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

A photo of George RR Martin with the text'Have a favorite character? Not anymore.'

Figure 8: Bloodlust George RR Martin, taken from The Game of Thrones sub-Reddit

The proof of the usefulness of any tool is how well it actually works when applied to the phenomenon, so let’s begin by applying these six criteria to a visual meme. I pulled Figure 8 above from the Game of Thrones sub-Reddit forum. I’ll start here with the gatekeeper, as it is critical to understanding this meme but also is critical to all memes. The reason for the gatekeeper is perhaps so obvious that it could go unstated; memes aren’t really made for everyone. They are spread virally, which means they’re spread haphazard and without regard for keeping them in the hands of “only those who should know,” so they must have a gatekeeper built in so that those who “know” realize they, in fact, know. In this case, there are three important elements that build the gatekeeping mechanism: 1) the photo is of George RR Martin, author of the A Song of Ice and Fire novels AKA the Game of Thrones, 2) he kills beloved characters frequently in his work and 3) he’s very unapologetic in spite of his fans showing overwhelming emotion over some of the death scenes he’s written.

The replication here is that the photo was not originally used this way, nor was the sentiment, but now fans have this template (and other plays on this image do exist, see Figure 9). The work the image does, of course, is the joke/social commentary that Martin has killed so many fan favorite characters in his stories. Given one knows the gatekeeper information, the image resulting from this meme can easily stand on its own. And as you can see from Figures 9 and 10, it can be slightly modified and replicated and redistributed easily. And the fact that Figures 9 and 10 exist serve as proof that it the image elicited response and reaction from the audience.

A photo of George RR Martin with the text'Oh, they're your favorite character? I'll keep that in mind.'
Figure 9: Variation on Bloodlust Martin, also from GoT sub-Reddit



What is even more interesting is what we see happening in Figure 10 below. What is present here is a more sophisticated, remix-minded mutation of the meme. George RR Martin and his fictional bloodlust has been merged with the Sarcastic Wonka described earlier to present the reader with a Martin who is even more playful with the fact that he will unabashedly kill characters; he’s ready for you to tell him exactly who you love so he can drive the pen in as deep as possible. These seemingly simple, and indeed easily made, image memes then contain a multitude of cultural knowledge, as Sarcastic Wonkastyle George RR Martin actually adds the Wonka meme as another gatekeeper and adopts the Wonka meme’s rules, fusing them with the rules from the original Martin meme above.

A photo of George RR Martin as Wonka with the text'Oh, you like Game of Thrones? Tell me, who's your favorite character?'
Figure 10: Sarcastic Martin, also from GoT sub-Reddit