Internet Memes & Secondary Orality

The beauty of this technological century is that it gives power back to the introverts. Clive Thompson, in the April edition of Wired magazine, wrote an article titled "Solo Performance" which discusses people like Guy Kawasaki, a popular entrepreneurial blogger, who admitted a few years ago, "You may find this hard to believe, but I am an introvert. I have a 'role' to play, but fundamentally I am a loner". This is a startling fact! Where the oral tradition forced a person into constant physical interaction because it was nearly impossible for him to do so by any other means, the internet can allow a person to descend so far inward, alone on his desk or lap top, that he can return to the fundamentals of illiterate culture. It has been concluded by researchers like Susan Cain, and discussed in this fascinating New Yorker article by Jonah Lehrer, "Groupthink: The brainstorming myth", that traditional group meetings are ineffective compared to other methods--"That's because," reports Thompson in Wired, "social dynamics lead groups astray; they coalesce around the loudest extrovert's most confidently asserted idea, no matter how daft it might be." Thompson reasons that "virtual collaboration" is not only the way of the future but will also lead to better decisionmaking. It forces each member to consider his ideas alone before he speaks.

Our culture places a high amount of value on gregarious go-getters who are comfortable chatting with anybody; however, it is also the case that 50 percent of the population is not like this and never will be.

Thompson ends his article with the following statement, "We generally assume that [the internet] has unleashed an unruly explosion of disclosure, a constant high school of blather. But what is has really done is made our culture more introverted--and productively so." Indeed, research has shown that better ideas are brought forth from private thought before the actual meeting takes place. This is quite similar to how the web functions (with the caveat of web sites like Facebook and Twitter, based on friend collecting). Things like email, instant messaging, comment posts, and even text messages are typically measured before sent. The internet has also led to the creation of "look-before-they-flame-out" memes. With one quick glance around sites like reddit or Digg, you will discover a plethora of modern day icons. They represent aspects of our modern personalities, just like the ancients had their gods.

There is the socially awkward penguin:




The foul bachelor frog:




The courage wolf:



The paranoid parrot:




forever alone:



There is an endless list of memes, from Scumbag Steve and Good Guy Greg, to College Freshmen and College Senior, to First World Problems and Bear Grylls (of course obsessed with drinking his own piss), with inevitable new ones popping up each week on sites like r/AdviceAnimals and Quickmeme. Like characters from television or comic books, they are interpreted by an endless array of people adding their particular spin on the character. Some, of course, relate more with SAP, others with FBF, and others with PP. Often we have a bit of all the characters inside us. Like the public forums of old which brought together whole communities, these memes typically originate with the self proclaimed "butt-hole" of the internet, 4chan. It is forum filled with hilarious images, terrible pornography and gore (especially /b). After their creation on 4chan, the best memes end up at the social news site, reddit, where they are brought to a more acceptable and standardized image. One could relate this process to the oral tradition's acceptance of the vulgar, of the disgusting, of sex, gore, and wretched inhumanity, and then these being brought to a literate culture where morals and standardization become more important. Oral culture accepts everything, literate culture does not.

These memes are also fascinating in how they return to a sort of image or icon, a medium associated with the feminine in Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. What does this mean? Well, for one, anyone can influence a cultural image like FBF or SAP, but written words are brought together by an author (associated with 'authoritative'). Words in a book are static and it is hard to challenge the original writer, as Walter Ong explains so well in Orality and Literacy. Thus, memes can be far more influenced by the cultural attitude at the time because they are brought to us not by one person but by many, and they are commented on continuously.

The masculine author influences events, the feminine zeitgeist is a result of the author's (the individual's) work. It is the difference between the doer and the foundation the doer builds upon and ultimately changes in some way.

The meme is the result of millions of minds coming together in solitude. They are the introverted gods of our age, and that is obvious when you see them (SAP, PP, and FBF being some of the most popular). Whole subreddits are also dedicated to user-made comics titled 'rage comics'. They typically show some event which angered its creator. Unfortunately I cannot cite the original posters of the comics below, but here are some examples:







Was there ever an equivalent of this before the information age? Reddit is filled with thousands of these "subreddits" which bring together users who are interested in the same topic, and I am personally a member of r/literature, r/promtoftheday, r/mythology, and r/criticism. Anyone can post an article, video, or comment on one of these boards, and if they are popular enough, can be read by thousands of people all over the world. It has also become quite popular with celebrities, who will create a forum on r/iama and have a chat with their fans. Interactions like this were impossible just 15 years ago.

Will the collective mindscape start to become even more transformed by memes? One only needs to look at the Kony video phenomenon to see how it could play out in the future, but it is still a clunky process, one which takes time and a great deal of good luck. As our lives become increasingly entwined with social networking, I believe we will see a shift towards the 'secondary orality' which Walter Ong talked about. This will be the marriage of the literate and oral tradition.



The info age has just begun and I am excited for its future.