GOP Discovers Internet
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 29, 2008 by admin in Politics
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008The GOP wants you to meet Barack Obama – their way
John McCain may be a nearly invisible, doddering old fart (did I really just say may be?) but the GOP is showing a little youthful spring in its step with two new web sites they’ve launched. First, there’s MeetBarackObama.com, which has punchy little headlines for its anti-Obama “news items” like Ich Bin Ein Hypocrite. Perhaps much more clever is BarackBook.com, which mocks Obama’s actual FaceBook page by highlighting his connections with people like William Ayers and Marilyn Katz. Unfortunately for whoever these hip kids of the GOP are, their candidate is still doing more for the Obama campaign than anyone else just by speaking in public.
The Meme Generation
[ Comments Off ]Posted on June 18, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture, Popular Media
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008Memes and Internet Memes 101: From the Smiley Face to Rickrolling
Have you ever heard of a LOL cat? Rickrolling? All Your Base Are Belong To Us? Goatse? (I’m not going to link that one, it’s really disgusting) The Star Wars Kid ? Chocolate Rain? Little Superstar? Numa Numa? The Flying Spaghetti Monster ? YTMND? Demotivators? You haven’t? O RLY? Then you really haven’t seen the web in all its glory. Web phenomena like these are called Internet Memes, and become a pervasive part of heavy Internet users’ lingo and thinking. It’s hard to track just how a meme originates sometimes, but they often come from discussion board threads or people just naiively expressing themselves. In any case, I think I just witnessed one being born. On a fairly obscure discussion thread the other day, this dialog occurred. Within 24 hours, we already we have these interpretations, quickly repurposing other memes. Before you know it, someone will create a t-shirt on Cafe Press, and: voila! An Internet Meme is born. A piece of advice if you ever find yourself in the midst of a meme-birth: Trademark it! Don’t be like Harvey R. Ball, creator of the Smiley Face Icon, who only collected his original $45 fee…