Zip Document of Learning

For ZIP this year, my inquiry question is, “What makes an effective meme?” I chose this question because of my passion for memes. We, myself included, have always laughed at, ridiculed and joked about memes. However, we never take the subject seriously. We never see it fit for something to be actually researched or be academically passionate about. Ambitiously, I decided to take memes under my wing for ZIP. Initially, I wasn’t as motivated. I had more interest in poetry or other topics. But my anti-mainstream self got to me and I stuck to it. Slowly, throughout the project, I liked what I was doing more. Near the beginning, my question revolved around the emotions that memes induce and what effects they have on people’s lives. I rejected that question due to lack of research on the topic and the broadness of the question. Although my final question still had lack of research, and the fact that I still cannot fully answer it, there were many topics that were similar that I drew from.

I learned a bunch of skills that ranged from note taking to changing exposure when photo editing. The note taking sometimes took too long so what I did was i summarized what I had learned into short notes which helped me be more efficient with my time. This could help me in the future as note-taking well when listening to and watching someone or something teach you is something that will probably come up later. The photo editing software was a free one called paint.net. It was simple to use and included the basics of photo editing which helped me grasp the ideas and fundamental techniques. This could help with future projects in schools or in everyday life. I might have to design a poster and these skills might help me there, for example. Zip also sets me up for in-depth. I now know what in-depth is going to be like, as Zip is quite similar to it if it were English oriented.

I learned many things. From a scientific perspective I learned how memes are so similar to genes but opposites. How memes are more likely to be shared after the previous meme had been tinted red. Some things were bizarre, some fascinating, some both. I learned originality and creativeness are key factors when it comes to memes. They contribute to both the humour and the likelihood of someone sharing the meme. This is where genes come in. A purpose of life that humans have is to keep the human race running. To make babies. We actually don’t need things like the arts and Ugandan Knuckles to do this. All kinds of  information like this are useless to our genes, pieces of code that tell us who we are. These are memes. Memes are ideas and pieces of information that goes around between people and do not have to do with genes. They don’t necessarily have to be humourous or something on the internet. Me writing this right now talking about memes could be a meme. This term was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his book, The Selfish Gene. He tells us memes are like genes in a sense that both compete with others in order to live. In the case of genes, “genes that help you survive and procreate will get passed on, and genes that hurt you will die off” (1:59)^[1]. When we think back at old memes, they aren’t as funny as the first time we saw them. They aren’t funny; they die off. Just like genes. I know, this blew my mind as well.

Not every internet meme is not the same. We know that everything has different source of humour. But we can categorize different varieties based on their source. For example when we look at this meme here:

I laugh. This meme might not be funny to some people because remember, humour is always subjective because everybody finds different things funny. This meme is funny to me because I can relate to it, Relatability – is the ability to relate or empathize with your meme. Just like how you can empathize with memes, you can sympathize with other forms of literature. It took me a bit of my research to realize that memes too, can tell a story. If you connect with a meme, it can make it funnier to you, more involving so you can share it with others as well. This became a more striking part of my research towards the end of my research. I found a user when researching that makes memes with the same characters and art form for story-telling purposes^[2] . Another piece of information I learned is how memes can not only tell stories, but give us news, and even give opinions about things wrong on our society or simply, for example, the latest basketball game. For instance, I didn’t know about this:

if it weren’t for memes. Memes about news are also often conveyed like this to not only inform a greater audience but also be entertaining so that they are likely to be shared more. Furthermore, these memes also ridicule and criticize the society that we live in. Sometimes even in the form of irony. Memes like this:

are ironic or even sarcastic in some ways. The creator of this meme feels that the older generation blames problems on the younger one; however, the creator also conveys the thought that the older generation is “out of touch”.

Continuing on from the last question, I want to explain a bit more on how memes relate to the English Curriculum.

Explain how literary elements, techniques, and devices enhance and shape meaning 

 

Think critically, creatively, and reflectively to explore ideas within, between, and beyond texts 

 

Synthesize ideas from a variety of sources to build understanding