6/6 Andrew Boyd's and Ricardo Dominguez's Readings

6/6 Angel Truong’s Andrew Boyd’s and Ricardo Dominguez’s Readings Journal
            This week’s readings ties to a recent phenomenon where people are using memes and the internet to spread message that are political and meaningful. Boyd’s article defines memes as a political organization or media viruses that spread to ideas that go against ideologies. From learning this information, the idea of memes today can be transformed to a more sophisticated and critical manner. Today, memes are deemed immature or entertaining online trends that have taken over many of the millennial lives. Although on the outside they may seem innocent images, but they really are comedic reliefs that can hold political ideas. An example would be Spongebob Squarepants memes that are deemed related-able to most college students and teenagers because it is an iconic character in their generation that makes fun of real life struggles they face. A specific example would be “the mocking Spongebob” meme where there’s a deformed version of Spongebob bending down in a mocking position. This image is spread online with captions such as “Me: Tuition and books are expensive, FASFA: TuItIon aNd BOoks aRE ExPenSIVe”. This image actually protests against high tuition cost in college and the lack of funds toward education from the government which relates to more political issues such as education, capitalism, and neoliberalism. Therefore, relating to Dominguez’s readings about how messages and ideas are being published more online displays the emphasis of spreading knowledge online as forms of cultural resistance. The article also emphasizes the different strategies that can get people’s attention. Therefore, funny memes such as Spongebob ones are more likely to go viral but it is actually a form of everyday resistance where the meme itself carries a subtle message of cultural power and political issues within society. In the end, although online media is helping spread direct protests and message against the social hierarchy and political struggles, popular cultural elements such as memes, can be more than just a trivial trend.


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