McLachlan to replicate the earnest direct address Sarah McLachlan provides in the original ad. This is an example of how an advertisement was able to utilize pathos so effectively to elicit emotion that a counter-meme arose in response. People became annoyed that the ad was so good at invoking guilt and sympathy in them, to the point that a meme has arisen in response.

Who says LOLcats have no cultural value?

8 Then there wuz sheep-doods in teh field, an they wuz watchin teh sheep in teh dark. Iz vry vry boring. srsly.9 An suddenly, visible angel! An glory! O noez!!10 But teh angel sed, "DONT AFRAID OF ENYTHING! it r ok, you can has gud news for all teh doodz!11 Todai in da city ov David, you can has sayvur! is Christ da Lord! w00t!12 Iz sign fer u, find da kitteh wrapd like brrito in a big fud dish."13 An suddenly, moar angelz! They sez, 14 "w00t to teh Ceiling Cat! An peace fer doodz he luffs! Kthxbai."

This bible translation has been dubbed the most culturally relevant LOLcats iteration of them all...LOLcats can now celebrate religion just like the rest of us...

David Way After The Dentist

It’s probably pointless for me to post the link due to the brief, albeit unbelievably prolific popularity of the video, but here is the hyperlink to the David After Dentist Youtube video, a clip less than two minutes long that has been viewed by more than 100,000,000 people. A CNN article, posted on March 18, 2010, exemplifies the acknowledgement of the video’s viral success by the major cable news network; an action usually considered to signify that the phenomenon being examined has seen the extent of its stay in the ever-changing arena that constitutes viral culture. The article can be read here, and serves to map out the rapid rise to popularity and subsequent come down that the family experienced throughout the time that has elapsed since the video went viral. I ended up finding this article as a result of going back over Bill Wasik’s idea of what he terms the nanostory in his book, And Then There’s This. In attempting to think about a nanostory that I have knowingly witnessed the rise and fall of, I instantly recalled the first time I saw David After Dentist, and began to wonder what had become of the internet phenomenon since. After a google search, I realized that CNN had gone about answering my question for me, a year and a half before I thought to ask it. The boy in the David After Dentist video unknowingly provided his father with nearly two minutes of media that has earned his family “in the low six figures,” according to the article. He also set himself up for a meteoric rise to the forefront of viral culture, a rise that precipitated a fall from relevance of similar proportions a short time later. David After Dentist portrays an example of a nanostory that was able to outlive the average viral video’s lifespan, but could not escape the fate that distinctly defines the nature of the nanostory itself.

Nicolas Cage is a vampire

When working on my paper I was using Know your meme and this picture popped up. Apparently this picture is legitimately from 1870 and has not been tampered with in any way,shape, or form. This bears no reference to the picture, but I can honestly say Nicolas Cage never ceases to amaze me, and not always in a good way (Sorcerer's Apprentice). 

The most interesting wizard in the world

I chose this meme because I really like the Dos Equis advertising pitch with the most interesting man in the world and this is one of the more G-rated spin offs of that advertisement. Below is another funny meme that follows the same general pattern.