TBH brands probably have more power in creating memes than regular people do. A lot of memes were probably started by brands, such as the spongebob textbook math about footlongs infinitely approaching free as you buy more.
Sorry beforehand for the intrusive politics, but it’s kind of unavoidable for me in this case.
This is almost a textbook example of the Marxist concept of alienation. Once a brand takes over a meme, people are alienated from
- the meme itself - because nobody wants to sound like an ad board
- from the creative process behind the meme - because creating a new meme gets that sour taste in the mouth, as you feel that corporations might hijack it
- from human nature and themselves - because memes are a form of self-expression
- from each other - because memes are intrinsically social and it’s yet another social link being removed by the corporation hijacking the meme
You…think Marx invented the concept of alienation?
The fact that the word “alienation” already existed doesn’t mean Marx didn’t have a specific theory about alienation in specific contexts that ended being pretty influential for philosophy. Like, holy shit, Marx’s theory of alienation isn’t obscure. Do a minimum of research before spouting ignorant bullshit.
Yes! He also invented airplanes, internet shitposting, Santa Klaus, and Brezeln.
I’m joking of course. No, he didn’t invent the concept, he took it from Hegel. However that specific usage of the concept is the one from Marxism.
I swear I can find an applicable Marx excerpt for almost anything. His work has strengthened my anti-capitalist conversations a ton.
Well, that’s what you get when an old style journalist has a knack for philosophy. I heavily recommend his texts, even to non-communists - not as some sort of political proselytism from my part, but because the content is useful/interesting even if you aren’t a communist, you know?
Maybe because people keep attributing concepts that have been around for thousands of years to him lol
Multiple people can have their own variations of a critique. Crisis Theory is a good example.
I’d say the outcome is alienation; the process as the comic demonstrates it is a kind of recuperation, the process through which ideas (especially subversive or dangerous ones) are neutered and commodified.
This is what I hate about the homunculi of twitter company personalities. “Hahaa, did you see the way Walmart clapped back at IBM?“ Humanizing vast, faceless companies puppeted by sociopathic business majors triggers every rage response that my body can muster. Please, shut the fuck up
Why are you on Twitter?
I’m allowed to hate things I’m not part of. My silent malice does little to dissuade folks from posting examples to lemmy
I’ll start believing brands are people when they start getting jailed for their (numerous) crimes.
If every MBA on the planet were suddenly teleported to Planet MBA…would anyone really miss them?
You could make a religion out of that
No, dont
Hail LinkedIn, full of grace.
hollowed be thy name…
Not sure if typo, but hilariously accurate
Make sure not to unknowingly send the telephone cleaners too.
There goes the planet…
unrelated but “the homunculus of Twitter” is a good nickname for Elon
Now I’m having visions of the high priestess X’twitterquatl sacrificing Mayan children on a pyramid as lightning flashes in an attempt to animate their engine of destruction; The Homonculus of X’twitter.
People propagate this though. Company twitter accounts posting derivative meme shit is what people reshare. Most people consider Apple/Tesla/Pelaton/Nintendo to be their buddies and love it when their buddy seems like a down to earth, regular guy. It’s cringe.
i wish they would all act like the faceless industrial complexes out there
you don’t see this from stuff like Caterpillar
[Off-topic] Your display name is hilarious. It reminds me old viruses with double extensions, like hotpix.jpg.vbs
Damn, that got me! I was about to comment being like “woah! We get threads here?” when I finally noticed.
I think Boobzilla is an excellent one
Thanks, I always hope people get a little giggle out of the momentary confusion. I’m surprised whenever people are legitimately fooled. Just click my name, I’m @gullible, you silly billies!
I assume its not showing your set name on voyager?
I don’t want anyone to miss out on the fun. WolfdadCigarette@threads.net@sh.itjust.works should be what’s visible. Out of curiosity, does voyager offer the ability to change your display name?
Ok. Thats why I’m not getting it. I just see WolfdadCigarette@threads.net
And thats it.
Shows like this on jerboa
It appears to be on the feature todo list
Ah! The threads.net tag, nice.
Doesn’t seem to have the option to change or set one
Ohhey a fellow Voyager user!
I was also missing out on all the fun :/ lol
Why is Voyager like this? People are missing out some brilliant user names.
Like your reference to the meme? It’s a rather cool way to do it through emojis.
Can’t say I came up with it. I think I saw it on /r/collapse first.
You got me last week, I did a double-take.
Show me where Walmart hurt you.
Points to the desolate wasteland of dead small businesses and underpaid workers subsisting on welfare unable to even afford shopping at walmart
You guys really need to have some effective government that will enact normal minimal wage and anti monopoly laws. But I wonder if the most people are poor then why they don’t vote for a party that represents them and wants to raise or set minimum wage (whichever applies)?
The logic says that everyone should vote for someone that will better their conditions and yet it looks like there’s some weird shit going on where only well off, rich people vote left. It’s completely backwards
I vote left too and classic example of this and honestly I think I won’t next time cause it is not in my interest. Though centrist party here would probably be something like warren in USA
But I wonder if the most people are poor then why they don’t vote for a party that represents them and wants to raise or set minimum wage (whichever applies)?
People won’t vote for them because they “can’t win”, and they can’t win because people won’t vote for them. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle.
Consider 3 candidates running for president right now: Jill Stein, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump. Jill Stein has a platform of raising the minimum wage, healthcare guaranteed as a human right, and a bunch of other awesome stuff. Harris has almost no platform at all, but she has vibes. And Trump wants to have a Christian dictatorship and deport millions of people.
Stein is the only one of these 3 candidates who wants to raise the minimum wage, but she’s only polling at 1%, and people don’t want to vote for her because they’re afraid that Trump will win.
I understand but still it is hilarious when people blame some Walmart of all things as a consequence. The evil Walmart regime
Is email a meme? Was the telephone a meme?
Don’t walk away guys! Use that shit, send me more spam! I love spam! Yes I would like a cruise to the Bahamas. Yes I would love to make over 2 million from the comfort of my home while loosing weight using wegovy! Please send me that virus! Oh you wanna serve your own email server to get out of Gmail? Nah, that’s impossible! Pay them 15 bucks a month! It’s worth it!
RIP email, and part for the soul of the telephone… telephone, we hardly knew you! First with your spin dial. I did 1 call with spin dial. Then your 3inch stroke push buttons, then your 0.01" stroke push buttons, then your virtual capacitance glass buttons…and then puff! He was gone.
I think they died as memes.
Old fags remember rule: don’t share memes with normies, it will kill a meme.
Please, watch out for context.
In 4chan there’s context to interpret your usage of “old fag” as “site veteran”. But we are not in 4chan - here it’s simply a slur targetting a marginalised group of people.
Old what now?
Nothing, don’t worry about it.
For context, “fag” is used as a form of endearment on 4Chan, instead of a slur. It’s not meant to be hateful in this context.
I thought everything about 4chan was meant to be hateful.
Seriously, after the whole Pizzagate thing, that site became such a shitshow I never went back.
cigarettes
or maybe kindling
Found a Youth!
4 Chan relic
Please, around here we say “elderly homosexual”
Then everything dies down … the corps eventually figure out the no one likes the meme anymore so they toss the meme out too…
… Time passes …
… then someone new finds this old meme again and it reappears as a new meme once again.
Then the cycle starts again.
If by “time passes” you mean like 100 years, then sure!
Waiting for the CEO of Disney to try to sell the Live Action remake of Coco by exclaiming that “his name Jeff” and then fail to understand why nobody liked that, to which he’ll respond by cancelling something popular on Disney+ and greenlighting the worst fucking thing ever to take its place.
(RIP Willow and Acolyte)
Or something Star Wars
IT HAS BEEN [ 0 ] DAYS SINCE LAST STAR WARS GREENLIGHT
I went to my city’s pride parade 10 years ago and this past year, huge difference. Everything is commercial and expensive now and it’s just full of corporate floats
But they were all of them deceived, for another meme was made…
This makes me wonder: what exactly happened to the Coffin Dance meme, was it assimilated by some brand so to fell in disuse? Did the Coffin Dance guys danced with the Coffin Dance meme’s coffin?
Same thing that happened to the Harlem shake
Not sure those are one-to-one. I remember just about every local news station doing the Harlem Shake, but as far as I can tell not one has reenacted the coffin dance (but I’d love to be proven wrong).
Wasn’t Mr Peanut killed for that and was a huge thing? https://media.tenor.com/RK_kAumki6YAAAAC/dance-coffin.gif
It became a Fortnite emote at one point. Or maybe it was PUBG. I forget. But shortly afterwards that was the end of that.
Why do people expect something to be funny forever? Most memes are barely funny in context. Then they are ironically funny, and then they find a place on Facebook where they spend eternity. Why are le rage comic not funny? People loved them. People who post memes now were like 4 when rage comics were cool.
Trends in general, be it fashion or hit music or whatever, come and go. It’s human nature. Memes follow the same pattern so they fall out of style/out of heavy use after a while.
Does anyone remember a similar comic about Twitter a decade ago?
This is the way things go. If enough people come to one place order use one medium, it becomes a target for businesses who will squeeze it to death. Enough people listening to radio and this broadcast is brought by… New site that people start to use? Time to insert some corporate messages.
