Not Sure If Brilliant or Merely Pedestrian: Toward a Rhetoric of the Meme by Phill Alexander

Image of Ned Stark with the caption 'Brace youselves the [blank is coming] memes are coming'

Figure 29: The MemeCenter contributes a Game of Thrones classic

The meme can be used pedagogically in numerous ways. My most common use of the meme is to have students research and study visual argument then look at some memes on the web before creating their own. Using memes as an introduction to visual argument is that the photo editing involved is basic, as illustrated in the crafting section here. This frees the students to do thought work. Below is the assignment from my Digital Rhetoric and Writing course using visual memes as visual/verbal arguments.



Memes. We all know what they are, even if we don’t think we know what they are. They’re funny images like the one above of Ned Stark, playing on the “Winter is Coming” tagline from Game of Thrones. Now all memes, of course, are not simply words and text; as you will see from your readings a meme is actually a unit of cultural transmission (it’s a thought virus, an idea that passes from person to person). But for this particular assignment, we’re going to look at the most wide-spread internet use of memes… which means we’re going to look at pictures with white text (with black outlines) on them.

So what you’ll be doing here is creating an argument consisting of visual (photo) and verbal (textual) elements but which also follows the criteria of the meme. It must be:

1) Easily replicable by the audience
2) Must encourage replication
3) Must be easily transmitted

Now some of you might sense a quick and easy way to do this, but you cannot use an existing meme. You must CREATE a new meme. Which means, yes, it will be more of a “seed” meme than an actual meme (unless you rock it right out of the gate and get someone to replicate it within a day or so). Because you’re creating a new meme, you need to do at least three (3) iterations of it (so that people can determine the “rules”) and you must put them in public somewhere (Facebook, Reddit, 4Chan if you’re nervy).

One last hook, of course: you must write a one-to-two page (500 word) memo explaining how your meme’s argument works. That means your meme needs to “do” work.

Here’s an example of a meme I’ve created to do a bit of work you’ve already heard me rant about needing done:


A photo of LL Cool J with the caption 'two Ls in Phill. LLike me!'
Figure 30: 2Ls



Notice here my argument is not changing the world; I’m simply trying to argue that people should know the spelling of my name and then execute it properly. I also bet none of you will ever, ever forget my second L again.

Much more information coming through readings and assignment posts, but here’s the grading scheme:

25% : Is your meme crisp and clean? Does it look the part? Is everything… aesthetically pleasing? (in the internet memeverse no one likes an ugly meme unless it’s ugly on purpose like Judah Friedlander. 4Chan will eat your grainy text and poorly cropped image for lunch)
25%: Is your meme fresh? If you copied something too directly, you’ll lose rhetorical force. Don’t try to make Sarcastic Wonka into Snippy Wonka, in other words.
25%: Is your meme replicable? If I can’t make a version of it myself, it doesn’t work.
25%: Is your meme’s argument clear and rhetorically sound? For example, don’t try something that is such a jump that your audience won’t accept it. This is all about execution, and it is why I asked you for three iterations. It should make perfect sense what the meme means to do.
To receive credit you MUST post/circulate your three samples.