{"id":21746,"date":"2016-10-14T10:45:48","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T14:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=21746"},"modified":"2016-10-14T10:45:48","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T14:45:48","slug":"memes-markets-and-metaphors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2016\/10\/14\/memes-markets-and-metaphors\/","title":{"rendered":"Memes, Markets, and Metaphors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"v5luyklqann-y5vpu71usp72nxfehzdxgp_rhmawfha\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Credit<\/a>: \/u\/megapenguinx<\/em><\/p>\n

When I first encountered the subreddit me_irl<\/a> it was, in general, about two things: anxiety and communism. I hit the subscribe button so fast I sprained my finger. Since then, me_irl has changed a bit, though anxiety and communism are still central topics. But over the last year or so, the sub has become a bit more\u2026 meme-ey. Or may may-ey, depending on your dialect. Me_irl has increasingly consolidated around short-lived memes, and in June \/u\/thoompa noticed that memes had a shelf life of approximately one month. Thus was born the \u201cmeme of the month\u201d idea, and all through September some great memes lived high on the hog, getting large numbers of upvotes and creating a self-referential circle jerk that gave new texture to the sub.<\/p>\n

\"calendar\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Credit<\/a>: \/u\/thoompa<\/em><\/p>\n

But then, tragedy struck. For the first six days in October, no memes rose to preeminence. It became known as the Great Meme Drought of October, when chaos reigned and dankness was few and far between. Some users tried to prop up The Bear In The Big Blue House as the new MotM, but others saw this as farce, for that meme was not fresh enough. Then, the skeletons arrived, thus sparking the Great Meme Civil War of 2016.<\/p>\n

\"meme-civil-war\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Credit<\/a>:\u00a0\/u\/Fyrus93<\/em><\/p>\n

But out of this chaos, a curious thing happened. A deluge of memes flooded me_irl. One day, it was Goosebumps, the next The Crusade and trebuchets, then Bionicle and Ken Bone and on and on. A new meme came to power each day, mirroring the instability that has followed civil wars throughout history. Some found it frustrating\u2014they couldn\u2019t keep up, the memes were changing too rapidly. Some said they were low-quality Facebook memes. But others heralded it as The October Meme Renaissance of 2016.\"october-meme-renaissance\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Credit<\/a>:\u00a0\/u\/nochangelinghere<\/em><\/p>\n

What fascinates me most about the turmoil in me_irl the last two weeks is not the memes themselves, though many of them are dank. But it is the explanatory model that dominated discussions about the Meme Renaissance that deserves attention here. The prevailing metaphor used to explain the rapid change of popular memes is one that we often fall back on to explain complex phenomena under late capitalism: the market. Specifically, the \u201crise and fall\u201d or \u201cinstability\u201d of memes is being couched in the metaphor of the stock market. Memers \u201cinvest\u201d in Ken Bone or \u201csell off shares\u201d in The Bear In The Big Blue House. They \u201cdiversify their portfolio\u201d of memes to keep up with the constant changes happening in me_irl. \/u\/DryAsphalt has accused me_irl of ushering in \u201cthe biggest global meme crash and recession<\/a>\u201d in modern history. \u00a0It should be noted that this accusation was made on the new and rapidly growing subreddit MemeEconomy<\/a>, created on September 28th<\/sup> and hitting 10,000 subscribers today.<\/p>\n

MemeEconomy is a place for memers to sort out the disturbing questions that have arisen in the wake of me_irl\u2019s Renaissance. \/u\/BaseballRJP writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The fact that we have become self aware of the market’s fluctuations and that we have started to question the relevancy of memes without blindly shitposting comes to show how much the meta has changed. Experts can’t tell if the market is booming, or crashing. Is there sustainable growth? Is this new meta going to last? Is this new meta even VIABLE? These questions make you wonder: is it time to regulate the market? I’m a firm believer in laissez memeire, but times have drastically changed. We say the freer the market the freer the people, but with all this pressure on the market are we truly free? It’s just a matter of time before the bubble pops. Right?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two elements of the market metaphor\u2019s role in the Renaissance are striking: First, the depth of metaphorical analysis is incredible. If you take some time to scroll through posts, you will find long theoretical discussions of the evolution and transformation of memes over time that use both the vocabulary of actually-existing market trade as well as new vocabulary mimicking the style<\/em> of stock market lingo: NasDANQ, meme-broker, and a whole host of stock-style acronyms for memes (MRSK for Mr. Skeltal and 3S5M for 3spooky5me). The extent to which posts and comments are embedded in stock market discourse is remarkeable, even more so given that, as far as I can tell, the 4th<\/sup> wall is never<\/em> broken.<\/p>\n

Second is the parodic nature of the metaphor. The whole discourse is a wink and a nudge. If someone reading the posts had never heard of a meme it might seem entirely serious, and for someone who knows what a meme is but has no context of recent events it may be practically unintelligible. But the discourse is so self-aware and deftly performed that it reveals the absurdity of market metaphors at large.<\/p>\n

We use the market as a metaphor for countless things under late capitalism: being \u201con the market\u201d in dating, entering the \u201cmarket of ideas,\u201d competing for clicks and views in the \u201cattention economy.\u201d The free market is an \u201cideology\u201d in Stuart Hall\u2019s sense of the word; it is one of the \u201cpractical as well as theoretical knowledges which enable people to \u2018figure out\u2019 society\u201d and understand their social position in it. The market has become an explanatory model for a wide variety of human experiences, structuring our understanding of the world in a way that would be impossible under a different economic system.<\/p>\n

In Metaphors We Live By<\/em>, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson argue that we think and communicate with metaphors at a deep cognitive level. Metaphors are not just a means of explanation or description. Rather, \u201chuman thought processes<\/em> are largely metaphorical.\u201d We \u201cfall in love\u201d and \u201coffer our 2 cents;\u201d we \u201cbuy in\u201d and \u201csell out.\u201d \u00a0The metaphors we use also reveal deep-seated cultural values and norms. As Lakoff and Johnson write, \u201ccultural assumptions, values, and attitudes are not a conceptual overlay which we may or may not place upon experience as we choose. It would be more correct to say that all experience is cultural through and through, that we experience our \u2018world\u2019 in such a way that our culture is already present in the very experience itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has taken me an embarrassingly enormous amount of time and attention to understanding exactly what\u2019s been happening on me_irl over the last few weeks. And while the stock market metaphor isn\u2019t explanatory for the Renaissance as a social phenomenon\u2014an explanation I have sought but not quite found\u2014it does have its own explanatory power. What is \u201cinvestment\u201d in a meme economy? It\u2019s mostly time: time spent making content, keeping up with trends, scrolling through posts and upvoting or downvoting based not only on personal preference but on one\u2019s knowledge of what is current<\/em>. The market metaphor doesn\u2019t explain why<\/em> me_irl went off the rails this month, but it does offer some scaffolding for understanding the current state of meme affairs.<\/p>\n

I argued earlier that the market metaphor in this context is parody, but that\u2019s only partly true. It does seem to also contain a genuine attempt to understand the recent events summarized here, as well as the strange and complex ways that memes circulate more generally. It\u2019s revealing that after a decade of rehashing the 2008 housing market collapse, the recession, and the fear of the impending student loan collapse and instability to come, the \u201cmeme market\u201d is being described in terms of \u201cbubbles\u201d and \u201cbusts,\u201d of \u201cbuying shares in Mr. Skeltal\u201d and Pepe being a stable investment despite his recent fall from grace<\/a>. We\u2019re enveloped in the discourse of the market. It is a key ideological tool that we use to explain things that we cannot understand. It is a metaphor that we live by. Personally, I find that a bit spoopy.<\/p>\n

Britney is on Twitter<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Credit: \/u\/megapenguinx When I first encountered the subreddit me_irl it was, in general, about two things: anxiety and communism. I hit the subscribe button so fast I sprained my finger. Since then, me_irl has changed a bit, though anxiety and communism are still central topics. But over the last year or so, the sub has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1931,"featured_media":21747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2016\/10\/v5luYKLQanN-y5Vpu71UsP72NXfEHZdXgp_RHmAWfhA.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1931"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21751,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21746\/revisions\/21751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}