Blog Post #3: Articulation 3: Kaitlyn Chambers

In this week's blog post assignment, I will be showing how two viral media trends reaffirm and articulate articulation three of the media assemblages' that we have been exploring in class. The first viral media trend is Martin Luther's 95 Theses and the second is the infamous woman yelling at cat meme, which most prominently circulated the internet in 2019 (Ritzen, 2019). 

With this in mind, articulation three of these media assemblages primarily focuses on where or when a message's production, distribution, and consumption occurred (Herman, 2021). I think this articulation can be accurately applied to both instances of viral media trends on the internet for various reasons. Thus, to begin, Martin Luther's 95 theses idea is essentially based around him pinning his 95 theses which he wished to discuss, specifically in opposition to the selling of indulgences, on the Wittenberg church door (Standage, 2013). The relevance of this extraordinary printing of Luther's message is most notable within studies of media because it transformed the ways individuals received messages (Mohn, 2016). Shortly after Luther took this action, his message circulated in multiple cities and markets (Mohn, 2016). The widespread circulation of his messages and, further, the rapid speed of which allowed thousands of people to see and interpret his message (Mohn, 2016). An interesting yet somewhat similar media trend is the woman yelling at cat meme. As many news articles discuss and point out, this meme began when an individual who went by the username of "@MISSINGEGIRL" put two humorous images together side-by-side on Twitter (Ritzen, 2019). The first is of Taylor Armstrong from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills screaming and pointing at someone (whom we cannot see). The second is of Smudge the Cat, sitting at a kitchen table looking disgusted at the plate of vegetables in front of him (Ritzen, 2016). Hence, the whole joke around this meme is that it seems as though Armstrong, the woman in the first image, is screaming and pointing at Smudge. Meanwhile, Smudge looks relatively unamused. Once these images had been posted together, people took it upon themselves to edit the meme with whatever caption they wanted. And hence, different versions of this meme began circulating the internet.

So, how do these two viral trends reinforce articulation three as outlined above? With Martin Luther and his 95 theses, it is clear that the production of this message at the time was one of the first of its kind. Because Luther printed his 95 theses rather than speaking it, for instance, the message spread further to a broader audience. The increase in production of his theses happened shortly after he first pinned the theses to the church door. Soon, because individuals valued his ideas, it began to be produced not only in an increase of quantity but also in different languages such as German so that an even wider audience could interpret his message (Standage, 2013). However, most evident in Luther's 95 theses in terms of articulation three is ultimately the way his message was circulated and distributed. His message essentially did go "viral" (Standage, 2013). Luther took his message and used the available media to him at the time to spread the message he wanted to say to a variety of cities and thousands of people (Mohn, 2016). In this case, Luther's theses are an example of this articulation in a variety of ways. 

Similarly, with the woman yelling at cat meme, articulation three is also evident in this example but is different and arguably even more expansive. Because social media allows thousands of people to receive a message, this is what happened with the woman yelling at a cat meme. Further, because this meme and its template were posted online openly, the production of this meme was enhanced because individuals could produce new versions of the meme and continue to distribute it around the internet for more individuals around the world to consume. Because the meme with just the photos of the woman and the cast side by side were relatively generic, the possibility for different meanings also increased the amount of circulation as people took the meme and made it their own over and over again. Further, because these photos became a trend on the internet, this also means further and broader circulation, to the extent that 275,000 people liked the initial tweet (Ritzen, 2019). Ultimately, by the end of the woman yelling at cat meme era, the amount of circulation of the meme was so expansive that probably all of us are familiar with at least one version and can confidently say that we have seen this message before. 

References 

 

Herman, A. (2021). CS371-A- Social Media and Social Life Fall 2021 [PowerPoint slides]. 

MyLearningSpace. 

https://mylearningspace.wlu.ca/d2l/le/content/400172/viewContent/2660271/View

 

Mohn, T. (2016, October 28). Long before Twitter, Martin Luther was a media pioneer. The New York Times. Retrieved November 26, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/arts/design/long-before-twitter-martin-luther-was-a-media-pioneer.html. 

 

Standage, T. (2013). Chapter 3: How Luther Went Viral. The Role of Social Media in 

Revolutions. In Writing on the Wall: Social media: The first 2,000 years (pp. 48-63).

Bloomsbury Press. 

 

Ritzen, S. (2019, August 12). How an unlikely marriage of memes gave us 'woman yelling at cat'. The Daily Dot. Retrieved November 25, 2021, from https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/woman-yelling-at-a-cat-meme-origin/.