McKayla is not impressed

American gymnast McKayla Maroney was favoured to win the gold medal in the women's vault competition at the 2012 Olympics. Unfortunately Maroney's fall in her second attempt would mean the best result she could achieve was a silver medal. During the medal ceremony, Maroney clearly disappointed by her fall, stood on the podium with her arms crossed matched by the look of disappoint on her face. Soon after, the image of Maroney's disappointed face was turned into a meme by online comedians and sports fans alike. Known as "McKayla is not impressed", Maroney's face has graced historical cultural images such as the Mars rover landing, The Leaning Tower of Piza and the Taj Mahal, to name a few. The meme has spread like wildfire, going viral almost instantly after the medal presentations. And in typical meme behaviour, Maroney's image is imposed with text or photoshopped into a comical scenario, beyond the sport of gymnastics.

Of course, this viral image has also found its influence on the world of basketball fandom, where Maroney's facial expression has been incorporated into current basketball events or existing memes

 

 

 

 
 

Don't bring your girl to the NBA

The memes below exhibits sport's relevance as a cultural staple within society. It is used to convey messages and popular opinions regarding a limitless range of cultural issues, many of which are beyond the world of sports. For instance, there are memes mocking the difficulties faced by the United State government's extended search for Osama Bin Laden. On a less serious tone, contemporary trends of scrutinising singer Justin Bieber's sexuality is also evident within sports memes. Conversely, it is not unusual for sports memes to incorporate images from other aspects of culture, such as from the world of music, film, television or politics.

 

 

 

 
 

 

Digital reproducibility and evolution

The current internet meme trend, hosted predominantly by websites such as quickmeme and knowyourmeme and whatdoumeme provides a typical example of how mass reproduction functions in the virtual environment. Typically, an individual meme consists of a recycled image accompanied by a comic caption. These images may feature well-known cultural figures like Willy Wonka from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Philip J. Fry from Futurama, Ned Stark from Game of Thrones or The Most Interesting Man in the World from Dos Equis beer advertisements. The images may also represent newly invented characters such as the socially awkward penguin, the paranoid parrot, scum bag Steve or bad luck Brian, to name a few. Memes can be reproduced by any member of the public according to the prescribed theme, for instance memes using The Most Interesting Man's image features the trademark phrase structure, "I don't always....but when I do...."). Since the captions are created anonymously by the viewing public, the line between producer and audience becomes non-existent. Memes evolves like a life form with captions behaving like genetic traits, spreading to influence individual thought processes (Dawkins 1976). Internet memes thus are ideas or concepts spreading and evolving over the internet, by chance, through commentary, forwarding, search, or other communicative means online (Wagner and Jiang 2012, 185). Without the momentum gained by sharing, a meme has little cultural relevance. On websites like quickmeme and knowyourmeme, users are guided towards the most popular memes, thus they are more likely to be reproduced and shared on Facebook streams, Twitter feeds and other social media websites. And when a meme explodes into popularity,  its reproducibility appear to guide its cultural value, thus a work’s reception has become a part of its reproducibility. As a result, consensus are often formed which at times contradict against the commercial imperatives of administrators and producers alike. For instance, as exhibited in a previous post of this blog, many fans through memes, conveyed their views of Kobe Byrant as a selfish player, often disregarding his achievements in the sport, therefore forming a consensual view which contradicts against his official star image. Another example is the cult-like following Brian Scalabrine has attracted as a result of fan generated memes. Despite his perceived lack of basketball skills and playing time on the court, Scalabrine has become the inspiration of meme creations showing support for him that has transcended into positive fan responses during his basketball games. 

What makes memes generative is how the activity of meme creation has been adopted by various participatory cultures. Popular cultural mages or phrases are used by fans to create extended discussions concerning a variety of cultural topics. A meme template featuring a stock image can be used as a crossover to convey messages regarding other cultures and vice versa. This notion was shown in previous posts regarding NBA commissioner David Stern http://memesnba23.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/fan-displeasure-through-memes.html and socio-cultural issues being expressed through memes featuring basketball stars http://memesnba23.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/socio-cultural-issues-through-memes.html . The memes below show how singular images are used to generate a host of discussion topics, many of which are paradoxical to the image's origin industry (e.g. using images from movies or television programs to generate conversations about politics and sports...etc.)

 

 
 

 

 
 

 

Fan activism through memes- Jeremy Lin

Fan activism has long existed on the internet, with fans bounding together to save television shows from cancellation, defend themselves from copyright infringement threats by media corporations and promote alternative ideas (Jenkins 2012). In Jenkins' article regarding fan activism through the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), he concluded, the fan group encourages people to speak out as fans on a broad range of socio-cultural and socio-political issues, through what the group's leader, calls "cultural acupuncture". The group's generative practices of deploying content from the fictional universe onto real-world concerns helps empower fans to become civically engaged and politically active. Fan activism is also evident in an online capacity with similarly profound effects. For example, 4Chan, originally a manga and anime fandom community generated memes and spread them across the Internet. Among the creations was the Obama 'Joker' imagery that was used in the Tea Party's campaign's against 'Obamacare'.

Jeremy Lin's performances on the basketball court during the 2011-2012 NBA season captured the imagination of fan's worldwide. Lin became the first ever American of Taiwanese of Chinese descent and the first Harvard graduate in nearly 50 years to play in the NBA, and, unexpectedly led his team; the New York Knicks to a winning streak, helping them make the playoffs. His on-court success generated the global following known as 'Linsanity', where fans attach his surname to coin popular catchphrases such as 'Lincredible' instead of incredible, 'Linning' instead of winning, "Super Lintendo" instead of Super Nintendo, 'Linvestment' instead of investment. The internet derived term, 'Linsanity' has also translated into marketing success for Lin with brands such as Nike, New Era, Adidas, Ben & Jerry's and Volvo using the phrase to promote their products.