Author: Riley Cantrell

Blog 4: The Genre and Social Purpose of Memes

~ Riley Cantrell ~ Leave a comment

This week, we’re looking at what the genre and social purpose of memes are. First, let’s take a look at Limor Shifman’s definition of meme genres. Shifman defines them as “socially recognized types of communicative actions” (99). A good example of this is the “Woman Yelling at Cat” meme, something I experimented with below:

the woman yelling at cat meme. The left side says "I want to speak to your manager!" and the right side says "They're gonna tell you what I already told you but OKAY!"

My social purpose of this meme was to bring together retail workers (and quite frankly, anyone in the service industry) who deal with the daily frustration of customers who never believe what the store associate tell them, and need to hear it from a manager instead. The only genre that I can closely relate this meme to is “reaction photoshops.” While this isn’t the same kind of reaction photoshop that the “Tourist Guy” meme is, it’s still a type of reaction meme.

The second meme I did was “TFW your boss tells you to smile.”

spongebob making a rainbow with his hands and saying "that feeling when our boss tells you to smile"

My third and final meme:

the two buttons meme: "making the customer happy" versus "following policy and getting yelled at"

These memes are geared towards an audience that consists of retail/service workers. As exhausting as these jokes may be to those who haven’t worked these kind of jobs, people like me still find them funny even if it’s the same joke in different meme templates. I have genre knowledge, which is defined by Mary Jo Reiff in Dirk’s Navigating Genres as,”…past experience with reading and writing similar texts in similar situations” (251). My genre knowledge allows me to craft memes that will effectively target my desired audience.

In conclusion, we have to be aware of what genre we’re participating in and what our social purpose is before we’re able to create a successful meme.

Blog 3: The Genre and Social Purpose of GIFs

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Oh where would we be without GIFs? They are the epitome of millennial and Gen-Z humor. Without them, we’d be lost in a sea of Facebook’s “haha” reacts and Minion memes.

But what’s their genre and social purpose? To answer their question, first let’s take a look at Eppink’s “A Brief History of the GIF.”

Eppink starts his piece by telling us what a GIF first was. “The GIF began as a data format” (298). A pretty straight forward definition. GIFs, in Eppink’s words, are a form of identity-making. And that still holds true even as the GIF has evolved. Take one of my GIFs, as shown below:

a view of Trevor Noah talking about "hashtag fart gate" and saying "total exoneration."

This GIF allows us to share in the collective, humorous takes around “#fartgate”. The way The Daily Show Host, Trevor Noah, says,”Total exoneration!” with a big grin on his face will give us (or those of us that are still secretly 12 years old) a chuckle. We can share in the collective identity of people who, regardless of political party, can find humor in a man passing gas during a live interview. A moment of reprieve from all the serious political things that this country is going through.

Moving onto Dirk’s “Navigating Genres,” the author talks about how there’s different expectations for each genre. Take my “total exoneration” gif, for example. That genre is humor, so therefore, the expectation is that the GIF would be funny. If I had focused on another part of Trevor’s episode instead of the punchline, the GIF wouldn’t have the effect that I was going for. This is not to say that genres are confining in a negative way. Dirk writes that,”genres also help us to make more efficient decisions when writing” (259). Knowing the expectations of a genre helps me create a piece of writing that will have the desired effect.

Another example of different expectations are displayed in this next GIF, where the expectations are to convey a sad, somber moment for the characters in Orange is The New Black. (Yes, THAT moment.)

one of the characters sobbing her eyes out after seeing Poussey's dead body on the floor

The social purpose of this GIF is for us to share in the collective sorrow we all felt watching this episode. We’re instantly taken back to the first time we watched that episode and how devastated we all were. It also expresses a short story (the prison riot and Poussey dying.) This is something Eppink says we intimately identify with (303).

Finally, my last GIF is a reaction GIF.

a GIF of an old cartoon Mickey Mouse making the "crazy" sign and saying "crazy". The word "crazy" is in altered font.

This GIF would most likely be used in tweets (or blog posts like this one) to convey just what it says: Crazy. Except, instead of just typing out “crazy”, we use a GIF to be more expressive and colorful with just how crazy we feel, or how crazy we think something is.

Overall, knowing what genre expectations are will help us create a more productive piece of writing and ensure that we have the desired effect on our audience. Not being aware of genre expectations will only make the path more difficult, and we will not arrive at a piece of writing that’s as effective as we originally wanted.

Blog 2: On Dirk’s “Navigating Genres”

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For this blog post, I’ll be analyzing digital genres. Specifically, a digital genre that most of us millennials and Gen Z know as “memes.” But first, let’s define what a digital genre is in Kerry Dirk’s words.

While Dirk admits that the definition of genre has evolved overtime, one definition of genre that Dirk held onto was “…genres [are] tools to help people…get things done” (252). This is a pretty straightforward way of explaining it. Genres are more than a paint-by-numbers formula to help you express your writing. There’s multiple genres out there, and over the last three decades, even the very definition and expression of memes have evolved. They’re not a static force with a bunch of rules you have to adhere to. We’ve gone from “rick rolling” to making memes like the one below.

a tweet from Twitter user "jillboard" who wrote:"Absolutely no one at the Democratic address" and below it wrote "Beto" with a picture of a woman with the caption "gasps in Spanish"

These memes, political or otherwise, dominate our social media feeds. They help us express a multitude of emotions, from our humor to our political thoughts. While we are now a far cry from the Tumblr days of “GPOY”, the evolution of memes hasn’t stopped us from expressing any of our emotions, whether they’re positive emotions or more self-depreciating emotions. Dirk writes that,” you were recognizing the rhetorical situation of your action and choosing to act in manner that would result in the outcome you desired” (253). By posting, say, a depressed Squidward meme, we convey our present mental state about whatever might be bothering us. (Job, school, family, life in general.) This fulfills our need to express our current mental anguish without people taking us so seriously that they contact the authorities. (No one wants to have the police called on them because they’re a suicide risk. There’s a big difference in the concern you’ll elicit from a depressed Squidward meme than from posting a suicide note or something referencing suicide on your social media feeds. Which is a bold example, but a worthy example nonetheless.)

a four panel meme of a brain. the brain says "things are going well", then looks suspiciously and says "too well" before, in the final frame, pressing a self-destruct button.

Memes are just one of many digital genres, but my generation has embraced them as a means of self-expression. Even if most of us have moved on from Tumblr (the good ol’ days!), we’ve taken this concept of using pictures, gifs, videos, and text to express ourselves and made it into a part of our every day lives. I doubt memes as a genre will ever die out, so long as there is internet and teenagers (or adults like myself) who want to express either self-depreciating humor or serious political thoughts without people taking us “too” seriously.

And on that note, dear reader, I’ll leave you with my favorite subgenre of memes: The depressed Squidward meme.

Squidward with his head on a counter saying "Here. Please hit me as hard as you can." to a character holding a bat.

On Turkle’s “Always On”

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In Turkle’s “Always On,” she writes about how we came into this new world of being constantly connected to each other and the issues that come with it. The two things that piqued my interest were her imagery of “cyborgs” and the idea of being so tethered to our technology either benefiting our lives and/or bringing intrusion to our daily rituals.

First of, Turkle starts the chapter with talking about “cyborgs,” the researchers at the MIT Media Lab who “carried computers and radio transmitters in their backpacks and keyboards in their pockets. Digital displays were clipped onto eyeglass frames” (Turkle 151). The idea of being constantly connected to the digital world was such a foreign concept to ordinary people like Turkle. But the researchers insisted that there was nothing to be afraid of, that it would increase organization capabilities and an individual’s preparedness in this ever-changing world. Turkle writes that,”Online…we feel enhanced: there is a parallel with the robotic moment of more. But in both cases, moments of more may leave us with lives of less” (154).

This brings me to my next point: Nothing comes without consequences.

(courtesy of Pexels)

While I’m not anti-technology by any means, I can acknowledge that as a result of being constantly plugged in, now there’s this constant compulsion to constantly be checking things like texts and emails. Turkle is not exempt from this. She writes that she was frustrated that she was checking her email first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. The majority, if not all, of us college students have experienced this in some way, shape, or form. Even if we’re not checking our school email in the morning, we are always checking our texts or social media feeds to keep up to date on everything, or so we claim. What would happen if we put on DND (Do Not Disturb) for an hour, or even after a certain time of the night? Would we actually miss out on anything? Is this anxiety over missing out on something just an artificial construct that society needs to contend with before we become like the characters in WALL-E?

Two characters sitting on "hoverchairs" talking to each other over video chat, with WALL-E rolling inbetween them.
(picture courtesy of Dorkly.com)

Overall, I think that Turkle clearly identified what problems that being plugged in 24/7 has brought on for society. (Higher levels of distraction, disconnect between our virtual selves and our “real” selves, etc.) However, I wonder if instead of taking the pessimistic approach that Turkle did, we could benefit from taking a more positive approach to the situation. Yes, technology has had a mixed bag of effects on our everyday lives. Yet, instead of being defeated over the negative consequences, could we find a way to adapt to them? Technology is always evolving and future generations will have concerns that would’ve ever crossed the minds of past and present generations. If we found a way to make technology work for us, instead of us working for it (being addicted to checking our social media feeds, texts, and emails), would we have a more positive view of technology? Even if my generation doesn’t get this far, I’d love to see the next generation and so forth working towards that common goal of making technology work for us and its presence being beneficial-instead of detrimental-to our lives.