Replicate Me Like One of Your French Girls
Memes represent a cultural idea, encapsulating real life events. They turn ideas into spoofs and parodies, centring around popular songs, quotes, and people. Through the use of overlaid text, which provides further captioning and explanation, memes are meant to illicit a humorous response. The humour aspect plays a big role in the popularity of a meme and is also used as a coping mechanism. Besides humour, memes are created purely for the “lulz.” “Lulz” is a corruption of “lol,” an acronym for “laugh out loud,” meaning that people post ideas, text, images, and gifs to the internet with the intent of upsetting someone as much as they can. The common response when people are asked why they hurt someone (through the internet) is “I did it for the lulz,” meaning they did it purely for their own enjoyment and to further or better their own self. In a way, the humour coupled with the “lulz" acts a buffer, allowing people to hide behind the jokes created.
What allows a meme to gain traction and become widely popular is the fact that they are replicated, and manipulated; and through that augmentation, they evolve into trends. The replication of anything—not just memes—stems from biological origins that relate back to human behaviour. Humans have a tendency to copy and mimic others, such as dressing like a celebrity they admire, or purchasing the same book or listening to the same music as a friend. Mimicking is a form of communication because it reinforces an idea, further validating its “correctness” or “acceptability” within a society. Memes are recreated because humans see value and importance in the original meme. Therefore, it can be said that memes are part of language and communication, serving as a way to either reinforce or speak out against popular beliefs and ideas within society.
“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong,” is a phrase that perfectly sums up the meme, “Bad Luck Brian,” which was originally posted to the website, Reddit, on January 23, 2012. The meme displays a picture of a seventh grade blonde-haired boy, who is wearing a plaid sweater vest, complete with braces and a ridiculous smile. The meme is part of an image macro series, meaning the same picture is used over and over with new text overlaid, explaining a simple, relatable act gone horribly wrong due to supposed bad luck. The original meme, captioned, “takes driving test/gets first DUI,” received less than five up-votes on Reddit; however a second meme was posted later in the day, captioned, “tries to stealthily fart in class/shits,” received 3,300 up-votes in less than two months. In a matter of days, “Bad Luck Brian” made its way onto other notable websites, such as Funny or Die, Buzzfeed, FunnyJunk, Quickmeme, Tumblr and Pinterest. That, coupled with the radical turnaround in up-votes depicts just how much popularity and traction the meme gained in a relatively short period of time. If the second meme had not received as many up-votes as it did, or the second meme was not posted at all, “Bad Luck Brian” would not have turned into an macro-series because memes exist on recognition and recreation. Although “Bad Luck Brian” began as a tangible school photo that made its way onto Reddit, it quickly expanded outside of that social media platform and into other areas of the internet. The meme itself has been augmented through the creation of a “Bad Luck Brian” Twitter account, which has over 225k followers. The mode of communication has changed, allowing users to receive “Bad Luck Brian” images, updates, and tweets on a daily basis that convey varying messages and themes.
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Memes take kairos into consideration, conveying a cultural idea in a relatively short amount of space. The ideas presented are fairly simple and easy to understand and relate to, often playing towards people’s emotions. Part of the reason why people find humour in memes is because the events are not happening to them at the moment; they are happening to someone else (i.e. Brian). “Bad Luck Brian” plays into the latter, demonstrating everyday activities that can happen to anyone, such as taking the SAT and forgetting to use a number 2 pencil. This is a real fear for high school students and almost represents a recurring nightmare. “Bad Luck Brian” brings those nightmares to life. Some memes from the macro series are laughably ridiculous and would never happen to a person; however, that does not take away from imagining the scenario. Part of the pleasure that can be derived from memes is imagining the “what-if,” which can be blown so out of proportion at times.
The person in the “Bad Luck Brian” meme, whose real name is Kyle, is now associated with having bad luck, regardless of his actual luck. Though the meme does not portray Kyle in a negative light, it groups him into the “nerd” stereotype or community. It makes automatic assumptions about his character and personality, which may or may not be true, but are now directly correlated and associated with him. Although the meme is referred to as “Bad Luck Brian,” it is not completely believable that all of these things would happen to a person solely because of bad luck. Many of the memes highlight nerd culture, which can be defined as people who focus entirely on their studies and have little friends—except for other nerds—which can be attributed to their lack of social skills. The actions and consequences suffered by “Bad Luck Brian,” are not due to his bad luck, but presumed lack of social skills. The meme, “loses virginity/gets it back,” speaks to “Brian’s” inadequacy to flirt and woo girls. One could even go so far as to say that he does not have the dexterity to speak to girls, let alone hold a conversation with them (or anyone for that matter). “Bad Luck Brian,” is simply too caught up in school work—something that cannot talk back—to develop a conversational prowess. All of the “Bad Luck Brian” memes centre around societal issues that can be readily avoided, suggesting that “Brian” was never properly integrated and introduced to the larger community. All of this relates back to his nerd status, equating it with having bad luck.
The person in the “Bad Luck Brian” meme is wearing a sweater-vest, which is not the most masculine thing for a seventh-grade boy to wear. Regardless of the fact that it is picture day, sweater-vests do not accentuate a person’s “cool-factor,” and even take away from it. Based on his outfit, braces, bowl haircut, freckles, and ridiculous grin, one might say that “Brian” also embodies a low-masculine archetype, which thereby reinforces his representation of nerd culture. It can be assumed that “Brian” does not participate in sports, go to the movies, or play video games—all hyper-masculine activities—due to the significant amount of schoolwork he would much rather be doing. This also equates being masculine with having good luck and being under-masculine, or more feminine, with having bad luck. The low-masculinity personified in the meme assumes that a person will not be as cool as a someone who is more masculine. Low-masculinity is also associated with a lack of confidence, meaning that bad things happen to “Brian” because he is not self-assured or assertive enough. Besides being associated with nerd culture and low-masculinity archetypes, being turned into a meme does have an upside: recognition from famous people and having your name and image known by a larger population.
The “Bad Luck Brian” meme gained so much traction that spin-off macro series were created with the hopes of acquiring the same—if not more—popularity. They have a similar alliteration as “Bad Luck Brian,” which is another method that allows them to be associated with the original macro series. Memes include “Good Guy Greg,” “Scumbag Steve,” “Karate Kyle,” “Minor Mistake Marvin,” and “Feminist Frank.” Memes have even moved into the animal domain as well, such as “Pickup Line Panda” and “Paranoid Parrot.” “Bad Luck Brian” was the starting point for the creation of many other spin-offs using the same formula to gain popularity. It does not matter what the subject of the meme is (i.e. paranoid parrot), as long as it revolves around popular elements that a general mass of people can relate to. Just as “Brian” plays into nerd-culture, all of the spin-off macro series memes play into different stereotypical subcultures.
The replication of anything—not just memes—stems from biological origins that relate back to human behaviour. Replication is a form of communication because it allows humans to form bonds with one another and reinforce ideas. However, through the process of replication, change occurs, and the idea evolves, changes, and becomes augmented. Each time a meme is replicated, the meme itself is altered and changed in some way. The various “Bad Luck Brian” memes were all replicated from the original “Bad Luck Brian” meme; the picture is the same, while the text is different. It is apparent where the replicated memes stemmed from because there are traces of the original, first meme. The “Bad Luck Brian” meme, and all memes, would not be possible if people were unable to make connections back to an original “first draft” meme. Therefore, it can be said that memes are not replicated, but imitated and copied, which also stems back to human behaviour. Just as gender is an imitation for which there is no original, the same can be said for memes. Gender is a copy, of a copy, of a copy; however it is important to note that gender is not a copy of some biologic original (Butler 1714). The urge to copy and replicate stems from biologic origins, although there is no biologic, original meme. The idea of replication does not relate to copying, however, because there is no original meme; therefore, memes and gender are merely a copy within ideology and culture—not biology. There is no one meme that serves as the original meme, whereby all other memes originate from. What constitutes a “successful” meme is reinforced through replication and imitation of other “successful” memes.
The “Bad Luck Brian” meme gained so much traction that spin-off macro series were created with the hopes of acquiring the same—if not more—popularity. They have a similar alliteration as “Bad Luck Brian,” which is another method that allows them to be associated with the original macro series. Memes include “Good Guy Greg,” “Scumbag Steve,” “Karate Kyle,” “Minor Mistake Marvin,” and “Feminist Frank.” Memes have even moved into the animal domain as well, such as “Pickup Line Panda” and “Paranoid Parrot.” “Bad Luck Brian” was the starting point for the creation of many other spin-offs using the same formula to gain popularity. It does not matter what the subject of the meme is (i.e. paranoid parrot), as long as it revolves around popular elements that a general mass of people can relate to. Just as “Brian” plays into nerd-culture, all of the spin-off macro series memes play into different stereotypical subcultures.
The replication of anything—not just memes—stems from biological origins that relate back to human behaviour. Replication is a form of communication because it allows humans to form bonds with one another and reinforce ideas. However, through the process of replication, change occurs, and the idea evolves, changes, and becomes augmented. Each time a meme is replicated, the meme itself is altered and changed in some way. The various “Bad Luck Brian” memes were all replicated from the original “Bad Luck Brian” meme; the picture is the same, while the text is different. It is apparent where the replicated memes stemmed from because there are traces of the original, first meme. The “Bad Luck Brian” meme, and all memes, would not be possible if people were unable to make connections back to an original “first draft” meme. Therefore, it can be said that memes are not replicated, but imitated and copied, which also stems back to human behaviour. Just as gender is an imitation for which there is no original, the same can be said for memes. Gender is a copy, of a copy, of a copy; however it is important to note that gender is not a copy of some biologic original (Butler 1714). The urge to copy and replicate stems from biologic origins, although there is no biologic, original meme. The idea of replication does not relate to copying, however, because there is no original meme; therefore, memes and gender are merely a copy within ideology and culture—not biology. There is no one meme that serves as the original meme, whereby all other memes originate from. What constitutes a “successful” meme is reinforced through replication and imitation of other “successful” memes.
Works Cited
AK-. “Karate Kyle." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2011. Web. 18 Apr. 2015.<http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/karate-kyle>.
Aux. “Good Guy Greg." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2011. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/good-guy-greg>.
Butler, Judith. "Imitation and Gender Insubordination." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. By David H. Richter. New York: St. Martin's, 1989. 1712-718. Print.
Don. "Bad Luck Brian." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2012. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bad-luck-brian>.
Don. "Feminist Frank." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/feminist-frank>.
hugocornellier1. “Paranoid Parrot." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/paranoid-parrot>.
N.d. Feministing. Web. 10 May 2015. <http://d1o2xrel38nv1n.cloudfront.net/files/2014/05/frank1.png>.
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N.d. Know Your Meme. Web. 10 May 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-did-it-for-the-lulz>.
N.d. Quickmeme. Web. 10 May 2015. <http://www.quickmeme.com/img/e7/e7d7232e29155592302431eca26c23822e0136549ae3674c591cf73a7e5a36f7.jpg>.
AK-. “Karate Kyle." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2011. Web. 18 Apr. 2015.<http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/karate-kyle>.
Aux. “Good Guy Greg." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2011. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/good-guy-greg>.
Butler, Judith. "Imitation and Gender Insubordination." The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. By David H. Richter. New York: St. Martin's, 1989. 1712-718. Print.
Don. "Bad Luck Brian." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2012. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bad-luck-brian>.
Don. "Feminist Frank." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2014. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/feminist-frank>.
hugocornellier1. “Paranoid Parrot." Know Your Meme News. Cheezburger Incorporated, 2009. Web. 18 Apr. 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/paranoid-parrot>.
N.d. Feministing. Web. 10 May 2015. <http://d1o2xrel38nv1n.cloudfront.net/files/2014/05/frank1.png>.
N.d. Meme Generator. Web. 10 May 2015. <http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/58125211.jpg>.
N.d. Know Your Meme. Web. 10 May 2015. <http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-did-it-for-the-lulz>.
N.d. Quickmeme. Web. 10 May 2015. <http://www.quickmeme.com/img/e7/e7d7232e29155592302431eca26c23822e0136549ae3674c591cf73a7e5a36f7.jpg>.