I hope you enjoy this video on what memes are and how they are evolving in our digital age! I’ve dubbed myself a meme connoisseur in the past few years. I have maybe over a thousand memes on my phone. This was a super fun video to make and I hope you learn something about memes and find it entertaining!!!
Here are some other links if you are interested 🙂
Script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b4hA3lK9pAtMZIUAnWfItKT6Y4SV-LXzFUc7VJsDffQ/edit?usp=sharing
Video and Audio clips: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b4hA3lK9pAtMZIUAnWfItKT6Y4SV-LXzFUc7VJsDffQ/edit?usp=sharing
MEMES AND PHOTOS DIRECTORY: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IT612j3LhTbhwfWt3HVzC3sih0VETq1WntlTopzNB0k/edit
Sam,
Excellent work! It was very cool to see your final product after watching you develop your ideas throughout the semester. Early on in the peer review process, I remember you feeling a bit unsure about creating a video essay for this research project. After watching your video, it is clear to me that you made the right decision. It was fun enough seeing the various examples of memes that you compiled into this video, but simultaneously listening to your essay was an added bonus. The video essay format was perfect for your topic. Your video also felt very polished. I genuinely felt like I could have seen this video while scrolling through YouTube. Your videomaking skills were definitely on full display. Apkon would be proud!
I especially enjoyed the “Memes in Politics” section of the video. I found it fascinating to here those poll statistics. 54% of teens aged 13-17 receive their news from social media. I really don’t know how to feel about that. In one way, I feel like this is unsurprising. Yet it definitely scares me to think that news can come from pretty much anyone with an Instagram account. While I feel that social media is a great way for eye-witness accounts to be shared, it also worries me that anyone can claim to be a reliable news source as long as they have an audience. This theme relates back to some of our earliest discussions in the class. Who should really be considered an author? How has the internet changed what we know?
It was also interesting to hear about the Winnie the Pooh example and how a simple meme can start a movement. It says a lot that the Chinese government ultimately banned the meme. This fact alone demonstrates just how powerful memes can be. This was a great point to make after our book group discussion.
Overall, it was a pleasure watching your video. It had a great balance of visuals, audio/video clips, memes, and narration. In addition, you did an excellent job of revisiting many of the major themes of this class. Thank you for sharing!
Hey Sam,
I’m in love with your video!!! You did such a great job compiling different sources for your final piece. The conglomeration of videos, audio, and memes was well-balanced and kept the viewer entertained (which I definitely was; your choice of memes was fantastic). I enjoyed that you began the video with the history of memes. Although we make and share them very frequently, I can’t say that many know where they originated and how long they’ve actually been around for (the meme from the 1921 newspaper was a pleasant surprise). Taking the time to discuss the progression of memes helped depict them as their own genre. As most others, I tend to take memes for granted; however, your project helped teach me the significance that they can have in our society, such as within the umbrella movement and investments (a part of me is propelled to buy some crypto now lol).
In regard to the format of your piece, as I mentioned before, your incorporation of different media kept the video intriguing. One thing that I think could be adjusted was the music behind your voiceover. In the beginning, I felt that it was a bit difficult to hear and wished that you changed the background music to complement what you were saying. Pausing the audio and using different samples could’ve helped place emphasis on certain parts of your speech to add suspense and keep the viewer attentive. Otherwise, I really enjoyed watching your video. Great work! 🙂
This was an awesome video and very entertaining way for an audience to consume the information you were presenting on! I can only imagine how long it took you to compile all of the videos, pictures, and audio into the format you did. My favorite part was the transition slides, the fully blacked out ones with a few words and light music behind it. As you stated in your video, people are easily distracted and lose attention, but the transitions were able to bring the audience’s attention back to the video. With videos over 5 minutes, people are quick to grab their phone and lose focus, but when there is a change from someone speaking to quite music, the attention is refocused.
Honestly, when thinking of memes, I do not think about the purpose they serve, I just laugh and keep scrolling. However, as shown in your video they can have a larger impact such as in politics. I especially never correlated memes to movements. Could memes be seen as propaganda, depending on how they are crafted? Your project definitely made me reflect more on the impacts that memes can have.
Sam,
I enjoyed watching your video and found the format fits your content perfectly. The TV screen framing of the images and memes you choose to include was creative and visually pleasing. Also, the inclusion of memes that matched your points, such as the “Don’t mess with me. I’m unpredictable” meme reflecting your idea that memes trends evolve spontaneously, was humorous. The fast paced, comedic nature of your project reflects your topic well. Your project showcases your literacy in meme culture and visual communication.
I agree with your claim that memes are very powerful units of culture, and you defend this claim effectively. Your discussion of impact of memes on politics, protest behavior, people’s consumption of news, and even financial markets proved to me how important it is to study memes. One can even see this importance in marketing. Memes have become effective tools for advertising with many companies investing heavily in their social media presence. I’m sure one could make an hours long video about all the ways memes have been changing our society.
Great project!
Excellent video. I like how you brought up the “expectation vs reality” memes. I thought that it was a recent trend, but seeing a similar meme from 1921 is crazy!! I also enjoyed how the memes went along to the voice over. It gave your presentation a humorous vibe. You brought up the point where anything can become a meme. This is quite funny because a close friend of mine actually became a meme. My friend one day randomly posted himself lifting and he is known as “phrog man” on tik Tok.
I also liked how you discussed the usage of memes in social movements. Not only do memes bring joy and laughter, it is another tool to spread a message. While discussing memes in politics, I drew a correlation to political cartoons. Political cartoons are also light hearted illustrations that can spread a message. Would you consider political cartoons a form of meme?
Hi Sam,
I really loved watching your video. This must have taken you a very long time to finish, but I think it is completely worth it. I really liked how many examples you included. Almost everything you said had a meme to accompany it. I also liked the music you chose in the background. It helped show what emotions you wanted us to feel at each moment.
The memes you chose really helped to enhance your video. I found myself laughing at some and intrigued by others. Some of my favorites were the expectation vs reality and doge. I never really considered the background of the doge meme. I just remember that it became very popular almost over night. I also liked how you included the voices of the two professors that you cited. It was a great idea to actually hear them in the video.
Memes are everywhere today. I remember in high school I had a few teachers that would put memes on their powerpoints to try to engage the class. I found this strange at the time, but I now understand why they did it. It must have worked if I am able to remember it today.
Overall, you made a really good project!
Hi Sam,
I loved how the video turned out and how informative it was with the use of information from sources while at the same time allowing the use of visual cues to help compliment the information. I also liked how you used a wide variety of memes and showed how memes have changed throughout the years with the use of meme calendars. I also liked the use of the troll face as an example of how memes may come and go since we have seen this firsthand where it becomes popular and then dies out and all of a sudden, a few months later, it starts becoming popular again. This trend definitely relates to a lot of memes and in conjunction with that, this trend made me think of Tiktok trends as well since this pattern relates to them as well.
Hey Sam,
I was a huge fan of the format of your project and I think by far it has been the most captivating one that I viewed. The “explained” video format just seems so easy to follow it is one of the reasons why I get caught an hour long youtube recommended binges in the middle of the night. I was also fanatic of your utilization of the original audio clips from the speakers you quoted. Hearing the voices of the original speakers seems more personal than just reading a block quote in the middle of a page; in my opinion their points seem more clear when the personality of their voices is able to thrive. I think this is a super original and effective way to use the points of other in support of yours. Overall I loved your project, great work!
Hi Sam,
It was a pleasure to watch your video and may I say, your editing skills are to be applauded! By including many different examples as you kept talking about your topic was definitely one way to keep the attention of viewers. I’ve never been one to really understand the humor of memes and have found some of them to be more appalling than humorous, such as the troll face. I feel as though that the troll face has been recreated throughout time and some of them remind me of the movie “Saw.” However, after learning more about memes, I learned the true meaning behind why memes are so powerful and have the ability to stick around.
Like you mentioned, memes are constantly recycled with new content generated in the same template. I found it particularly interesting that while you can see the same meme again and again, the different contexts created by many users still maintain the humor behind it. Furthermore, I also liked how you mentioned memes as a source of impact. I agree that because memes are so widely distributed if someone were to spread information about a political event, they could do it through a meme. Whether or not others will take it as a joke or with seriousness, I’m not sure. I guess that’s a feature only memes can execute.
Overall, great job on your project and I’m really glad you decided to present the information in the form of a video. It left me feeling relaxed and if anything, more intrigued to learn about memes. Those 13 minutes ended in a blink of an eye!
This was such a great video, Sam! This felt like any other informational youtube video I would watch with 100,000 plus views, you should be very proud of this project!
I am so impressed by how easily digestible you were able to make all the information. I also wrote about memes (though in a different context) and I found it difficult to write about and not use a visual reference for everything I was writing about. I think the youtube video was an excellent choice of presenting your research. I can see where this topic really benefits from being presented in an audio-visual format. The only improvement I can see to make would be to cite your sources in the video description. I always get frustrated when creators don’t cite their research and think this is a major pitfall to youtube and a reason why people don’t consider youtube videos a valid form of research.
The video editing was well done. I liked how everything was shown on a TV screen, so it made it feel like the information was broadcasted to the audience. One thing that I found very surprising was that a cryptocurrency was created based off of a dog from a meme. It’s even more surprising that people actually bought the cryptocurrency. This shows that memes make a bigger impact on our lives than we thought. Also, I liked how some memes were shown to help transition from topic to topic or just went with what was being narrated, making the video easy to follow and fun at the same time.
It’s so exciting to see another meme connoisseur in our class, there’s so many of us now. I loved the format of your video essay. It was delightful to watch and learn about memes in the process. It’s a good format to talk about memes because at its core, memes are meant to be consumed quickly and then we move along to the next one. It doesn’t make much sense when needing to present a whole bunch of them to just dump them all into a document and have the reader wade through all of them. It makes much more sense to use the format you have here, which allows for flexibility in visual information, and snappy editing to keep the viewer engaged.
I liked the portion where you talked about memes in a political context. It relates to some other projects in this portfolio, but memes are so important because they have two parts, the form and the message. Oftentimes memes will convey a meaning alongside the form that gets internalized by the reader if left unchecked. We must be vigilant to make sure our messaging is accurate and does not contribute to misinformation. I love the spot where you talk about news literacy and how memes can play a part in our understanding of the news.
I really like that you made a video for your project. It was very interesting and engaging to follow. It was an entertaining way to present all the information about memes. I agree with you that memes are very powerful in today’s culture. You talked about the impact of memes on politics, news, and protests. I feel that people get a lot of information on news through memes but these memes can be misinformation sometimes too. Memes are very easily spread and if a meme has misinformation on it, then it can be potentially dangerous. I too got a lot of information on news from memes on Instagram during quarantine. I found information about covid, but this wasn’t the right way to get information. Memes definitely do have a big impact on society and your project really made me reflect on it.
Sam,
Great work on your project. I really liked how you touched upon memes being an iteration of other memes. The same pattern is evident in TikTok videos or Instagram reels where people repeat trends over and over again. I would love to see this observation explored further. Why do these memes/videos become so viral if they are all essentially playing at the same joke? How long can these iterations repeat until they “get old”? As you mentioned in your video, we get bored easily. And in this digital age, that attention span is only becoming more and more limited. And what makes them “come back alive”?
It really is crazy how influential memes can be. Especially during the recent election, I recall all sorts of memes regarding both parties that blew up on social media. Do you think meme creators may ever face legal consequences If a meme spreads false information?
Sam,
For starters, I loved the meme calendar, mainly because it feels so similar to Spotify wrapped, where it’s a recap of what was popular throughout the year. However, the fact that there is so much meme turnover means that we easily forget and discard memes of the previous month in favor of the new meme of the month. It’s almost like we need a recap in order to remember everything that was in the zeitgeist at any moment in time. I also wanted to commend you for having the bravery to make a video essay. Since we were both in the Apkon book group, I think it was really great of you to take the lessons that he taught to heart and use them in your project. I found your video to be really engaging and entertaining. You have impeccable taste in memes and I thought your music selection was subtle. It was supplementary and not distracting (shoutout to Apkon, especially when he says that audio can make or break your video!) I think that for most of the people in our generation, memes have been such a big part of their internet experience, and you represented that sentiment really well in your video.