At first, I didn’t really know what to expect from this class.

I walked into the class, sat down, and listened to the first lecture and for the most part, my thoughts consisted of, “Hey, he looks like Jeff Bezos”

And I also thought about this speech from Metal Gear Rising: Revengence about Memes at some point in class.

But I started to think about a lot of the stuff we were going to do.  The internet, whether for better or worse, is a home for me.

It’s my connection to the outside world outside of school and work.  It’s a place where I market, host, and promote my work

So I figured this class was fitting for a lot of the things I wanted to do especially when it came to my number-centric work.

I think a cool thing I learned later in the course was all the alternate free sites used for making Gifs.

Normally I would make them on Adobe Premiere but I was reminded of the fact that there are many free alternatives to the adobe products I used.  

It was nice to teach people how to make Gifs with Gifs and I wish more tutorial pages were like that.

In Assignment 3, I was able to divulge why I think Memes are an art form and what makes them special. I think that making memes as a means to tell a story during Assignment 1 helped me understand the potential for using Memetic language to communicate an idea. 

I got to photoshop myself into a historical photo which challenged my photoshop skills a lot and taught me how to use certain filters more effectively. 

I left the class with not one but two sites.

The first site I made was my MMM Page

I explained why it felt so minimal during assignment 5 but to summarize I felt so conditioned to make everything slick and simple as to synchronize with the current state of the internet that when it came time to maximize I struggled to figure out what to do.

The last site I made is very important. The process of making it was surprisingly easy to a point.

Naming my site after my brand was simple enough. I didn’t have many other ideas.

At first, making the site was difficult. My goal was to place one of my two series on the site.

I really struggled to do what I wanted to do for my website.  The key to hopping the learning curve though was so easy I was practically upset by the fact I didn’t do it sooner.

Typing in WordPress and Webcomic I found a plugin called Toocheke and a tutorial on how to use it which made transferring my series far easier.

 

I feel like this site is the most important thing to come of this class so far because it can serve as a place to consolidate and archive my work if something were to happen to it on the other platforms I occupy.

I think because I handed in the final so late I probably deserve a grade between an A and a B. 

I thought I had done this assessment already but somehow I didn’t. I’m taking two classes with Ryan which are both a blast so I think my brain is fusing the two together.

 

As I explained in the Mid-Term assessment. I feel like I grew in my skills in terms of blogging and found a perfect balance when it comes to the usage of memes and Gifs.

I successfully create a website to host my series. I responded to as many posts as I can and giving feedback. 

 

If you saw my previous post, you’d know that WordPress was quite difficult to use for me.

The interface was quite foreign and complex to me and I was stuck for a while.

But I also said that I’d be able to overcome it and I totally did.

My goal was simple; my goal was to put my comic series onto the website and I did but it certainly wasn’t easy.

I had a hard time determining what the issue was. 

I kept hopping from theme to theme to find the right one to make my webcomic.

And I think once I found my theme, things started to finally move.

And it all started when I typed in a variety of phrases involving WordPress and Webcomics.  And I was greeted with a tutorial and a theme for my work. 

Toocheke was my theme and it matched perfectly with what I wanted. Immediately I had to erase a lot of my progress and start from scratch and I managed to come up with a website that I’m starting to feel pride in.

I updated my front page to show my most recent work and made a menu for my different series. Most importantly I imported my entire series to my website which was proof that I can make my own site to host my comics.

I felt really happy. I thought long-term about this decision. 

If my work ever gets taken down or if any of the sites I host my work on just randomly shuts down, I now have a place of my own to go to. 

I don’t have to put all of my work on my portfolio site. I can put it on my own website and leave my portfolio as a separate entity.

I have to have a certain threshold of followers before I can get monetized but with this website, I can just apply for an Adsense account.

There are a lot of ways this website can make my life easier and I am so glad that I was able to get it to work.

…for the most part. 

I already knew my domain name from the get-go so putting it in and registering it wasn’t an issue. 

First I had to go on Reclaim Hosting and verify if my domain name was in use. Once it was confirmed that it wasn’t I had to register and pay using the professor’s code.

Once that was done I had to confirm the order through an email link.

The issue was learning how to use an entire platform to make a place to host my comics independently. Go to my website now and you may be greeted currently with this

 

Now if this worries you, well me, too.

  I’m so used to sites like wix.com that this current format is a bit of a learning curve.

One that, quite frankly, I’d be able to overcome but I may need a bit more time and practice to master everything.

Right now, my goals are to set up menus for my work, put disclaimers up before reading the comics, and make the user interface as easy to use as I possibly can.

I saw a section on word press where I can use HTML so hopefully, I can brush up on my skills so can figure out how to make the site better.

I’m going to have to binge a lot of tutorial videos and learn the limits when it comes to images.

 

I’m not very good with naming things, lot of my art pieces aren’t titled, and if they are they’re usually given very basic names unless I’ve thought of something very good.

But surprisingly it was pretty easy for me to title my site ‘ethanedwardsdotart’ however I’ve also considered using “ethanedwards.art”, “ethanedwards.comic”, “ethanedwardsdotcomics”, and “ethanedwardsdotcenteral”. 

I mainly considered these names because they are all part of my personal brand. My Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and other social media platforms are given that name. 

I want to use this site to consolidate all my work but not in the same way I use my portfolio but more in a way that a streaming service like Disney+ would consolidate their work.

Unlike Disney+, my work will still remain on other platforms. I won’t post illustrations on this site, mostly comics and other things. 

Hopefully, without the restrictions of webcomic hosting sites, I can post my stories in high quality and even with limited censorship and alterations. 

I’m pretty excited about this, I’ve been meaning to do this for a while because, in the event that my work is unavailable on those sites, I need a place where I can have them up. 

It’s almost like a contingency plan incase maybe these sites go down or I get locked out of my account.

I can also monetize my website and have ads on my site without having to wait for the platforms on that I post my work to give me eligibility for monetization.

I’m very critical of myself, so gauging how I’m doing in class is going to be difficult without being too hard on myself. I think so far I’m doing good, I think my knowledge of the internet has helped me learn and use a lot of the sites we need to use in class. I think a skill I developed is using memes, gifs, stickers, etc. For years, I have been very conservative with the usage of memes and gifs on a lot of my documents. I think I did this for the sake of professionalism, adhering to social norms, and my knowledge of internet subcultures.

I think memes can age a project really quickly due to the concept of meme expiration. Memes have a peaking period during their lifespan before dipping off in popularity and entering into obscurity. Thats why it’s difficult to watch internet-centered horror movies or dramas, it seems like it’s trying to appeal to young people or internet users while not understanding the assets they’re using or not having the knowledge of how to use those assets. So I didn’t want to seem like I was overcompensating with the usage of digital assets like memes, gifs, stickers, or emojis. Like most things, a tactical usage of memes can enhance a project and even tell a story.

 

I can rate myself based on the syllabus requirements. I can ask myself if I’m following the requirements to the best of my ability. I can also ask if I’m exceeding those requirements to the best of my ability and ask myself what I offer to the class. I can also ask myself if I learned anything. One of the things I learned that I thought was pretty cool was that GIFs are quite ancient and older than even the internet itself. It was really something I found interesting and puts everything into perspective. If I were to give myself a grade, it would be an A minus. I am very critical of my work and sometimes I wonder if I’m doing good or not, often it’s hard to tell because I know that I can disengage with reality and often lose self-awareness so it really helps to have other people look at my work and comment.

I think my work can get more creative after this. I think it’s a matter of being more liberal with my technology, rather than being minimalistic and utilitarian. I think creativity and control are both aspects of an artist that need to be balanced and sometimes my creativity can be damped by my need to control the narrative that my work conveys. So hopefully in the future, my website can be a lot more lively and I can build on an aesthetic.

I think a core inspiration or more like an overpowering influence when creating this site was modern websites. I think the internet in general has become a clean, utilitarian, corporate space.

A lot of sites are about professionalism and a minimalistic futuristic design at the cost of personality.

In the 1990s and 2000s when the internet was rising in popularity a lot of sites were not like that. They were fun, expressive, and had goofy, hyper-stimulating backgrounds.

 

Even social media sites like myspace and even youtube had customizable backgrounds and themes for your page.

In retrospect sometimes these designs can come off as hyperstimulating and cringy but despite that, all of them now seem simultaneously nostalgic and even refreshing compared to the white or black modern minimalist space.

And so when designing my own personal site it was difficult to put together a site with so much personality when you so well adapted to making monotonous, utilitarian websites that serve a purpose rather than convey a personality.

A lot of this mixed in with my own dry and cynical persona to make a site trying to have personality but ultimately failing. I only thought about making a portfolio site, a liminal site serving as a gateway to my artwork and social media sites while also adding a puzzle-like aspect to my work.

I made three pages within my site. The first was the main page, the second was a slightly cryptic about me section and the third was a synopsis of a character I made.

There are also links to a song, my webcomics, my social media platforms, and my portfolio. Overall I think I did a pretty decent job but hopefully, I can squeeze out more creativity from my neurons and add more things to the website.

I challenge everyone to explore the site and find as much as you can.

The projects I chose were The Forrest Gump Project and the create photos with words project. The create photos with words project is where you describe a photo in place of the photo itself.

I think this is important because I have always had trouble communicating so writing out what I see would be a much-needed challenge.

Obviously, I need to expand my vocabulary and be more specific when I work so it’s something that can be very useful to me as a communicator and as a storyteller.

Another project I’m working on is the Forrest Gump Project which is a project where the creator has to put themselves into a historical image.

Obviously, this will be a great test of my photoshop abilities. I would have to color correct, position, and mask myself into a historical image correctly.

As a person who wants to use photoshop frequently in their career, I think this would be very important for me to learn.

Here’s how I did this project;

Step 1: I downloaded one image and took the other from my gallery.

This is one I downloaded

and this flattering image of myself I got from my gallery, I don’t know why I took this but this is a perfect image for this project.

Step 2:

I cropped myself in the image, cut myself out of the photo, and pasted it in front of the image for the project.

 

Step 3:

I used the Pen tool in order to trace myself, probably not the best option because I converted the path into a selection. I should have used the lasso tool but I’d spent a lot of time sculpting  out the selection

Step 4:

Next, I created a layer mask that immediately crops the selection. Now my background is gone.

Step Five

I converted the image of myself into a smart object and converted the image of myself to grayscale.

Step 6:

I positioned myself in the location where I wanted to be.

Step 7:

I put another mask on my image and NOW was when I decided to use the lasso tool to crop most of my body out and used the eraser tool to make myself look like I’m behind those two gentlemen.

Step 8:

And now I’m done, right? No, because I need to make myself more immersive. I decided to add an adjustment layer and use it as a clipping mask on the image of myself. This adjustment layer was for adjusting curves which changed the tones of the image of myself, making me look like I was actually in the image.

 

And that’s how I helped the Allies win World War 2

This is quite an interesting yet taboo debate starter.

I feel like a lot of internet users would probably roll their eyes, and a lot of no internet users would tilt their heads in.

Some younger artists would probably shrug and say “Yeah” but some older artists will snort and hold an elitist position before saying “Absolutely not”.

I think our opinions on this question are based on generation and perspective.

If you talked to a person in ancient Greece they’d say writing is a destructive concept and will never be considered an art form like oral linguistics.

If you talked to a painter at the dawn of the photograph they will say photography is derivative and will never be an art form like painting.

Even today many artists don’t consider video games an art form.

This argument is new, yet the fundamentals of it are nearly as old as history itself.

Memes, in general are a means of  spreading cultural information spread through imitation.

The term was first used in a book called “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins.

If any of you readers play a lot of video games I feel like you’ve heard of this terminology from somewhere else.

Since Memes are units of information that could be spread through ideas, behaviors and actions, Internet Memes an extension of this idea.

They spread units of cultural information, through images, text, and even sound.

You can often find all of these combining.

In that sense, Internet Memes take units of cultural information and spread them.

I think that Memes are an unappreciated form of art closely related to collage art which people also are on the fence about as an art form.

I define art as a form of expression that stimulates the senses and warps our perception of reality.

When you see a painted portrait of a person that’s merely a collection of colors that we perceive as a person.

So when people say that memes are just images or a collection of images with text, there’s not much separating them from a painting.

We use materials to make art.

Art, in a way, is also a meme. It’s the primary way to spread cultural information.

The Mona Lisa for example is practically iconic so much so that it is often emmultaed in others works.

Another example is Superman. He is the first superhero to ever be created and set a standard for what heroes would and can be.

Internet Memes are an artform and art itself is a meme.

So should we see Memes in Museums? Are we going to see a Reddit post elegantly framed on a museum wall?

In fact, I’d argue that they shouldn’t.

Museums are like pedal stools but they also act as a way to separate art from the people.

Internet Memes are the people’s art.

They are publically accessible and easy to find and I think putting them in such a close-off, monetizable, and elite space strips them of their appeal and their power.

That’s also why I’m so opposed to selling Memes as NFTs. Because it’s almost degrading and hypocritical to trade and distribute memes as a way to benefit the elite.

It strips the modesty and humility of the medium. That’s probably why a lot of people that make memes won’t admit that it’s art because art sounds like a grand subject and the title of artist sounds elite.

It’s almost like displaying graffiti in a museum. The appeal of graffiti is how counter-cultural it is and Museums, whether you agree or disagree represent everything against the counter-culture.

It becomes a symbol of status.

My Top Meme

3. YTMND 

This meme makes me feel really old. I thought that one got taken down

2. E

1. The Eternal Meme

This meme will probably outlast all of us.

The first day of CT101 was the first day I went on campus since summer. I woke up pretty early because I knew that if I didn’t start the day ahead of time I would be late for class.

It was quite exciting because I barely leave the house. So I was happy that I had a class on campus to take a slight break from the serialized mundanity I’ve endured for most of my life.

Yet I was wondering why I chose a class that started at 10 AM. I knew how awful I functioned in the morning, so why would I sabotage myself like that?

I arrived super early, around 9 AM. Waited for class to start. So when I enter the class and saw Ryan, I thought he looked like Jeff Bezos (I’m sorry, Ryan…).

 

Once some other classmates trickled in and got settled he started discussing the curriculum.

 

I was pretty excited about all the stuff he discussed in class because it was in a world that I’m pretty familiar with, the Internet.

 

So experimenting with assets on the internet that I take for granted like GIFs and YouTube made me excited. Perhaps doing so will increase my understanding and knowledge of the internet.

Just through this class alone and the resources, they provided I already learned that GIFs were created in 1987 and were commonly used in the early internet because of their low quality.

But this was way before the invention of the internet itself. I found it pretty cool.

I also knew that Gifs can also be stagnant but the first image online was also a Gif. Gifs were also patented at one point which eventually lead to the creation of the PNG.

It is so weird that the things I took for granted had such a fascinating history behind them.

When discussing things, I’m always thinking about ways I can apply this to my career. If my work gets enough traction I was hoping I could create a website where I can house all of my work.

My fixation on my career easily seeped into the class because the Internet is where I’m building it and I think, maybe I can learn something new or deepen my understanding of the Internet.

 

The Process

Making Gifs on Imgur

 

 

Making a GIF on Gifphy

 

Personally, I like to use adobe premiere because I feel like it’s more flexible for me. Plus I’m paying for it so might as well put it to use. If I had to choose between Imgur and GIFPHY though, I’d choose GIFPHY, it’s a pretty basic interface that’s easy to adapt to. Plus there’s a diverse range of decorations to use on your GIF,

My current aim in life is to be a full-time artist and I think a key to achieving my goal is social media.

I primarily use Instagram and if you are an active user on the platform you may have noticed a severe dissatisfaction with Instagram’s current user interface. 

When two members of Kardashians share a post about bringing back the old Instagram then you know things have gotten serious.

 For me and I think for many visual creatives on the platform, I have had difficulty gathering a following. 

In an effort to compete with TikTok, Instagram is now prioritizing their TikTok equivalent, Reels over images at the expense of their non-video-making creatives like photographers, digital artists, traditional artists, long-form video makers, etc.

Unless you can adapt image content into TikTok-like short-form videos, I think that now more than ever it’s harder for me and many others to grow on Instagram.

The all-mighty algorithm favors trendy short-form videos, which is great for maximizing user experience but detrimental to creatives and their creative process.

And even if you made algorithm-friendly content you’re just one account in a highly competitive, over-saturated space with people with the same objective as you.

And this can drive people to take risks, to try something so outlandish for the sake of increasing the amount of engagement on your post even if those people do it at the expense of others and themselves. 

So why am I babbling on about all of this stuff? Well, I need to set the stage for the most joyous pastime on Instagram and all these other platforms. I need you to understand how euphoric it is to see a number that is three digits under your reels and stories.

In an environment where engagement and follower growth is everything, every little increase in any sort of engagement is the greatest thing in the world.  The thing on the internet that makes me happiest this week and almost every week is numbers.

I am addicted to numbers. 

And while you may think this is hyperbolic and dismissive, artists and content creators on these platforms depend on these numbers to make a living or even increase the chance that they can make a stable living.

Likes, comments, views, follows, and numbers have dictated my mood. And while it’s superficial and a subject of concern, it is also just a part of the job. 

Success can be measured by numbers; the number of views, likes, dislikes, comments, follows, and subscribers, all of these are considered essential to dictate our success in the real world and especially on the internet. 

Seeing the number rise is a rush, seeing the traction, looking at the analytics, and seeing results from your work gives you the impression of progress even if in the grand scheme of things you haven’t budged an inch. 

It’s a validating experience because in an environment where I have little social interaction with others this engagement acknowledges my work’s existence in a digital space, and it gets me closer to my primary objective.

This week on Instagram, the most likes I’ve gotten on a post with 16 likes while my reel with the most views of this week has 413 views, which is a reel, ironically, taking a jab at reels. 

The best part is engaging with commenters. I have received so many bot comments, so when the human commenter pops in, it feels ten times more rewarding and fulfilling than it needs to be. 

Shifting over to Tiktok is an interesting contrast. I started using the app more recently, I think almost a year ago and one of the few reasons I can use it is because TikToks are easy to convert onto other platforms. 

Since Instagram and many other platforms decided to emulate TikTok I decided to record my digital painting process before condensing it into a speed painting and posting it on TikTok.

Once I posted it on TikTok, I repost it as a reel or on rare occasions a YouTube Short.

Another reason why I use TikTok is that I heard it was easier to grow on TikTok and I personally find that to be debatable. 

I found that I got more views on Instagram than on TikTok but now it started to fluctuate, some of my Tik Toks are getting more views than my reels.

I think maybe it’s because I came in too late but like all of my issues on social media, I also shifted to the idea that my art isn’t that good.

I could wait for it to get better but that could take years and if I wanted to grow an audience, I feel like it’s better to grow an audience alongside my skills. 

The TikTok video with the most views had 186 views. 

On my YouTube, and while I don’t post on their daily I recently posted a video that has garnered 653 views making it my most viewed video on that channel. It almost felt unearned because I felt like I put little to no effort into that video.

But my main bread and butter are webcomics. I am to be a webcomic with a possible plan to print comics further down the line if my career as a film editor works out. My current series, “Infinite Circles of Purgatory” has recently garnered 47 views this week with the latest installment gathering a good 39 views. This was actually my favorite one so far. 

 

This fixation on numbers, while it can be rewarding, can also be a detriment to a person’s mental health. I’ve heard stories of many creators across many platforms conflating their self-worth and their skills to the statistics they see on their analytics. And while sometimes that can be an indicator of things to improve on or change sometimes these numbers aren’t fully in our control and that scares me.

While looking at the statistics and the growth of my platforms can make me happy and feel like I’m going somewhere I have to consider the possibility that I could stagnate again and prepare for that.

I think a way to make this process even better is by not fully investing in social media or even highlighting other creators that need the support. I’ve seen so many amazing artists that I feel are personally underrated so sometimes I shout them out even though my platform is pretty small. 

There’s a lot more to my career than just social media and if I keep fixating on social media engagement then my work and even my career will never improve.

But saying it aloud and internalizing it are two different things…