Well, I’ve been enjoying Ann’s memes, but I didn’t
really know what a meme was until she started posting them. So, I just assumed that a meme was a picture
with a funny or social commentary-type-of caption. After reading this chapter, I now realize that
these pictures are memes, but there are also more to memes than just pictures. According to Knobel & Lankshear (2006),
memes include “popular tunes, catchphrases, clothing fashions, architectural
styles, ways of doing things, icons, jingles, and the like” (p. 199). Further, Knobel & Lankshear (2006) define
memes as “contagious patterns of ‘cultural information’ that get passed from
mind to mind and directly generate and shape the mindsets and significant forms
of behavior and actions of a social group.
I was shocked to learn that memes go all the way back to ideas from
geneticist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. Dawkins documented
three key characteristics of successful memes: Fidelity, Fecundity, Longevity
(I’ll address these terms in my glossary).
Knobel & Lankshear (2006) identify “three patterns of
characteristics that are likely to contribute to the meme’s fecundity:
·
Some element of humor, ranging from the quirky
and offbeat, to potty humor, to the bizarrely funny, to parodies, through to
the acerbically ironic, and/or
·
A rich kind of intertextuality, such as wry
cross-references to different everyday and popular culture events, icons or
phenomena, and/or
·
Anomalous juxtapositions, usually of images. (p.
209)
I do believe that memes could be used in an English
classroom. One thing I was thinking
about was the whole stated vs. implied main idea that we have to teach
students. Students often have a very
difficult time addressing that within a text, and I feel like a meme might be a
nice baby-step into that skill. Also,
this chapter mentions using memes to promote discussion, especially when the
use of the meme is controversial…such as Dog Poop Girl, the Star Wars Kid, or Blackpeopleloveus.com.
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