What I Think I Do

                It is hard to imagine technology in the 21^st century having biological characteristics. It is even harder to imagine the TV, internet, or radio having more biological similarities to a plant than a plastic cup would. In Epic Win For Anonymous, Cole Stryker explains how popular information travels across the internet. He argues that a meme behaves like “an interactive, living organism,” and participates in a competitive environment. Like real world organisms, memes also have life spans that are determined by a few factors: longevity, substance, audience, and most importantly, memorability. Thousands of memes are created on the daily, yet only a small percentage are continuously circulated throughout the web. To understand Stryker’s “memetic ecosystem” module, let’s take a look at the life cycle of this meme.

                  I found this meme and shared it on Facebook July 2012. By the end of the day, only five people from my humble group of 900 friends “liked” the post. The lack of people “liking” my post made sense: firstly, all five of them are lifeguards and secondly, the context of the post wouldn’t have been funny to people who have never lifeguarded. Memes are a form of social currency. Popular memes like ‘Awkward Penguin’ and ‘Philosoraptor’ cater to a larger audience – they generate a larger pool of social currency because more people can relate to them. The most important factor that makes a meme successful is its memorability. Memorable memes are able to survive in the virtual and real world. A successful meme is shared through conversation between high school students in a cafeteria. In short, if you’re meme isn’t talked about, it has reached the end of its lifecycle.  

                This particular Lifeguarding meme isn’t popular outside the global circle of lifeguards, but the format of it is. This meme is popular because of its format and the flexibility it provides. The pattern is simple: pick a noun and find six pictures that depict stereotypes associated with the group of people (though sometimes it is applicable in other situations) described in the header. Beneath the images, you write what so-and-so thinks you do - it can be what your mother thinks you do, what the president thinks you do, or what Smokey the Bear thinks you do. The point is: it doesn't matter as long as what you write follows this pattern:" starting with "what ___________ thinks I do" for the first five panels and ending with "what I actually do" for the last one. In this example, the meme's layout is what makes it popular and memorable; however, the significance is not entirely there. Like a virus, a meme is able to morph and adapt to the different communities (or in biological terms, "environments") it finds itself in.

                 According to KnowYourMeme, the "What People Think I Do/What I Really Do Meme" was created in February 2012. The first of it's kind was a meme directed towards science majors; therefore, at the beginning of the meme's life cycle, its social currency was only applicable towards science students. As more versions of this meme were created and shared, its social currency was applicable to a wider range of audiences. A meme grows as a plant does: given the right condition and environment, it is able to grow, thrive, and sustain itself until it dies. While a plant dies from the lack of nutrition or age, a meme dies when it has lost its audience. This analogy relates nicely back to Stryker's explanation of his memetic ecosystem and his point that memes can relate back to biology more so than one would think. Is technology a more complex imitation of biology?

The Rise of a Monoculture

                I like to count my blessings when I sit alone in my room on a rainy day. I’m thankful to have a TV in my room, I’m glad that my fridge is well stocked, and I’m grateful that last-night Michelle remembered to plug the laptop into its charger so it could be used this morning. My life is surrounded by technology I cannot see myself living without – the internet, the laptop, and the phone. These appliances are crucial to my everyday living, yet so many of these objects which I deem as necessities are frivolous in developing countries. But, the times are changing and third world countries are swiftly graced with the new technology brought on by the force we call ‘globalization.’

                
                   Lisa Nakamura tackles the effects of technological globalization in the introduction to her book, Cybertypes. She argues that race, and the “authentic aura” is disappearing on the web. Through her research, she discovered that virtual-world gamers often adopted a persona that gave them the flexibility of acting in a certain way without “real life” consequences. The anonymity the web allowed users to portray themselves in their “better selves.” Nakamura explains that this leads to a problem where the internet is covered in a “landscape of whiteness.” While technology is bringing people across the world together under one platform, it is also contributing to the rise of a monoculture. The rise of a monoculture leads to an erasure and replacement of cultures in less dominant communities. The fostering of the Western culture onto these cultures causes a “mental retraining,” in which cultures are cloned to be alike.

          
                   Nakamura’s points are valid: the Western influence onto some communities may result negatively. But is it really all that bad? A recent article published by the MIT Technology Review talks about how mobile communications are changing the health care in Nigeria drastically. Nigeria has gone from a country with only 30,000 cellular subscriptions to over 140 million in just ten years time. Now, nearly one in six residents owns a cell phone. This change has benefited Nigerian residents through faster forms of communication, particularly those related to doctor appointments and health emergencies.  The technology discussed in this particular example does not add or subtract to the diversity of cultures in Nigeria; the addition of cell phones to their communities does not take away the “authenticity” Nigeria had prior to the influx of technology.

                Societies are built to change – to be flexible to the norms and trends they are influenced by. While Nakamura’s argument is sufficient and plausible, I believe that we are far from engendering a monoculture. Although the virtual web presents a threat to third-world cultures, it is not as imminent as Nakamura makes it to be. Simply put, technology and globalization presents itself as an aide to less developed countries, while culture and “authenticity” is preserved by a community’s will to pass it on from generation to generation.