Blog Post #3: Articulation 3 Spencer Tran

This week's discussion was focused virality especially in regards to the women yelling at the cat meme and Martin Luther's 95 theses, specifically through the lens of media articulations presented in text and in class. I have chosen the third articulation of how media artifacts and messages are spread through culture and society.


With Martin Luther's 95 theses the main alley of distribution was that of nailing the 95 theses to the wall of the Roman Catholic Church and using the printing press to spread his message amongst his followers. The 95 theses were spread from person to person through the use of these mediums and led to one of the biggest media campaigns done in those times. Each paper held the 95 theses that contradicted the Catholic Church and intrigued individuals who read them on pieces of paper or on the wall of the Catholic Church. The printing press played a big role in helping Martin Luther distribute his 95 theses and became one of the most popular mediums of communication and media in that current time.


With the woman yelling at the cat meme, it was highly distributed and shown through different online outlets, especially social media apps. The original cat meme originated out of a T.V show and a picture posted online of a cat sitting at a dinner table. The woman yelling came from the show "The Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills" and featured one of the cast members yelling at another cast member during an argument. The picture was then paired with a photo of a cat sitting at a dinner table as if it is ready for a meal. These two pictures then became the famous woman yelling at the cat meme, which was combined with other memes and text. Users from all over the world flocked to social media to change the meme in a way that they thought was funny or enjoyable. The interaction that occurred was pretty much the 3rd articulation of how messages are spread through mediums and culture, where meme culture changed the original meme to represent different meanings in life. This can be seen by one way the meme has been changed as pictured below.


References

Herman, A. (2021, October 28th). CS371A Social Media and Social Life Fall 2021 [PowerPoint slides]. Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University. Retrieved from MyLearningSpace.

Mohn, T. (2016). Long before Twitter, Martin Luther was a media pioneer. Retrieved November 26th, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/30/arts/design/long-before-twitter-martin-luther-was-a-media-pioneer.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=wide-thumb&module=mini-moth&region=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below&_r=0

Ritzen, S. (2019, August 12). How an unlikely marriage of memes gave us 'woman yelling at cat' The Daily Dot. Retrieved November 26, 2021, from. https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/woman-yelling-at-a-cat-meme-origin/

Standage, T. (2013). Writing on the Wall: Social Media; The First 2,000 Years. Bloomsbury USA

Comments

  1. abbeysmallwoodDecember 1, 2021 at 9:34 AM

    Hi Spencer,
    loved your post! I really like your example of the cat meme in Japan and how different cultures change the medium. Martin Luthers 95 theses and the cat meme are both very different forms of media and context but they both were able to be spread all over the world. Since the meme became so popular, it has been changed many times and used in many ways. The fact that we are talking about it in class shows how it has impacted the world.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bryanna FeldmanDecember 4, 2021 at 1:03 PM

    Hi Spencer! Great post! I think you make a really good point in identifying how the two images are similar. The fact that both of these memes went viral shows how quickly media effects culture and how fast things on social media travel. This media was able to be manipulated and shared virally in a short amount of time which contributed to the popularity of the memes.

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