Memes: October 4.

There are hundreds of examples of memetic information on the Internet. Many of them are hilarious; others, disturbing; some, a little of both. We're looking at some of the more popular examples as we try to extrapolate a theory about what becomes popular and why it does.

First, let's look at the case study from earlier in the week again. We'll discuss why a site like the one created by this author only lasts a certain amount of time (memetically dies out) and why others -- the one below, for example -- seem to be gaining in strength with time.

Lolcats
- The original site
- The original picture (Patient Zero)
- A great article in The Wall Street Journal about the memetic longevity of lolcats

All Your Base Are Belong to Us
- Time article
- USA Today: Why would a line from an old game suddenly catch on? Who knows?"One of the great things about the Internet is it creates this," Schatz says. "Somebody grabs something out of the past and turns it into a phenomenon."

The Tourist Guy
- Debunked

Chuck Norris Facts
- Chuck Norris (possibly) not identifying irony when he sees it

Christopher Walken for President*

Bert Is Evil
- Life imitates art (and another article on this)

Tay Zonday's Chocolate Rain

Badger Badger Badger

The Hamster Dance (original)

The Hamster Dance (nowadays)

Dancing Banana / Peanut Butter Jelly Time
- The interesting thing here is that the school server recognizese an attempt to view this animation as an attempt to view "Pornography/Adult Content" or something "Obscene/Tasteless." Remember that this is an animation of a dancing banana singing, "Peanut butter jelly time!" And remember that censorship is often clumsy.

*I bought this one. Completely bought it. I was ready to sign up to get the guy elected, and it in an only slightly ironic way.

Memetic fame, here we come!

Kids,

For your blog this week, you simply need to update with a third post. Next week, we will introduce commenting; the article hyperlinked in the post below this one is required by that time (but not now, so quitcher worrying).

For now, let's read about memes, Internet phenomena, and why it's not a good idea to leave embarassing video footage lying around -- metaphorically speaking or not.

Start here:

The Meme Epidemic: A Case Study

Trust me; even if you don't understand everything here, you will pick up enough background for our purposes.

Now to the Brits:

It's all in the memes

Read that article, too. Remember, if you don't understand the concept behind this information, it doesn't matter how funny a guy lip-synching to Romanian pop is.

Now let's look at a few repositories of information and a couple of websites devoted to tracking memetic developments on the Web.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Internet memes. It gives us a working vocabulary for types, although we'll add a few over the next few days.

Here is a site that actually lets us vote memes into existence: MemeVote.com. Take a look at what's on here.

Finally, the best site for current Internet trends in this regard (although it only tracks viral videos, those are the most prominent kind of meme in play nowadays): Viral Video Chart. This site tracks the number of views, links, and so on; notice what's popular right now, and we'll begin to discuss what it is that makes a video more viral than others.

In class, we will watch the most popular viral videos of all time, discuss their contents, and try to extrapolate a theory about this kind of popularity. We will look at trends, but we will also discuss how we -- as a class -- might create and propagate our own Internet meme.

Get to reading,

Mr. Eure

Fame and fortune.

The following article is a supplement to your semester blogs. You are to read it before the end of this week, when you will be asked to comment on a few classmates' blogs.

All-Stars of the Clever Riposte

For Monday.

Today, Friday the 28th, you should finish the censorship activity posted below this entry. You also have time to update your blog for this weekend's check.

We will be back in the classroom on Monday, when we will hold our discussion on censorship. Tuesday will see us in our first seminar. After Tuesday, we will wind down our study of the Internet before moving on to our second unit.

[expletive deleted]

The following link is to a document on my BHS website. This is your assignment for today's class and (probably) tomorrow's class; we may switch things up to accomodate our first seminar, but this entire guided tour is due.

Censorship on the World Wide Web

I will explain our schedule -- when we are in the lab and when we will be back in the classroom -- today during the period.

Blogs and blog things.

Dear Class,

Looking at your grades to this point, and anxiously awaiting your scores on tomorrow's quiz, I have reached a decision.

I can't accept late work from you, obviously, and I can't extend deadlines for you. I also can't offer extra credit. I can, however, make you the following deal:

If you are concerned about your grade (realizing that I'll be meeting with many of you while you're doing lab work on Wednesday to discuss grades), and if you get all of your work in on time and complete for the rest of the quarter, then I will drop your lowest grade.

That's not your lowest score, either. I will drop the lowest complete grade you have earned. If you missed a blog post, for example, and ended up with a 70 or lower because of it, you have the opportunity to make that grade disappear. If you forgot to turn in your data sheet, or if those early checks were late, and you ended up with a failing grade because of it, you have the opportunity to make that grade disappear.

To drop your lowest grade, you can't slip up at all for the next five weeks. Got it?

Mr. Eure

The to-do list grew thin.

To the left you will now find 17 of the blogs created by your classmates. I am proud of many of you -- you are already doing very well with this assignment.

Important reminder!

You may not post pictures of yourselves to your blogs. If you post a picture of yourself to your blog, you will not receive credit for the blog itself. This rule is designed to keep your World Wide Web presence as anonymous and protected as possible. You may, of course, put as much of your personality and perspective into your profile and posts as you wish; just remember to use your best judgment.

Note: Even if you have created a separate blog from the one you will maintain for this class, be careful that no one can reach that blog through your school one; if that is the case, you will be asked to delete the secondary blog.

Blogging into next week.

If you owe me a URL, email it before Sunday night. This applies to at least three of you, and it applies even to the individual who appears to have inexplicably spent Friday's class in the library. Sunday night, I will enter each blog into a list on this, the class' blog, and I will give you all a simple yes/no grade for having completed the following:

- the creation of your blog
- the completion of your profile (leaving out the restricted information about your location, identity, etc)
- the completion of an initial post introducing your blog and its focus

You and I will revisit this long-term assignment on Monday. I will demonstrate how to add images, links, etc to your blogs. You will also be responsible for adding all of your classmates' blogs to a list on yours by the end of next week.

At the same time, we will be moving forward in our study of the Internet. You will have a quiz on last week's lectures and notes, and we will look at search engine bias, Internet privacy, and the culture of e-speak.

We will also finalize many of the seminar presentation topics. Our first pair will present at the end of this upcoming week; I will discuss the process with all of you on Monday.

Internet Background.

The following link is to a Word document that contains a collection of information about the Internet and the World Wide Web. This comes from class discussion, my own notes, and then from the relatively few homework assignments I received. (Helpful hint: Not doing homework results in a zero, and zero's hurt your grade.)

A Little About Them Internets

You'll notice that it's a bit of background, a bit about URLs and web pages, and a smattering of statistics. You can't learn everything about this, so learn what's here.

I'll give you a heads-up before any quizzes, but expect one before too long. We are still setting up our blogs all this week, and then we are taking a look at a few other things; but the unit will only last another two weeks or so.

Harken, children!

This will help you:

NY Times: Blogs 101

It's an overview of blogging with a couple of great links to search engines. It also has blogs separated by genre, if you're looking for a second one for your assignment.