Bitch Please

Background

The Yao Ming face, also commonly known as the "Bitch Please" or "Dumb Bitch" meme is a rage-style drawing of former NBA star Yao Ming. The contour image of Yao's grin has been typically used as a sarcastic reaction to convey a dismissive tone towards one's input or ideas within online and offline scenarios. The meme originated from a still image captured from a 2009 post-game press conference.

The meme was originally circulated in 2010 on social news website Reddit. The site allows users the opportunity to submit and share self-created images or captions. The "Bitch Please" caption originated from a Reddit forum member who suggested the image looked like Yao was mouthing the phrase "Bitch Please" (Knowyourmeme.com 2012). 

Since its 2010 creation, the meme has spread throughout various aspects of contemporary culture, beyond the sport of basketball. It has been used to convey the notion of dismissal, rejection and sarcasm, to name a few. A search using the keywords "Yao Ming" on Tumblr resulted in the following memes. These memes demonstrate the diversity that has been generated from the Yao image which originated from what would normally have been a routine post-game press conference during the basketball season. Additionally these memes also further affirm the notion that memes are increasingly being used as a tool of communication to express one's opinions in a unique and yet effective manner. 

More than any previous communication medium, the internet has proven to be suitable for large-scale distribution of data and it is no different for the spreadability of memes. Online transmissions also facilitate for higher rates of fidelity because the digital environment allows a higher degree of transfer efficiency (Lankshear & Knobel 2005, 2). The element of fecundity is also improved since computers can produce thousands of copies at a time. As a result the potential for longevity is increased since large volumes of data can be stored and also spread (Lankshear & Knobel 2005, 3) These three properties as introduced by Richard Dawkins (1976) ensure that memes can successfully replicate via online networks. Additionally, the internet transcends cultural and national boundaries, allowing successful memes to spread globally, as shown by the following memes. These memes were collected throughout the web and portray the common theme of using Yao's facial image accompanied by captions in various different languages.

Despite the internet's distinct compatibility for meme circulation, there has been little research directed at the phenomena of memes, such as its potential industrial impacts. As exhibited with the "Bitch Please" meme, despite being a multi-time NBA all-star, Yao Ming has become renowned as an internet meme rather than as one of the greatest basketball players of this generation. A more insightful perspective on this rapidly growing trend will assist in a more precise understanding of the nature of memes and how it is used as a contemporary communication variable. Such study may benefit from both a cultural and an industrial standpoint. 

In reference to the global potential of memes, Shifman (2009, 3) makes an important point in suggesting that a truly successful meme can break linguistic and cultural barriers. This is achieved through translations of captioned texts or particular themes such as an image, incident or event that has been so widely spread and talked about that it has developed a universal meaning, such as the image of Yao's smile. This process not only ensures the meme's longevity but it also increases the possibility for unique textual production with altercations to the meme, potentially creating new meanings (Shifman 2009, 2 -3).

In theory, internet circulated memes can have high fidelity, however most memes will be edited and in some cases users will drastically alter the texts. Despite the mass replication of original versions as well as the creation of counter and new versions of the meme, the core theme of exclamation and sarcasm towards both serious and outlandish socio-cultural scenarios remains prevalent.

The meme is also popular in Yao's home country of China. Interestingly, it appears Chinese net users prefer the original screen cap image over the vectorised drawing. Even so, the core ideology of the meme remains. That is, despite the memes being created and shared in a different language and within a different culture, the memes still deliver the obvious notions of sarcasm and insensitivity that is evident in the english versions of the meme. Below are the most popular Yao memes collected from the Chinese blog website, Weibo:

The dominant global versions of the meme tend to involve situations in culture such as events in our history or everyday situations. The seriousness of the particular event or the circumstance is either dismissed or downplayed by incorporating the contour image of Yao's hearty smile and is usually accompanied with a witty caption to further emphasise the sarcasm of the meme.

In comparison to Jeremy Lin and Brian Scalabrine memes where much of the derived humour came as a result of making fun of cultural stereotypes, the ideologies encoded in the "Bitch Please" memes were of a less serious approach in which the jokes were mostly regarding potentially awkward situations one may encounter in one's personal life. That is not implying the degradation of stereotypes within "Bitch Please" memes do not exist because the collected images from social networks and search engines only covers a segment of the internet. Memes that are shared privately through email and other forms of private exchanges is difficult, if not, impossible to collect.

Political and cultural ideas were marginal in the "Bitch Please" memes which are a distinct contrast when compared with memes of Jeremy Lin and Brian Scalabrine. This point is significant because regardless of the different languages that the meme has been replicated in, the core theme established by the original creators of the meme remains intact. That is, while the meme has continued to evolve and remixed over time, the central ideology of the meme still remains. In the case of "Bitch Please", it is the distinct tone of sarcasm, exclamation and dismissal.

The popularity of "Bitch Please" has also inspired variations of the meme, either incorporating Yao's face or producing new memes featuring images of other popular societal figures such as U.S President Barack Obama and U.S First Lady Michelle Obama.

"Bitch Please" has also inspired commercial innovations from t-shirts to button pins and from drink bottles to poker coins. 

The "Bitch Please" meme even became a tattoo for certain individuals:

Memes stand for many of the contemporary characteristics of cyber culture of collaboration and participation which entices user-created content within a globalised networked environment but they also stand for a number of more significant ideas (Shifman 2009, 3). For instance, along with Yao's hearty smile, there are messages regarding various aspects of culture, from situations we may potentially encounter in our daily lives to important world events. Furthermore, it illuminates a contemporary online culture that is determined to create and share humour, with a distinct disregard for the sensitivity of the core content and the audience. For instance, the image shown in the preceding section of this blog post, of Yao's "bitch please" image in place of a prisoner being executed by a U.S soldier during the Vietnam war, may be disturbing for many audiences and would not be the source of humour in most cultures. Yet, the very notion that such a emotionally sensitive image from history has been used for the sake of humour further emphasises the original 4chan ideology of "doing it for the lolz", and it is an aspect of participatory culture that is clearly thriving. In the case of Jeremy Lin and Brian Scalabrine memes, whilst on the surface, the purpose is to create humour- the embedded ideologies within the dominant macro-images convey opinions of race, class, politics and masculinity.

As evidenced by the meme phenomena, the desire for instant entertainment is more prevalent than ever (Shifman 2011, 3). Social networks like Facebook are feeding this desire perfectly, allowing users to provide commentary on all aspects of culture through a variety of interactive formats such as memes. The field of commentary was once dominated by professional analysts, satirists and artists within mass media. However, largely influenced by contemporary media convergence, the power relations between producer and audience has transformed rapidly in the last decade. The digital environment is now crowded with amateurs equipped with computers and design software that once were exclusively accessible by industry professionals. Sharing the same digital space and using the same tools as professionals, along with a witty sense of humour, amateur textual production can reach a global audience and has the potential to influence audiences on a universal scale. As users, we can also easily scroll and scour for the most popular memes to either consume by ourselves or share with our friends. We can comment and "like" the images we find interesting and in turn this contributes to the meme's success and longevity. Increasingly, narratives are becoming more compact and to the point, where pictures and videos are used to convey a host of different meanings. Clearly, this has been a successful trend and we are gradually outsourcing other means to identity ourselves with. Traditional means of identification such as history, friendship or family ties are being conveyed through images that have become identifiable as a result of mass spread on the internet. This notion is perhaps more so significant in contemporary culture in which communication within the digital environment is heavily emphasised by visual interpretation. Whether we are reading an e-mail or watching a video on YouTube, online communication is largely dependent by our responsive actions to what we see on the computer screen. In that sense, memes seem like a perfect fit for contemporary web communication since it can serve multiple purposes, from humour to everyday conversation, and from contributing knowledge to building consensus. People are increasingly voicing their opinions through widely recognisable images of cats, birds, penguins, celebrities, politicians, athletes, because their voices appear to feel truer than their own, when a meme appears with a noticeable image, it obviously attracts more attention. Beyond the overwhelming desire to identify through iconic images, memes ultimately are fragments of our existence. As exhibited within the more dominant Jeremy Lin and Brian Scalabrine memes, racial and class profiling is a prevalent aspect of contemporary culture and most of us at some point may have purposely or inadvertently appropriated similar sentiments. Conversely, there are times we attempt to approach serious real-life issues with a more casual response, as shown in the Yao Ming memes.

Technological evolution has changed the way people use media and how they relate to each other. These technological changes have bought about a digital revolution where media convergence has transformed the cultural and industrial relationships between people (Jenkins 2006, 33-34). Increasingly, new technology formats allow people to collect, share and remix content, resulting in a scenario where traditional values of consuming information has gradually shifted to producing, managing and sharing information. And currently, memes appear to be the most popular, interesting and resourceful way to do so. 

Dawkins, Richard. 1976. The Selfish Gene, edited by Oxford University Press. New York: Oxford University Press.

Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press.

Knobel, Michele and Colin Lankshear. 2005. "Memes and affinities: Cultural replication and literacy education." Paper presented at the The Annual NRC, Miami, November 30, 2005.

Knowyourmeme.com. 2012. "Yao Ming Face / Bitch Please." Accessed October 12th. http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/yao-ming-face-bitch-please.

Shifman, Limor. 2011. "An anatomy of a YouTube meme." New Media & Society 14 (2): 187 - 203.

Shifman, Limor. 2009. "Assessing Global Diffusion with Web Memetics: The Spread and Evolution of a Popular Joke". Jerusalem: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.