Are Memes Art?

Despite the frivolous nature of memes, I truly believe that they are modern forms of art. Dating all the way back to pre-historic times, Art is something that has been used to convey all kinds of emotions and tells many stories. Does that sound familiar to you? That is exactly what memes are used for. Memes are a form of expression for many, and can sum up a story in just about a few words and a single image. They’re able to perfectly encapsulate the emotion that a person could be feeling, or serve as a spot on reaction to something.

For example:

Just these few memes show so many different emotions.

Memes are something that won’t be leaving the presence of the media anytime soon and will continue to evolve as time progresses. I don’t believe that this will necessarily be a bad thing for are because this is simply just one form of it. The traditional forms of art still exist and are still appreciated in today’s society. If anything, memes have enhanced the way people communicate. Sometimes when words aren’t enough to do your feelings justice, there’s a perfect meme out there that speaks for you perfectly.

HOWEVER… just like everything else in this world, there can be a bad side to memes

 

During my time on the internet, I have definitely seen people try to make memes out of genuinely tragic situations that should not be made fun of. Some people do go out of their way to be insensitive, using memes as their tool to do so. Yandy Smith, a reality tv personality and entrepreneur has fallen victim to this. While out peacefully protesting , Yandy was attacked and pepper sprayed by the police.

The internet thought it was okay to use this picture of the incident as a meme for whenever they feel distressed or are expressing hopelessness:

On a lighter note, I’d like to share some memes that make me laugh :

I had plenty of fun coming up with ct101 based memes. Here are some of the many than I had an absolute blast making:

CT 101 Final Blog Post/Ilvea Lezama

Let me start off by saying this semester flew by … Just last month we were writing our mid-semester review and now here we are writing our final post…

**Fake cries in Spanish**

What have I learned in CT101 … the question should be what haven’t I learned. I BUILT my own website, I am have created my own domain, I have created giphys, I have taken background out of pictures, used DS106 (I found it confusing in the beginning). So many tangible things obtained in throughout the semester, is amazing. Because of the dedication I have put into my work week by week, because I been present in every class (late! but present), because I am a curious child of the universe and I ask endless questions … I believe I deserve an A+ and my work and drive are here to back up my statement.

I know I mentioned it earlier but I CREATED MY OWN WEBSITE. I just keep adding on skills to my resume and honestly I am scared … I am scared I’ll be the next Steve Jobs and take over the world. It would be too much for the world so I am going to be considerate and take it easy, I don’t want the world to worry about this amazing force to be reckoned with (ME). I am a Gemini, I carry that Kanye energy with me … sometimes you have to because if you don’t carry that confidence who is going to carry it for you.

I am so vocal about my achievements that once I even created my domain, I bragged about it with all my family and friends. I enjoyed pretty much everything we did because I am a curious person, everything and anything I could learn is an add-in skill for me. I am planning to work more in depth on my website over the summer. I want it to be like me … open to all options. I don’t want it to have a specific theme, I want it to be about wellness but also post some of my poems, writing pieces, photos, funny videos and just anything that comes to mind.

I had a vision for my website but unfortunately, I couldn’t make it happen. I have a PC at home and if you’re going to open my website with a PC you might encounter the same problem. The photos are not visible, and my website does not look as appealing as I would have loved it to be. I had the opportunity to work a bit on it thanks to my sister’s tablet. WordPress has something against PC’s and not Apple computers. I am hurt. Steve Jobs will always be a genius, nothing but respect for the man. but I mean come on! what did PC’s ever do to WordPress that I can’t access my website (fully) 🙁

I had a vision of having this Namaste website, very welcoming, peaceful type of site. I took some screenshots with my sister’s tablet of what I have so far, throughout the summer I will take my time to work on it thoroughly, hopefully by then WordPress has forgotten we ever had any sort of beef and it lets me work freely on my vision. I been frustrated since last weekend trying to work the site … and I am over it, right now! I need a break …

See photos below for what my website looks like … Namaste! I think I am the most excited to post my poems and pieces I have written. In the summer I make it a goal to read about 3/4 books but this summer I will be adding to work on my website. Here is InamasteWellness.com

Even the quality of the screen shots are trash. I don’t know if you guys can tell but I am overly upset over encountering this problem, I know it is not the end of the world but I wanted to deliver a great website, I wanted to give a tour of such on Tuesday 5/23 but I will not, I am not pleased at all with how it looks. I hope all of ya’ll had a better outcome than mine. I can’t wait to read ya’ll post and watch ya’ll videos of the websites tour.
P.S. Professor Ryan, thank you for a wonderful semester full of learning life lasting skills.

 

 

 

Assignment 3- Are Memes Art?

https://giphy.com/gifs/culture–think-hmm-d3mlE7uhX8KFgEmY

I believe that Internet Memes are art. It communicates personal experiences with various imagery and a caption so to speak, of your own creation and choosing that goes along with the imagery. Usually memes are made for comedic purposes, and with the vast expansion of the internet, anyone can easily be able to create a meme with the right website and tools. Literally giant Leo Tolstoy expresses that art is the ability to spread the conveying of a feeling you experience unto someone else, so that they experience the same feeling based on your creation. This is internet culture at its finest, in which memes highly represent. They also give the creator and viewer a cathartic experience, explained in the Youtube video “Are LOLcats and Internet Memes Art?”

Triad City Beat | 50 famous memes and what they mean

By definition, memes are an image, video, and/ or text that is humorous in nature, which are created, copied, and spread by internet users with slight variations depending on the person. It is a way how we sometimes communicate on the internet, and can be found used on many popular social media platforms.  Imgflip is one platform that a person can use to generate a Meme for free.

https://imgflip.com/i/7mirg9

According to the article Can Memes be considered Art? by SpokenVision, it states that “If one thinks about it, memes can fall under the category of Pop Art (using popular media styles to create art)”.

https://spokenvision.com/can-memes-be-considered-art/#:~:text=If%20you%20take%20the%20definition,media%20styles%20to%20create%20art

Also, the article Memes as Art by the website Know What I Meme, it states that “Art is constantly evolving, but if the purpose of art is to express a human truth, the Internet meme fits the bill”.

https://www.knowwhatimeme.org/why-a-meme-art-exhibit

I believe that anything created from us as humans can be considered art depending on the viewer. For all we know, within the next hundred years or so, instead of finding the Mona Lisa or a traditional painting in museums, it will be filled with blown up pictures of internet memes in portraits.

Mona Lisa? by _Pickle_ on Meme.Market

Memes can be considered both good or bad for art; good because it is relevant more with this generation and time period, and more understood and used relatedly compared to art from a century ago, which allows us to connect with one another through it. However, it does not take extreme talent to create memes for it to be viewed as good by everyone; internet search engines allow us to look up how to create memes, and we can have the craft mastered in under an hour.

It is good for communication for some because it shows images that connect with the text that we are trying to convey, which makes it easy to understand. The imagery can come from a movie, cartoon, show, celebrity, etc., which not only gives it relatability but also makes it fun.  It is a form of self- expression, as like everything else that we say and do.

The Latest Anti-Celebrity Meme Is Garbage

Memes can be used for storytelling through Visual Narratives, Emotional Expression, and Character Development, inspiring a story idea, and Multimedia since they can include animated GIFs, video clips, or even audio elements.

https://imgflip.com/i/7mis1k

https://imgflip.com/i/7mis8u

 

 

Assignment 2- Animation through Gifs

My first day of CT 101 was a delightful shock- from the classroom appearance and dynamic, to the fancy Apple computers, and the peaceful human ambiance of interactions with both the professor and other students. For me, it will be a combination of a passionate hobby of mine- wordy storytelling, and an unfamiliar territory that I would need to tackle in my adulthood- constantly new and improving technology in all of its intricate facets.

For this assignment, I will be using “Gifs”, an acronym that stands for Graphics Interchange Format, which is comprised of short video clips and small animations of memes and anything that conveys emotions or reactions through imagery. The websites I will be using are Giphy and Imgur.

https://giphy.com/gifs/spongebob-spongebob-squarepants-nickelodeon-oF5oUYTOhvFnO

“This is a GIF from Giphy of SpongeBob SquarePants dancing to represent excitement, which is how I felt at the beginning of the semester. The hyperlink is also included above”.

I enjoyed hearing about the course and its creative content because it was all topics that were new to me that I know would be beneficial in the future, such as being able to create WordPress blog posts with gifs, imagery, memes, domain names, and customizing websites to name a few. All of this made me feel nervous since I am not tech savvy, but willing to learn nonetheless.

So far compared to my other courses, CT is a fun and interactive course that defers from the typical written paper, powerpoint group presentation, or written calculus exam, which is a breath of fresh air. However, since it is completely unlike any course I am currently or previously taken, it is also quite daunting to keep up to par with, since I hardly have the previous knowledge to fully push through at the speed I would like in this course.

https://giphy.com/gifs/nervous-k-on-shy-19jcWuNGzaI5W

“This is a Gif from Giphy of an animated girl nervously rubbing her fingers together with inaudible chatter, which is how I currently feel and will continue to throughout the semester”.

The creative potentials of this course is that overall digital storytelling offers the creation of immersive and compelling narratives by combining several forms of communication such as text, photos, audio, and video. My classmates and I can experiment with various media combinations to improve our storytelling and successfully convey our ideas.

We get to combine many types of media, such as images, videos, and animation, to enrich our narratives and create a dynamic storytelling experience. It also demonstrates that digital storytelling can transcend a single platform. I can learn how to develop media narratives that transcend numerous channels, including websites, social media, blogs, podcasts, and others. This enables a seamless storytelling experience across several platforms, as well as future business or creative goals.

https://giphy.com/gifs/chelseashow-school-3og0INdmjMr8BIiIlG

“This is a Gif from Giphy of Chelsea Handler mid- talk on the positives of school education, stating that she is ‘learning'”.

In terms of the website platforms focusing on Gifs, I enjoy Giphy more over Imgur, because although both are free, Giphy is more known and easy to use for me. Imgur focuses more on images and editing of pictures, while Giphy has gifs, movable images and video clips. I feel that gifs hold more attention and has more creative options than still imagery.

Be sure to video search “Dancing Bear”

https://imgur.com/gallery/00ZWz

“This is an Imgur video clip of a dancing bear to represent the overall positivity that I am feeling for this semester”.

Assigment 8: Domain Name

I’ve always wanted a place to put my writing. That’s been my preferred method of creative expression ever since I was super young– I don’t have the patience for the painstaking process of learning techniques and whatnot for creating art and music, and I adore the immediacy of having a thought and being able to put it to paper that writing allows. Of all creative methods, it’s the best bang for your buck, so to speak. So, I want my website to be a place for me to put all of the writing I do as a hobby: The ideas and whatnot for my DnD worlds, the little vignettes I write as snapshots into the character’s lives, the short stories that I’ve scribbled into the old notebooks in my attic.

But names are hard. They’re always the thing that trips me up. I do have a few ideas though.

Aaquib Abdullah Writes: This is extremely simple, but I think that there’s power in simplicity. Anyone who finds it will immediately know what’s going on. I’m Aaquib Abdullah, and I like to write.

In Azure Clad: This is the title I’ve kept in the back of my head for the fantasy novel I’d love to write one day. It means nothing to anyone but me, but the website is for me anyways, right?

Brain Cabinet: Kinda like a Mind Palace, but not as fancy. I don’t think it’s accurate to think of whatever’s going on up there as a palace. Since the site’s pretty much going to just be me dumping whatever comes to my head, it serves as a little cabinet, like the one you keep all the plastic bags in.

The Library: Pretty self-explanatory, I think.
The Corner: My writing setup at home is set up in a corner desk that I like to just call the corner, and the site would just be an extension of that, right?

assignment #8 picking a domain name

I think choosing a domain name is the hardest part of starting to create anything, the most unskippable part of the process. I pondered for a bit on not only what I would call my website but what it would consist of. Naturally, my first and last name made an appearance and I thought to name it  “Genielleshaw.com ” or something similar to that, but this was not visually appealing and I couldn’t imagine my first website being only my first and last name.

The names weren’t flowing but I didn’t expect them to. I knew that if I wanted a cool website name that id love and wouldn’t regret in two weeks id probably have to do some heavy-duty thinking. I also considered a few nicknames such as Gen, genie, and gens(s for shaw). While they were better than my first thought I just wasn’t enthralled by the idea, it felt like something was missing.

Finally, I had my greatest idea yet! I should add numbers. I came up with a few variations g3nmn3, g3ni3, and  g3nie I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with one of these or try to come up with something new, but I do enjoy these names a lot more than the others and I’m open to suggestions.

Assignment 7: Mid-Semester Review (Better late than never!)

This semester has been rough for me, to say the least. I got hit with the triple whammy of COVID, Bronchitis, AND an Ear Infection, back to back. I was forced to miss weeks of classes as a result, and spent damn near every second since I recovered trying desperately to catch up on all my classes. That’s why I’m here now, doing this mid-semester reflection almost at the very end.

I wish I could have given this class the attention and care that it truly deserved. So few of my classes throughout my college career have allowed for creative expression, and I definitely feel as though my capacity to express my feelings is very… stunted, from not having many avenues to do so. If only the circumstances were better, but alas, we can only do what we can with what we have. I can only apologize for my lack of participation, and try my best to make up my assignments now that my most immediate crises have passed. The weekend that I’m writing this, is entirely dedicated to making up all of the assignments that I’ve missed for this class.

Learning how to format text and write blog posts has been one skill I’ve been grateful to learn from this class. As a Journalism major, I think it will be tremendously useful for me to know, going into the industry in such a modern time. That’s a facet of Journalism that’s not covered very well in my courses– I know how to conduct interviews, do my due diligence with research, and write basic scripts, but the process of actually writing and formatting of pieces hasn’t been covered much in my curriculum, especially on an online medium.

I LOVED getting to write a movie review for the DS106 Assignment. I’ve always wanted to get into it, but never truly had the opportunity before. It’s nice to be able to talk unrestrained about myself and my interests for a change, AND it gave me a solid idea for areas in which to improve if I ever choose to do reviews and stuff for a living. By far, that has been my favorite assignment.

I also enjoyed getting to make the collage for the Digital Immediacy assignment. That one definitely flexed a bunch of nearly atrophied creative muscles. I may have gotten a little pretentious with it, but hey, I had fun and that’s all that matters.

As I get more comfortable with expressing myself, I’ve seen my posts steadily get more creative and expressive, especially with the more fun assignments like the two I spoke about earlier. I’m still not completely used to using an excess of gifs while writing, but I will try to get better about that.

assignment 6- intimacy

 

 

this project upon reding it sounded fun!!!

at first I had to decide what images wanted to us for my cartoon mashup that I am  doing. so my first step was trying to find the perfect background image for my project.

 

the next part was me try to find the perfect background form this show I’ve been watching called craig of the creek.

 

 

once I have my background selected and loaded into mmm.page its time to work my magic 🙂

 

 

and there we have it the final results! so I added my 2 favorite characters  from one of my favorite childhood shows called Codename kids next door. the one in the orange sweater name is Wallabee Beatles but in the show they go by numbers, so he would be referred to as number 4. and the girl in the green sweater name is Kuki Sanban and her number is 3. and last in the middle is actually craig from craig of the creek. i chose them for this project because their shows are pretty similar because they both are focused around kids and their adventures, and seeming as thought theses shoes might get a real mash up special on tv I figured ill lead the way.

Website Customization

link in bio
click to visit my website!

Who would’ve thought that customizing a website would take such a long time? I was playing around in the themes section because I didn’t know what I wanted my website to look like. Even after watching the Professor’s recording, I was still kind of confused. I was looking through the theme templates and it didn’t look similar to any other theme templates I’ve seen before.

theme templates
going through the theme templates

After some thinking, I decided to go with a minimalistic approach. I was able to figure out what I was doing and got to it. The colors were on the beige/nude side. I didn’t want to do anything too crazy so I was simple with it. After I got the color scheme together I added some pictures to make the front page look more aesthetically pleasing. And I loved how it turned out. Each picture represents what I’m going to post on my blog. So the headphones are about music, the computer is about gaming, and the bag of books is about the books I’m reading.

front page of my website
front page of my website

I even included a little quote that I find very nice. Because I’ve very overwhelmed with finals right now I’m not able to focus on posting blogs as of now. But I did post my first blog about coming back to play the Sims after a long while and finding comfort.

first blog post on my website
first blog post on my website

Had to keep this blog post short because I’m rushing to finish last-minute work. But I hope to post more on my website in the future!

CT101 Final Blog Post & Course Completion Information:

Well everybody, the time has come.

CT 101 is in the books. Quite a journey. It’s a bit bittersweet. I honestly am hype with all of the blog posts I made. The website being personal and having that ability to have a free reign with my license given by the domain access was tremendous. I don’t wanna be crestfallen, but excited for the possibilities of this project.

I can only say when it comes to the grade evaluation that bar a few absences, I am adamant I can retain a A or A-minus for all the effort I invested In the class. Also the work rate I demonstrated to complete assignments basically as soon. they were presented. It’s all about the good vibes.

The site run down is like this. I wanted to cover my three sports teams in different ways, visually with a badge, a roster, and some stats. Each team has one of those going for them. I put myself with an image I rate as a reference to the author and a quote on invigoration (a crucial trait for me). Then I wanted to put a recipe that’s iconic to me and a motivational video. For people to kickstart some momentum for them. It sure did for me. Some of my favorite songs at the moment had to be in the mix. And two of my favorite pieces of my work in the past I published academically.

When it comes to the outline of my site. I like the variation of posts semi- uncategorized but following each other down the page, but two or three in a designated category. Maybe I’ll make them all into a category for organization purposes.

The dynamic that it is personal compared to my journalism site in my other class is interesting but gives me flexibility in publishing as I see fit.

 

I loved the ability to fuse elements that aren’t traditional in normal essay term papers to be incorporated in my work. As well as the confidence to post about topics that aren’t per se academic but personal more. To be able to consistently do that was immense, truly.

The link again is https://polishprincepalace.com/

 

I most certainly will update the site and add previous work to bulk it up. Even future videos and essays. Tackle topics that have limitation in an academic setting perhaps. It only will last a year so I will be sure to take screenshots of its fully developed state. I was glad to be introduced to this platform, seriously.

Here are some more pictures of my site (in order) for reference.

 

The class has been stellar. And a honor to work alongside all my peers. My socials are on my site if anyone wants to collaborate or network. Thank you Mr. Professor Seslow as well.

Remember, trust the process. And MUCH LOVE.

Best,

Kamil Kuzminski

 

Assignment 10 – Part 1

Choosing a theme for my website was probably the hardest part of the process. The variety of themes WordPress had to offer kept me going back and forth.

Ultimately I decided on “Twenty Fifteen“. I really liked the format of this theme and how it made my posts look. The side panel was also a plus, (I’ll attach it below)
here you can see the name of my website followed by a welcome line, further down are links to my recent posts and at the bottom is comments from viewers

After picking my theme, I got to work on customizing the layout of the site. I decided to add some pictures I took as a background wallpaper. However I did notice that the picture won’t always show up on the website, for example on the computers in the classroom the whole picture can be seen but on devices such as laptops and cellphones the picture is either cropped a weird way or doesn’t even show up.

This is what it looks like on mobile devices.
While looking a bit more thoroughly I noticed that my welcome message to the viewers was also missing.
Overall I would say I like how it turned out in the end on my laptop, but I’m still not too sure about getting it to look the specific way I want it to on mobile devices.

CT101 Final Blog Post

IT IS DONE HERE, CAN IT BE? TIME IS UP; the class has ended. as some would say and I would, but I stated this was a fantastic class where I learned a lot and had a lot of fun building a website OMG YESSS.

 

I didn’t expect it to be the end of THE FINAL COUNTDOWN and time flew by so quickly that it felt like yesterday or last week we were having our first class and first class assignment and I quote enjoy it it was a fun class with the work being blogging something I did but was a fun and new way to learn a new skill from how the assignment was written or how to draw and edit to complete the assignment. My favorite projects in this semester’s class were Passion, Art, and Memes Art thinking back on where I am now I found it yay we developed a website and it was fun and complex and a lot of rages it was so hard to edit it I dint know how I wanted it a certain way I had a vision and it was hard to fix the color and move the blocks which were weird and typing words and adding pictures was a struggle to do for there was a limit to the size shape and how may I was allowed to put on it but it was all worth it, in the end, it became something great that I’m proud of making and doing. and from all my hard work of other then the website but the assignments Ive done I believe i deserve and A I put so much fun and work which wasn’t work cause I enjoyed it I didn’t comment enough maybe I should have but I didn’t and oh well but I did my work and I read others in case I didn’t understand it and it was a fun class I believe i desvere  a A for putting in the work and showing off the skills i learned and shall keep for years to come.

Fire Elmo GIFshirokuma cafe gtfo GIF

Yes, I  created a website. TO MEEE I built empire of nixck woelf .  my empire shall I want to help promote my Instagram account as well as another artist. To be honest, only a few domain names came to mind because I didn’t think much of them because I knew they would be there and not be used. I have art from artists friends and Colabs I’ve done and everything I made from edits to pictures to videos—the background first changes by using my logo to start all in. For the rest of it, I’ll post blogs that are there and pertain to some of my work, and for those that don’t, I’ll have parts separate so they don’t overlap until needed in a way that fits, and after that’s done and I believe I’ve done a pretty good job so far. I’m just going to attempt to go through the day, week, month, and year and keep my site and try to remember to update it and keep it and make it different alter it around as I go, and see fit to make it seem better. Life is like people; we change as we go, and so will this site; we die, and so will this site; it could be here forever, but I won’t or I’ll outlast it and take it down; it’s just a website. now here s a small preview interesting I  know you are now  to my empire

Friends Aging GIF by SpongeBob SquarePants

I have enjoyed the assignments this semester in class. The challenge was blogging, something I had never done before, and which all blog we received comments from both our professor and our fellow classmates and we would do the same to them. I feel I did an excellent job, and the grade that I received was achieved by hard effort. I want to be a newscaster, which necessitates some teaching and editing abilities. This can assist me with the skills I gain, which resulted in my having my own website, which I did not intend or expect to have, but I have. and looking back I have done amazing and I believe you think so too if not see for your self:

assignment 1, assignment 2, assignment 3, assignment 4,

assignment 5, assignment 6, assignment 7, assignment 8, assignment 9, and final 10.