CS371 Blog Post 3

By: Carly Wong


 This week’s blog post assignment asks us to examine texts which have “gone viral”: Martin Luther’s 95 theses and the “women yelling at cat meme” using the three articulations discussed in class.


In terms of Martin Luther’s 95 Articulation One, Two and Three can be applied. These articulations look at the message’s content and how it is formed in the medium and the distribution of the medium, it also looks at how it could be replicated and circulated among different populations. The message was very interesting for many, and people wanted to debate it. Martin Luther’s theses were written and posted on the door of the church in protest of the church selling indulgences. The message was written in Latin and was done so people with the knowledge were able to debate it. Choosing the medium of pen and paper, a space-biased medium, allowed people with the knowledge to read, copy, and then bring wherever needed. Based on its ability to circulate, it could also be translated for the needs of other populations. It was an interesting message, which could be replicated and easily be distributed. These things allowed Luther to send his message to many and from the resonating message he would be able to create a movement that would later be known as Protestantism. 


In the meme “woman yelling at cat” the Second Articulation can be applied to it. The second articulation looks at the mode of communication, is how multiple copies can be made of it, and in a language which people can identify with. The woman yelling at the cat meme, it has no words, it is instead based on body language which symbolically means the same thing universally, one individual mad, the other confused on why the first individual is mad at them. This allows the meme to be applied to other languages and cultures, it allows people to apply either universal experiences that others may find funny, or apply to a certain niche situation; either way it can be used is why it went viral.


Thanks for reading, everyone have a great weekend!


Comments

  1. Kaitlyn ChambersNovember 26, 2021 at 2:18 PM

    Hi Carly,

    I thought your post from this week was clear and concise and I really enjoyed reading it through and through. I especially appreciate the way you describe the woman yelling at cat meme to be essentially a blank canvas where individuals can alter the message however they want. While the symbolic message stays the same (the images), individuals in any place, language or time can contribute and ultimately apply their own meanings to these posts. This is something that I think is quite unique about memes, as they seem to continue to evolve over time. Further, it also makes memes long lasting as they never really die out since new messages can continue to be produced through the same image. This is also something I discussed in my post for the week, and I mentioned how this enhances the scope of people who can interpret such messages as it can be reproduced in so many different ways. Overall great post!

    -Kaitlyn

    ReplyDelete
  2. Taylor RandersonNovember 29, 2021 at 11:40 AM

    Hi Carly,

    I appreciate your take on this week’s assignment and think you bring up some interesting ideas! In particular, I like your emphasis on the universality of memes as their images most often can non-verbally communicate with the viewer. I think this is an important point as internet memes’ versatility ultimately facilitates their virality. Thus, this understanding demonstrates how the production of the “Women Yelling at Cat” meme can transcend different cultural barriers that may take place when translating written material.

    Overall, great post! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anahita KNovember 30, 2021 at 3:08 PM

    Hi Carly,

    Enjoyed reading your post this week, and your explanation of articulation.
    Martin Luther used both spoken and written word in order to spread his message which enabled him to bypass the space time bias. The ability to replicate his thesis was also a large contributor in enabling the text to go vial. The woman yelling at cat meme is slightly different than the Luther text not only in the medium they both used to go viral but in the way that the meme is able to be universal as the images itself does not contain any text and it can be manipulated in a multitude of ways to be relatable.

    Great post overall!

    Anahita

    ReplyDelete

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