Memes of the 2013 NBA Playoffs - Splash Brothers

As the 2012-13 NBA regular season neared its end, players from the playoff bound teams became more intense in pushing their bodies to the next level in the quest of championship glory. One of the surprise packets of the 2012-13 season was the Golden State Warriors. Boasting one of the youngest squads in the league, many fans and experts were not expecting the Warriors to become contenders for at least another couple seasons. Lead by guards Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, the Warriors captured the 6th seed in the Western Conference, defeating the much fancied 3rd seed Denver Nuggets, before losing to eventual NBA finalists, the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semi-finals.

The play of Curry and Thompson captured the imagination of basketball fans. In particular their accuracy from beyond the three point received much adoration from fans, which spawned the nickname "Splash Brothers". The image macro is inspired by popular video game Super Mario Smash Brothers. And of course, like all things viral within social media, it is transformed into a meme. Whilst the image macros died off after the Warriors were eliminated from the playoffs, the influence of internet memes on popular culture and broadcast sport is evident.

The "Splash Brothers" image macro was quickly adopted by the NBA in their advertising materials for Warriors games during the playoffs. The "Splash Brothers" image macro can be considered as an example of how people use and dissect elements from popular culture in order to make sense of the world. Additionally, this is another instance in which the capability of web 2.0 tools has enabled audiences to spread ideas and trends on a global scale further illuminating the notion of the ever-thinning line between official and unofficial, producer and audience, and, online and offline culture.

Pizza Rolls

The "pizza roll" memes are a perfectly example of generativity on the internet. The origins of the meme are based on the simple premise that the members of the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball team are mostly young players. There is no direct connection between the Thunder and pizza rolls other then the simple fact that the Thunder are a young team and pizza rolls are predominately marketed toward young children. An alternative interpretation of the meme is based on the notion that the team's star Kevin Durant is perceived as a "mama's boy" because she attends all of the Thunder's home games, thus some of the memes carry the caption "mom made pizza rolls". The concept has spread and mutated into memes using images from the Olympics, baseball, volleyball, the Jewish holocaust, as well as incorporating images of politicians Barack Obama, Herman Cain and Martin Luther King, and singer Katy Perry.

 

 

 

I'm taking my talents to South Beach

"The Decision" was a live television interview conducted with basketball superstar Lebron James. The back-story to the interview surrounded James's pending free agency during the U.S summer of 2010. The world of sports had been saturated with speculations as to whether James would remain with his home-town team the Cleveland Cavaliers, or sign a contract to play with another team.

In hindsight, "The Decision" is considered as one of the worst marketing ploys in the history of sports. The general perception by fans and industry officials was that, James came across as selfish by arrogantly broadcasting his decision on live television. Ultimately, James announced he was leaving the Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat. As a result, his image became significantly tarnished and he was quickly branded as a "traitor" and a "quitter". Spoofs of his decision started coming out, such as remixes of his Nike commercials. One of his quotes from the interview: "I'm taking my talents to South Beach", was heavily spoofed by fans and took a life of its own, resonating far beyond the sports world.

Analysing memes in terms of information and social relationships helps us to understand the diverse types of memes that are mediated by digital media and how networked spaces can be used to help imitate, reproduce, mutate and spread different memes effectively. Within a cultural context, meme analysis can provide alternative insights and also lead to important responses to cultural policies, concepts and practices. For example, the memes in this blog post requires attention to be paid to what ideas and pieces of cultural information are conceived, replicated and passed on via the memes and how in turn they contribute to influencing audience response. Engaging in serious meme studies can provide a better understanding of how individuals respond to particular situations and circumstances, and, conversely, how memes can affect audience responsive actions, reading practices and thought processes.

 

 

 

Olympic memes + more Lebron's fault

The following Olympic memes were circulated during the 15 days of competition, many of which were a play-by-play account during the events. The significance of which exhibits the reach of contemporary digital media, in particular social media, and the power of digital immediacy and media convergence in general. Furthermore, it also demonstrates the spreadability of memes, in which particular themes that gain popularity can be imitated and reproduced to express a host of different messages. This diffusion of information is interesting because the more successful memes are not often useful or even accurate, but they are timely, and the messages reflect feelings that readers can identify with. For example, people are able to identify with Olympic themed memes through imagery or captions concerning the event, and due to the spread and mutation of these macro images, Olympic memes have also touched on cultural issues such as obesity, due to the event being sponsored by McDonald's and advocating safe sex practices for youths, inspired by medal winning teenage gymnasts being seen as "teen role models, not teen mums". Less serious connotations include taking body contact imagery from Olympic events and noting it as being a "better love story" than Twilight.

 

Because, an even plane of information is accessible to all members of society through digital media, it has ushered an entirely new way in which people communicate. Just like memes are created as a result of one's response to a situation or a circumstance, memes can also only mutate through a response system. And due to the mechanisms of digital technology, memes are now commonly conceived of as an extremely contagious and often very humorous part of internet culture that can sometimes generate enough hype to break into mainstream contemporary culture. This cultural crossover is also evident with themes that originated from the sport of basketball to the even more mainstream identity of the Olympic games. For instance, there have been a number of "more rings then lebron" and "lebron's fault memes", using images from the Olympics.