This photo, originally from ChrisL_AK's flickr profile, explains social media through donuts. More interestingly, it explains how something even more simple than a meme is transformed only through social media sites and not the entire internet. The simple idea of a donut--a simple food that is familiar to us all--is expressed in varying ways through different social media venues. Because each venue serves a different purpose and targets a different audience, the message or idea is altered only slightly so that it satisfies both its audience and purpose. An example of this is apparent through the transformation the "donut" idea took when it was altered to secure the interest of Pinterest users. Pinterest users are typically categorized as women who are interested in crafts, makeup, fashion, and cooking recipes. Because of the last stated interest, "donut" is transformed into "Here's a donut recipe" in order to fit the profile for a typical Pinterest user, who searches for recipes through the website.
This image suggests that a more complicated idea might transform even more dramatically across the mentioned social media websites. Not only this, but it helps one understand why a meme, a piece of information easily and often purposefully transformed through communication, is altered so severely as it travels the entirety of the internet. If an identical idea is transformed when it is simply moved from one website to another, an idea not intended to remain identical will transform in much greater ways once internet users may access it.
Sports are more than just the game that is played. Sports are a politicized arena where tactical decisions are made that influence more than those playing the game.
In February, the 2011 NBA MVP, Derrick Rose, signed a $185 million sponsorship deal with Adidas. This deal was reached with a purpose of helping Adidas compete with Nike in the U.S. basketball shoe market. Nike currently dominates this market thanks to the popular (Michael) Jordan brand, as well as endorsements by Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Durant.
However, Adidas' dreams came crashing down when Derrick Rose suffered a torn ACL in the first playoff game of the offseason against the Philadelphia 76ers. Rose is now out for the remainder of the playoffs. But that's not even the worst news for Adidas. Rose was scheduled to play in the 2012 summer Olympics in London, but will now be sidelined. This is a huge blow to Adidas, as they were counting on Rose's endorsement at the biggest sporting event in the world to showcase their brand. The Olympics will now be full of Nike endorsements from some of the biggest names in basketball. Adidas faces the challenge of building their brand without a superstar behind it.
This just goes to show how fast circumstances can change, and how being prepared for adversity is the key to success, both on and off the court. How Adidas overcomes this setback will determine a great deal about the future strength of their brand image as well as their race against Nike. So yes, there is more to sports than just the game that is played.
I have identified the world's most unfortunate (and fortunate at the same time) sportscaster. During a live broadcast, an inexperienced, behind the scenes worker accidentally set the teleprompter to fast forward, so reporter Brian Collins had to improv his segment of the show. The link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W45DRy7M1no
After stuttering through these fast paced lines, Collins had to take matters into his own hands. He proceeded to make up his own lines and kept the show from coming to a sputtering halt. His most recognized line is when he is analyzing an Indiana Pacers basketball game. A pass comes to Pacers star, Reggie Miller, and Collins says, "Gets it to the man, and boom goes the dynamite," as the shot goes through the hoop. This proves to be a long lasting remark, as there is now footage of this news clip all over the Internet titled "Boom Goes the Dynamite." With increased popularity, Collins became more recognized among viewers and fans.
Perhaps his biggest break was when he received a contract with a high end news studio, who took notice of Brian after this video spread. Even though this very unlucky event happened on a local news network, Collins hit the jackpot by thinking quick on his feet and gave his broadcasting career the boost it needed. One day he was stumbling through a report, waiting for his time to finally come to an end. Then his unfortunate affair went viral, and boom went the dynamite.
Invisible Children, the makers of the film KONY 2012, have released a second video, a followup to the first, called KONY 2012: Part II. Their purpose in making the 20-minute film is to explain the campaign to rid the world of Joseph Kony, Ugandan war criminal and kidnaper, by the end of 2012. The video takes a closer look at the solutions offered by leaders of communities affected by Kony's crimes and child abduction.
However, the video seems like more of a reaction to the widespread criticism of the first video rather than a real attempt to continue their campaign.
Part II starts off with a montage of clips from news sources, such as CNN, and other media that criticize Invisible Children and their KONY 2012 video. These sources call the first video "naive" and argue that it "manipulates the facts" to emotionally blackmail its audience into blind action against a warlord they have only seen in a 30-minute clip made by a shady nonprofit organization. The second video, just as the first, relies heavily on pathos, showing images of suffering children and painting portraits of suffering communities. To add some ethos, an Invisible Children narrator follows the montage by saying that Invisible Children has created the second video to explain the first. Invisible Children spokespeople admit they need to explain themselves. But in reality, this really doesn't add ethos--it subtracts from their credibility because it looks they are now trying to cover their tracks and mobilize people to "informed action," rather than just riding the hype of the latest social media trend, which the first video did in less than a day. The second video has garnered just over 300,000 hits in a day, significantly less than the first Kony video, indicating that the KONY 2012 trend was just that--a passing fad.
Is anyone still paying attention to Kony? It doesn't seem like it. And that's unfortunate, because whether Invisible Children is honest or manipulative or not, they have a point--people are suffering half a world away, and the rest of the world needs to be aware.
So the other day I came across an old German commercial that I thought was hilarious, and I decided to analyze the rhetorical devices that made it so entertaining.
This commercial relies heavily on pathos in order
to convey its message. The commercial starts off with a father and his son at a
grocery store, when the boy puts a bag of sweets into the shopping cart and the
father puts the bag back onto the shelf. This back and forth happens several
times until the boy responds with every parent’s nightmare, a tantrum in a
public area.
For the first 35 seconds of
the 40 seconds commercial, the viewer still has no idea what product is being
advertised. Finally after the store is littered with products flung off
the shelf by the boy, the camera zooms in on the father’s humiliated faces and
two words appear, “Use Condoms.” The commercial capitalizes on the juxtaposition
of a serious situation and comedic relief.
Everyone is able to relate to this
situation even if they are not a parent, because everyone has either been in a
situation where have witnessed an out of control child or even been the child
throwing the tantrum. The pathos in this commercial emerges in the form of
annoyance towards the child, sympathy for the father, and finally a small
chuckle when the two words fade into picture.
Kevin Alloca, the trend manager of YouTube, has observed reasons behind the peculiar nature of viral videos. He has found three key trends he has found among certain videos that go viral that are not present in those that fall flat. The three are: tastemakers, communities of participation, and unexpectedness.
The first, "tastemakers," suggests that a person of influence or someone with a large following mentions the video at some point. For example, when Jimmy Kimmel mentioned the now famous "Double Rainbow" video in a tweet, the video's views increased dramatically, and Kimmel later featured the star on his talk show.
The second trend seen among viral videos takes a more community approach. Once the original video gains a following, the viewers often create spin-offs of the video, which creates somewhat of an "inside joke" between previously unrelated viewers. The Nyan Cat, which was spun-off to reflect several different cultures and moods, and Rebecca Black's "Friday" music video, which was reiterated in several response videos when viewers created songs for every other day of the week, are two examples Alloca explains in his TED Talk.
Unexpectedness, the third trend, is perhaps the
sole reason we found the video interesting to begin with. If not for an element of surprise, why would Jimmy Kimmel want to tweet about it? Why would we create our own iteration of a video displaying someone drinking a glass of water with their caesar salad? The surprise makes us want to share, and that is where it begins.
If you looked at Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube on March 6, you know who Joseph Kony is.
The nonprofit organization Invisible Children posted a video called KONY 2012 about Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony, who has abducted tens of thousands of children over the past 30 years to become soldiers in the rebel group Lord's Resistance Army. The video went viral in less than a day, spreading across the vast Internet world. It capitalizes on the power of social media by urging viewers to keep sharing the video, hoping to make Kony famous and bring his crimes to justice by year's end.
The video relies heavily on the use of pathos to make its emotional claim that Kony's terrible crimes should be stopped by Internet-users-turned-activists. It inspires emotional responses of outrage, compassion, anger, and even fear from its audiences as they watch the horrors that face Kony's child soldiers. The Daily What calls it "emotional blackmail." The video also relies on ethos. Throughout the video, celebrity speakers, such as George Clooney, add credibility to the campaign's goal of stopping Kony.
However, all is not as it seems. KONY 2012 did garner millions of supporters as it went viral, but the nonprofit behind the video is not exactly using donors' money wisely. According to The Daily What, Invisible Children has been criticized by the Better Business Bureau for failing to make its financial records public, which is what nonprofits should do, and only 31% of donations go to actually helping people.
We'll just have to wait till the end of 2012 to see if the KONY 2012 campaign reaches its goal of ridding the world of its "worst" war criminal.
With midterms upon us and Spring Break looming I found this image to be a comforting, yet humorous beacon of hope for all of us college students. Britney Spears claim to infamy skyrocketed after her 2007 meltdown, which constituted her to shave her head and then attack paparazzi with an umbrella. Although a mental breakdown is no laughing matter, we can always leave it to the Internet to turn a tragedy into a viral motivational poster for the masses. Hey, if Britney can, so can you! -Michelle Sereno
"'I have to do my dishes by hand': Outrageous quotes of Wall Street bankers struggling to get by on $350,000 a year"
This is the headline of a recent article outlining the causes and immediate effects of high-end bankers having their bonuses cut, and having to depend on their $350,000 salaries to provide. I chose this because I felt it was a more real world example of my meme project, "First World Problems."
Not only does this look terrible from a third world perspective, but even the "average Joe" living in a first world country, enjoying many of the luxuries that we have here, rolls his eyes at this. Fact of the matter is that the "First World Problems" memes are tame enough to poke fun at superficial inconveniences in life, such as needing to turn off the light, but you're too comfortable lying in bed, or you used your last skip on Pandora, and the next song is even worse than the one before. But this makes these so-called complaints sound joyful, as these bankers seem to have some misaligned priorities. It makes the everyday person wonder, “Where has the common sense gone?”
It will be interesting to see how much more notoriety these individuals receive as a repercussion for these bold statements. Also, it makes me wonder how long it will be until another instance like this one comes up; maybe people will learn a lesson from this.
This past Sunday was the 84th Annual Academy Awards, a place for the movie industry to come together and celebrate themselves and their accomplishments for three hours. If you're anything like me, Oscars fashion is the real show. My TV was tuned into E!'s Red Carpet coverage that entire afternoon. The Oscars are notorious for handsome men in tailored tuxes and beautiful women in gorgeous couture gowns. This year, one person, or at least that person's limb, stole the show.
Angelina Jolie wowed in this revealing gown. Buzz circled the gown's sultry slit, so much so that Angie's leg now has it's own Twitter. The feed is basically a commentary on the attention-getting aspect of Jolie's ensemble, which I think can be transcended to the entire spotlight-seeking aspect of events such as these.
I think this just goes to show how something so frivolously insignificant can take on a life of it's own and develop some sort of deeper meaning.
Since we started talking about ethos, pathos, and logos in class and how
they are used in a variety of things for different purposes, I started thinking
about where I could have possibly seen them being used. I immediately thought
of several commercials. One brand name that effectively uses these three
methods is Gatorade. Above is one of the advertisements for Gatorade's G
Series, which consists of three drinks meant to be ingested by the athlete
before, during, and after each game.
This particular ad uses ethos through the use of famous athletes. The ad
shows three famous athletes drinking the product. By having those athletes
endorse the product, the credibility of the product is established because the
consumers will think that the product is effective since the former are also
drinking it. It also utilizes pathos by showing pictures of the athletes
energized while “in action”, which in turn makes the audience think that if
they consume the product, they will be as energized as the athletes shown.
The use of ethos, pathos, and logos is very effective in promoting a product
because in some way or another, it makes the said product relatable to the
audience or consumer. In the ad above, Gatorade does a good job in promoting
its G Series.
In October of 2011, the sports world was thrown for a loop when Tim Tebow became the starting quarterback for the Denver Broncos. He produced impressive fourth quarter comebacks and openly expressed his faith, and suddenly he was all anyone could talk about. Most of Tebow's initial popularity stemmed from the fact that few people believed in him and that he wasn't expected to win as many games as he did. The viral fad of "Tebowing" took over the internet, and Tebow became the successful underdog in sports.
Fast forward to February 2012, and a new sports star has emerged, only this time it's in basketball. Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks has taken the world by storm: he began as an undrafted player and when he got his chance to start for the Knicks, he capitalized on the opportunity by helping his struggling team win seven games in a row. Lin is a young Asian American who, like Tebow, credits his faith in keeping him true to himself. Now a new viral phenomenon has emerged: Linsanity.
The comparisons between Tebow and Lin are numerous, for more reasons than one. They both took an underdog team and carried them on their backs, stayed humbled, and remembered their roots through their sudden fame. Only time will tell if the Linsanity movement outlasts Tebowing, and if Lin can help the Knicks make a push to the playoffs.
Within the past week, I have noticed my newsfeed being flooded by a new Facebook page called "UTexas Memes." This especially caught my attention because of our heavy focus on memes in the class. After looking at a lot of them, I noticed that there are specific types of memes that keep getting repeated, such as the ones with the Willy Wonka guy and others with the "Y U No" Meme. I felt that this really related to the class because it is full of memes (what we are studying) and especially because it is taking place on our campus. All of the memes are talking about issues and things we notice everyday around UT.
