ashacsm-blog

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I created a progress book to sum up what I’ve been doing on my blog but to also help me to explain what my thinking behind certain works were.

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This is my first cut of the video I’m creating. It needs a lot more editing done to it!

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I’ve decided to create an informative video about memes using this YouTuber as a heavy influence. I really like the way he goes in depth to explain something. I enjoyed his videos and am now going to try to do my own spin/version. 

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SCRIPT OF SORTS

Creation, Distribution and Understanding of memes.

1-   A meme. What is a meme? By dictionary definition it is “an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.”For me? A reaction. A way to express yourself. But where did the term meme come from? A man called Richard Dawkins. The root of the word meme comes from the Greek word “mimeme” which means to replicate things. Memes are constantly replicated and modified so that it becomes an advantage to the person who is using it and the audience it is intended for. It becomes evolved.

2-   But how do you create your own meme? In most instances the creation of a meme is purely accidental. For example, the dancing baby meme. It is literally that. A dancing baby. It was originally created in 1996 using character studio. One of the workers that worked in the company that created this test found the dancing baby to be humorous and then emailed the dancing baby to other colleagues which was then spread even further and even out the office.

3-   The dancing baby was then edited and modified to include music. The most popular song that was edited onto the meme is “Hooked on a feeling” by Blue Swede you know the one that goes OOGA CHAKA OOGA OOGA OOGA CHAKA…yeah let me stop there. Then it was once again spread further and further. The editing process of the meme itself can be considered creating the meme. When a meme is created, it is created with the purpose of it becoming viral. If your meme hasn’t been spread, then it isn’t a meme. That is the cycle of a meme.

Distribution & Understanding:

4-   Now moving on to the circulation of memes. What’s interesting about this is the way a meme tends to now be used. In the last few years, it has become a sort of coping mechanism for the younger generation. When a video goes viral or a dire situation, the internet takes that and creates multiple memes for it. A recent example of this being from the film Avengers: infinity wars, okay massive spoiler warning ahead, a specific scene towards the end of the film where spiderman disappears which was heartbreaking if I do say so myself, was created into multiple different memes HOWEVER it could only be understood if you had watched the film. A key thing to understand and remember is that a meme is not always understood. You have to directly understand the context of the situation to understand the meme that follows it.

5-   As a graphic designer why is this topic important to me? Easy. Because of the communication memes create. Memes have started to take a place in vocabulary. It is constantly being used as a way to show our emotions almost as if no words can describe what you’re feeling or thinking. But the problem lies in being able to understand the meme being presented. As I touched upon earlier, not everyone understands the reference of a meme. But can you expect everyone to always understand every meme? No of course not. There’s many factors that stop someone from getting a meme and it can be something as simple as a generation gap. I mean you probably won’t expect your mum to understand a meme related to the latest internet trend, would you?

Memes are unique but also recycled. The lifespan of a meme isn’t very long. It’s easy for it to go popular and then just as …disappear.

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This is the final “How to create your own memes” infographic that I have created. It is my first time doing this sort of piece of work and I think I did it quite well as I have been able to include a humorous factor into the poster. I think that this was a good experiment to do as it looked into the CREATION of memes.

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PROGRESS UPDATE:

I have been working on this which is an infographic on how to create a meme. I have condensed it all to 4 simple steps which is very easy to follow. 

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For the last few weeks i’ve really been paying attention to how I using memes is important as a graphic designer. What is the reason for it? While I was thinking of that, I was also thinking of a typic la designers way that I could show information and the idea of using an infographic was something i wanted to play around with. A quick step by step guide on how I think you should create memes and what were/are the most important parts to it. 

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Semiotics and Memes

Semiotics is a when we just know and learn to understand what it is we are looking at and I think that this is exactly the same as memes. 

like this image would be understood to me as “I got you” but how does someone else see it? 

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Shockingly, music are memes.......

All the music used in here are songs that went v viral are used specifically to showcase how you are feeling. When you hear that song you should automatically know what the hell is up!

If you don’t, you may have just missed the meme.

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This is a video about the evolution of memes looking at the history of them and where it started. But actually, how do we know when it started?

The narrator talks about memes before they were called memes and refers to “pre memes”. It is was actually so funny watching it as you would probably think that memes had always been images. But it isn't. It starts from silly viral youtube videos, keyword being viral. It seems as though if a meme has gone viral, then it is a meme. 

“It wasn't until 2011 that we started to call memes, memes”

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I’ve been listening to this at every opportunity to see if I can catch anything interesting I have said or anything that came up in my discussion that could be useful.

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I have just read “What’s in a Meme?” and it sort of links memes to natural selection which I thin is quite interesting as it could sort be seen of that. Memes cancel out the people that don't understand them and sort of deletes them from the equation as they just...don’t get it.

Memes are an imitation. You see something, you imitated or change the original to imitate your feelings and then pass it along. Interestingly, I don’t think something can be classified as a meme unless it has been passed on. If you another person doesn't have contact with that meme and passes it along, it is NOT a meme, merely an image.

“For a meme to survive and spread in a competitive environment it must have attributes which give it advantages over other memes” Richarddawkins.net. (2018) I agree 100%. A meme has to be able to stand out in it competition for it to be even taken seriously. However a meme does also die, then is replaced by another memes. But in general, a memes lifespan is so so long. 

That’s food for thought.

References: 

Richarddawkins.net. (2018). What’s in a Meme? | Richard Dawkins Foundation. [online] Available at: https://www.richarddawkins.net/2014/02/whats-in-a-meme/ [Accessed 5 Mar. 2018].

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this website is such a creative way of sharing news stories from all over the world. By manipulating and creating a GIF, you are able to express so much through such a simple thing. 

Maybe I could do my own version but with memes?

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When I was in school, my teacher asked me to write “Hi, my name is Asha” and I thought, brilliant I can do this. Mind you, I had just moved to England from The Netherlands so my english wasn't perfect, but I really thought i could do it.

SO I wrote exactly what she had said. Once she looked at what I had written she said “Great! Add on full stop.” and my first thought was why? But I did it. In the neatest writing I could, I had written “Hi, my name is Asha full stop”

Once again, my lovely teacher walked by and said “thats not quite correct, its full stop, as in the dot” Why did I make this mistake? Was it how she explained it? Or was it how i understood it?

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an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature, that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.

Google Definition

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I made this video showing how a meme an be used in the conversation and I wanted to show the confusion that can maybe sometimes appear when you have no clue WHAT a meme means. 

....why did you use it?

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MINI BRIEF - WHAT DO YOU MEME?

Using memes, I want to be able to create a platform in which I am able to get people to understand the meaning of a “meme”. I want to try and do this by first explaining the meme, if I have to, but then also showing where the original meme has come from so it gives an insight to it.

Through my research, I have found that memes do not always portray the original emotion or intent in the way in which is used. Using this, I want to show memes in a different platform.

Why am I doing this?

I have realised that when explaining meme, it can take the humour away from it but in the way that I explain it, I want the humour to be understood. Also, memes are a great and massive way of communicating and the use of of it is just getting wider and fun so I would not want anyone to be left behind and miss an opportunity to meme.

Examples of how I can do this:

Website, book, podcast, video

I’m going to work on this and find different ways of communicating and understanding memes.