Memes

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-will-survive

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sites/cracked#2017-layoffs

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/155109-college-freshman

1. How does each meme relate to your topic and target audience?
   1. The first meme is a dark humor meme talking about the struggles and stress that students go through when dealing with the transition to college. A lot of students like to say they are fine, and just give face to people who ask how their doing but in reality they are actually struggles inside in so many different ways. The second meme is a fun play on an actual logo called “CRACKED,” which is supposed to be a funny play expressing how college students struggle so much with their majors and what they want to in their life and the stress can just be so much that students just crack. The last meme is also a funny meme which talks about how the stress of college finals are so stressful that they have to compromise their health in order to get through the semester.
2. In Davison’s framework, what are the ‘ideals’ of your chosen memes? (Cite Davison) Davison explains the ideals of memes as “the concept or idea conveyed. The ideal dictates the behavior, which in turn creates the manifestation. If the manifestation is a funny image of a cat and the behavior is using software to make it, then the ideal is something like “cats are funny”” (Davinson, 123).The idea behind the memes that were chosen were meant to represent the absurd change and hardships college students go through with little or no awareness of what they are getting into when entering college or the workload. The memes play a sarcastic humorous message portraying this.
3. What are the “behaviors” of your identified memes? Where do they originate, and how do they spread? (Cite the Know Your Meme database)
   1. when thinking about the behaviors of memes, ““the behavior of a meme is the action taken by an individual in service of the meme. The behavior of the meme creates the manifestation. For instance, if the behavior is photographing a cat and manipulating that photograph with software, the manifestation this creates is the ordered progression of pixels subsequently uploaded to the Internet” (Davison, 123). The memes are originated from the site http://knowyourmeme.com.  They spread by popularity which ends in people sharing it over the internet. The relevancy of the meme is what generates the spread.

4. What are the “manifestations” of your chosen memes, and how are they different from other possible manifestations?

Based on Davidson’s words within the text, “its observable, external phenomena. It is the set of objects created by the meme, the records of its existence. It indicates any arrangement of physical particles in time and space that are the direct result of the reality of the meme” (Davinson, 123).  The manifestations of my memes involve comedy, college culture, college struggle, and sarcasm. These can be different from other manifestations based on how people choose to present the meme. Some memes are funny, some are serious, some are educational, etc.

 

5. Conclude by considering how the specific manifestations you have chosen can appeal to your target audience.

The manifestations I have chosen will appeal to my audience because it addresses the issue and it addresses it in a funny way. My target audience is college students, so humor sells within this demographic. Also, college students just generally love memes.