Read Limor Shifman’s essay ‘The Cultural Logic of Photo-Based Meme Genres’ in Journal of Visual Culture, December 2014, Vol.13(3), pp.340–58, at Link 4 (1)
Shifman believes that meme genres might help us to understand digital culture better. I agree with this belief but am not sure that his paper helps to support this theory. As with many of these papers it makes a simple idea unnecessarily complicated.
The author sets out to discuss Photo-based memes on the Internet. He first defines an Internet meme as a group of digital items that have a similar content are created with an awareness of each other, and that are circulated, imitated and transformed via the Internet. A meme genre he describes as a collection of collections. These genre collections are continually growing and expanding. They grow in a top down and in a, mundane, bottom up fashion. Memes seem to follow a fairly limited set of formulations.
The paper focuses on three types of genre: reaction Photoshops, stock character macros and photo fads. The three types of genre share three basic qualities: one aspect, the signifier, is magnified (hypersignification), the photo is there to be reused and further distributed (prospective orientation) and it can be worked on (operability). In all cases the photo can be de-constructed and re-constructed. The image can be staged. This removes all notion of truthfulness in photos. One example given is of the constructed image of a Hungarian man (Tourist Guy), at the Twin Towers, just as the plane is about to crash into the building. He then appears in dozens of other images. What is the point of these images I wonder? In most of these memes the main ‘character’ is easy to cut and paste from the original photo. I do understand the politically ‘posed’ situations that go viral as memes. I remember being struck by all the television crowd images of Tony Blair, during his electioneering that had at least one person of colour included. I imagine if such a person was not available then one would have been ‘photoshoped’ in.
In the stock photo macros the hypersignification comes in the form of stereotyping. These seem, to me, to be the most unpleasant as they perpetuate bias against certain groups. The images used are either taken from or imitate agency stock photos of what advertising agencies use: a black business man, a housewife, a happy family etc. They normally have added text.
Of the three genres mentioned above the latter, photo fads, is the most idiotic. The example given is of people photographing themselves with their head stuck in a freezer. I looked at a number of others (2). The titles of the photos seem to carry the message. How would anyone find this even vaguely amusing? The author offers the explanation that maybe those involved just want to be part of a group, the herd mentality. He goes on to suggest that in some of the cases political criticism or covering up of racism might be the point of the meme.
I like the idea of the fluidity of photos online today. They are not frozen in aspic but can be part of an ever developing sequence of different versions. He describes it as a prospective orientation.
All of this ‘movement’ and ‘manipulation’ is only possible by the availability of digital manipulation tools and the willingness of Internet users to participate and work together.
The global Occupy movement made extensive use of images. In ‘Occupy the Image’ Liam Devlin discusses the image of US police officer John Pike, who was originally photographed pepper-spraying a group of protestors at the University of California in 2011. Pike has become an internet meme; cut out of the original photograph, he has found his way into various famous images of conflict and struggle and other celebrated artworks. Link 5
The image of the US police officer spraying pepper in the eyes of peacefully protesting student is used to investigate and or demonstrate whether photography can contribute to a more balanced debate on democracy. Can we finally liberate ourselves from the long debated view about the authenticity and truthfulness of photographs and use images to expand and enhance the political debate? Nothing has ever been gained by holding on to outmoded beliefs.
The Occupy movement, and more recent I would add the Gilets Jaunes movement, are using citizen photography to make their point and to point to heavy handed treatment by authorities. The ubiquity of smart phones, computers and social media sites have facilitated distribution of images. There is no rigid hierarchical structure rather the interchange is based on equality. Everyone can have their say. But with the recent work of Astra Taylor the moment seems to be refining itself somewhat. She does not believe that such a movement can progress without some sort of structure and defined goals. (3)
When Pike, the US officer who sprayed he pepper in the eyes of the students, was recorded photographically by citizen photographers these Images could be distributed freely. Professional photographer would have had to have their images passed editorially. Editors are restricted by all manner of constraints so the images might never have seen the light of day. But the site distributing the citizen images of the event are under no such constraints and have published additional information about the event.
Pike has been cut out, with varying degrees of technical skill, of the original image and inserted into all sorts of other events where he is sent to spray an array of characters. The point is to open the debate about the behaviour of the authorities.
- Liam Devlin: Occupy The Image | Use/Re-Use | Either / And. 2019. Liam Devlin: Occupy The Image | Use/Re-Use | Either / And. [ONLINE] Available at: http://eitherand.org/usere-use/occupy-image/. [Accessed 12 May 2019].
- Lifewire. 2019. What Are Internet Memes and Where Did They Come From?. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.lifewire.com/what-are-internet-memes-3486448. [Accessed 13 May 2019].
- The Guardian. 2019. ‘People are finally talking about class’: Astra Taylor on US democracy, socialism and revolution | Film | The Guardian. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/apr/17/people-are-finally-talking-about-class-astra-taylor-on-us-democracy-socialism-and-revolution. [Accessed 14 May 2019].
Digital Image & Culture 