More Lebron's fault, Olympic memes

The invitation to remix is reminiscent of classical forms of story telling. For example, music is one form of source text that is continually reinvented through covers, parodies and remixes. Like songs, memes gained popularity due to their open invitation to participate, consuming, collecting, remixing and sharing. Using "lolcats" as an example, it is formed simplistically with minimal creativity and according to Clay Shirky (2010, 18), "the average lolcat image has the social value of a whoopee cushion and the cultural life span of a mayfly...yet anyone seeing a lolcat gets a second related message: You can play this game too". That is, while on the surface, memes may appear to have little cultural value but the more significant message of participation allows the prospect of mutation which in turn creates the potential for these macro images to become carriers for different ideas (Burgess 2008, 108). The cultural relevancy and value of memes stand for many of the characteristics of cyberculture today, of collaboration and participation, enticing user-created content and networking, but they also ignite the creativity of a number of ideas that, along with generic meanings, still convey messages related to: race, gender, class, belief, politics and so on. The meme narrative is short and comprehensive and yet, a caption, an image or a video can speak a thousand words. Whether it is cats, Bad Luck Brian, Scumbag Steve, Rick Astley, Willy Wonka, Lebron James, Kobe, Bryant, Yao Ming and a global event like the Olympics or the soccer world cup, individuals are defining themselves by using these iconic voices to do their talking. Social networks are feeding this trend perfectly, net-users continuously scroll through comment spaces to find the best remarks, images or videos and more often then not, this is shared with someone.

The Lebron's Fault memes below demonstrate Shirky's logic in that, the cultural relevance of memes extends beyond what appears on the surface, while the values primarily lie within the genre, there can be other significant messages attached to it. As touched on in the previous post, "Lebron's fault" stemmed from comments made by Lebron James during a press conference, where he told reporters he felt he was unfairly scrutinised by the media and fans for issues he should not be held accountable for. 6 months on, the ESPN article that reported the story is still active with fan responses (over 5000 of them) mocking James's comments, blaming him for personal problems, issues within the sport and real world problems- http://espn.go.com/nba/conversations/_/id/7556817/miami-heat-lebron-james-apologize-kendrick-perkins-tired-blame-game

 

 

Similarly, the Olympics have triggered a host of memes concerning issues ranging from mocking certain situations such as the domination of the U.S men's basketball team to real world circumstances such as, British colonialism, drugs, politics, world hunger, race, egalitarianism (or the lack of) and obesity.