Meme spreads virally. But that does not mean it’s a virus. Rather, I consider meme a cell. A cell that replicates rapidly in the Third Space. As far as meme goes, it evolves like a cell as well. It can turn from something simple, to something grand. Similar to how a super low budget game indie hit like Flappy Bird turn million dollar profit overnight unintentionally.
There are tons of video on Youtube discussing Flappy Bird’s success. But any subsequent attempt fail to replicate its success.
Despite being a carbon copy in terms of concept and art style. It fai to garner as much attention as Flappy Bird.
Take a look at all the other most successful meme. Lolcat, Nyancat. LittleKuriboh, Rebecca Black, Rageface, etc. What is their common characteristic? There are all the “first” in their time and any subsequent imitations fail to reach as high popularity. The second common characteristic they share is that they are all unintentional. Lastly, they are all fundamentally different thematic subject matter that it is impossible to find the “success” formula to a sure popular meme. (Nyancat and Lolcat are virtually different kind of memes despite about “cats”. One is a picture of a cat smiling and one is an animation of a poptart rainbow cat creature running in space.) In conclusion, there can never be an intentional meme and there is no way to find a sure-win formula. It’s entirely arbitrary. They are practically like living beings in the sense that there is no way you can predict what comes up next!
Fundamentally, what constitute to the success boils down to the viewers. Us, the surrogates. We humans help the memes to grow. We are like bees to flowers’ pollen grains. Without surrogates (us), memes cannot populate and survive in their natural habitat (internet). As much as the material use in the work, the viewers are as much the medium as the materials themselves.
A work such as Telegarden can be consider a work that involves viewers as surrogate guardians for the plants. In my case, viewers play similar role for memes.
As a poetic representation of the concept of memes as cell. My idea undergo a cellular evolution as well.
Previously I propose the idea of memetic portraits. But those alone does not justifies what memes are. So I look into creating a physical Third Space where the audiences are literally plunged into it to come into physical contact with memes.
The viewers — aka the surrogates. Will become part of the work. They will be the “new medium” in my project that I have yet to resolve a direct solution to. The current idea is probably to introduce holograms projection screening memetic imageries — anything that is possible to make the viewers feel like they enter the “internet”. And they have to perform some sot of activities before they can be released from the Third Space.
To put it simply. It will likely be a interactive installation that requires light projection, a screen, active viewers. In other words, a physical third space where the memes are in their “natural habitats” and we the surrogates have to perform something ther natural habitat to facilitate their cellular growth. The viewers can be anyone and they do not need any specific qualification. They simply need to be there as surrogates.
Jun, I think you are talking about a “meme factory” or perhaps a “meme garden,” in which the viewer “works” in the factory to build a meme or “tends” a garden to grow a meme. Your earlier discussion of Flappy Bird is intriguing, a bit mysterious why people are attracted to these “meme” characters, perhaps because they are seductive in their simplicity. Just squash a bird such as in Squishy Bird, it doesn’t take much intelligence (as you point out, there are no qualifications), but it is addictive in a sense. I think it is this sense of addiction that you are trying to focus on and need to flesh out further in your use of metaphors and examples. Why are we addicted to memes, even when they are so utterly simple and meaningless? This is the key question to ask, I think. Why do we want to score more points, why do we get hooked on memes? I think this is where your investigation is ultimately going and it’s a good one. Let’s discuss further when we meet on Thursday. I think there is a very compelling project here.