CHAPTER II REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE The story of memes is crucial to the understanding of the digital culture, and not only onl y as characteristics of an Internet subculture, but as a cultural artifact that is gaining new meaning and function as it is breaking more and more into the mainstream. Borzsei (2013) states that the technological, sociological and cultural reason for the emergence of Internet meme culture was so prevalent today. His research focused on remixed remixed Internet Memes that is collaborative, absurdist humor in multimedia forms. The term “meme” with the emergence of o f the Internet was also applied to content con tent that spread from user to user online. Shortly, memes was c onsisting of inside funny jokes. In fact, memes were generated to show the cultural counter part of the genes. Its primary meaning was supposed to signify “a unit of cultural transmission or a or a unit of imitation.” (Dawkins,1976) (Dawkins,1976) Internet meme is a piece of culture, typically t ypically a joke, which gains influence through online transmission – transmission – considered considered as the first definition of Internet meme was proposed by Patrick Davidson (2009). According to Brodie (1996), he claims that “memetics has uncovered the existence of viruses of the mind”, which which are infectious piece of our culture that spread rapidly throughout the population, altering people‟s thoughts a nd lives.” One lives.” One of the earliest internet memes was the emoticon (Davidson). Smiley quickly spread to other communities and it soon became a meme. meme. The “sideways smiley face” composed entirely entirely of punctuation marks was created on 19 September 1982 by Scott E. Fahlman. Emoticons display many definite characteristics of Internet memes in a very minimalistic form. Thus, these emoticons became a vehicle in communicating certain ideas Next to the emoticons is experimentation with technology was the website Bert Is Is Evil, which hosts images that can be considered co nsidered examples of the first modern remixed Internet meme. It was created by Dino Ignacio 1997, he is a Filipino artist and designer. Due to the Photoshop‟s accessibility (as a creative tool) it resulted in increasing number of private images appearing online, right at the meme community‟s communit y‟s disposal. The two famous instances Advice Dog and LOLcats are both said to originate from 2006, and they proved very ve ry influential in shaping today‟s meme culture. Evolving memes were the vehicle mostly for online jokes with little to no serious content (Rushkoff 68). ). In the early 2010 s, the Internet meme is one of the ways people are addressing such issues. Internet memes also became a tool for lightening a political issues. . Some of the memes were used to illustrate a particular political statement according to their beliefs. Sometimes it was used to deliver political issues issues in a light approach using internet memes. This only shows the creative way of o f delivering such issues and bringing it to norms as a one way of expression. “Not everything that lies in the heart of every living thing are not a fire, not no t a warm breath, breath, nor a “spark of life” But it is the information, words and instructions”, Richard Dawkins
declared in 1986. Dawkins coined the term meme in his book, “The Selfish Gene”; memes was originally used to describe packets of cultural information that was adopted by the internet. Memetics was a theory of mental content based on analogy popularly recognized with Darwinian evolution originates on Richard Dawkin‟s book of “Selfish Gene” in 1976. It was an approach to the cultural information transfer. His examples was composed of catch y ideas in form of behavior, styles, beliefs, tunes, catch-phrases, fashion etc. As a matter of fact, a meme is an idea that is imitated spreading from person to person within a culture or subculture by a process p rocess of transmission that is mediated. An internet meme is a reduced idea that are imitated and spread rapidly “from person p erson to person” via internet via internet largely through internet-based email, blogs, forums, image-boards, social networking sites, instant messaging, and video streaming sites (Brunello 2012). Eventuall y, internet memes are becoming the spoken language into to the online community. It is now part of our ou r living, this can be greatly recognize as a part of the word of mouth that people tends to share and use as a new form of language. In 2012, the Internet memes have become a part of vocabulary for internet users, and undoubtedly, one of the most widespread modes of online communication, and it is not only the emoticon anymore. Actually, these are virus of the mind that is based on everyday-creativity e veryday-creativity agency that make them evolve e volve through the creative works of individuals th at are present today. However, memes gained a peculiar form, namely of images, catchphrases and videos that consist of a particular catchy idea that reify an active agent in the pursuit of replication. According to Professors Knobel and Lankshear, Dawkins posited that memes were “substantial evolutionary model of cultural development and change grounded in the replication of ideas, knowledge, and other cultural information through imitation and transfer.” Hence, it is not only the replicability replicability that needs to be taken into int o consideration when analyzing a meme‟s success, but also its remixing qualities. A study conducted by Knobel and Lankshear in 2007 focused on internet memes defines them as a “catchy” and widely propagated ideas or phenomena; it was generated out of the networks of shared interests, experiences, habits and worldviews. Their ap proach focused on memes cultural phenomena. By means of content and discourse analysis anal ysis they investigate some of the most popular internet-memes. The outcome revealed that fecundity is improved when meme mutates, as when people contribute to their own version. According to Patel, memes memes are “recognizable, bounded phenomena that that have material effects in the world and that can be scrutinized,” and which develop through the production of additional copies. He mentioned the three attributes that influence replicability which are fidelity, fecundity, and longevity. Fecundity refers to the degree of reproduction and dissemination of a meme; successful memes must achieve a high degree deg ree of fecundity. Longevity is also a ke y element of replicability because the longer a meme exists, the more recognized it becomes, and this recognition in turn enables easier reproduction, mutation, and dissemination Thus, an
Internet meme, like the meme described by b y Dawkins, evolves through imitation, reproduction, and mutation. It is this constant spread and alteration that makes Internet memes so popular. To keep up an internet culture, one must show an alternative of communication, a costeffective way of mass advertising to improve students‟ media literacy the study of study of signs/symbols (Kariko 2013). Through this, we are able to generate a new meaning. Memes contain humor, universal emotions, social message, cultural message, political message etc. A study condu cted by Kariko (2013) states that through internet memes, people are capable in teaching a language in the most effective way. The Independent The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/) (http://www.independent.co.uk/) reports that studying memes and their cultural impact has now become a legitimate area of research for some institutions of higher learning. The study deals with the semiotic meaning o f internet memes, on how the image and the caption are used to create meanings to provide p rovide entertainment to user; accompanied with variety of texts to create meanings that provide universal emotions (Kariko 2013). Sometimes, these captions only serve as a joke and entertainment purposes. This study dwells on the context of the caption of specific memes and analyzes each on how it produces different meanings. To sum it all up, internet meme serves as a humorous way wa y of delivering fun with context, words, images, meanings, symbols, culture, popular culture, etc. The fact that it only needs an image of something or someone accompanied with a caption/text can generate different meanings. This memes can be interpreted and customized anyway the user wants it (Kariko 2013). Image macro is a kind of Internet meme that start with an a n image and theme, such as “Bad Luck Brian,” “Good Guy Greg,” or “Philosoraptor”. The year 2000s saw the development of highly internet-specific meme production techniques especially image macros. Entering the digital age, we can‟t deny the fact that internet memes are becoming part of our vocabulary. According to Sean Rintel, one of the earliest forms of online memes was image mac ro – ro – it it is a picture with superimposed text; the etymology of the name „image macro‟ is important to the basic concept of templating and how online memes themselves came to be successful. According to Quickmeme, users are versatile in their meme us: the y combine memes, they make them evolve with different pictures or concepts, they use one meme against others. The meme me me is successful to the extent that people participate b y making more versions (Burgess 2008). Nevertheless, there similar things that can be observed with Internet memes, they are created, reproduce by millions of enthusiast around the world.
