I found myself having fun, yet thinking hard at the same time as I made these memes. We mentioned it last class, but the I Can Haz Cheezburger meme was something I took in account for my last meme, centered on police reform. The events of the January 6th riots, and overall the history of modern military issues inspired me in each meme as well, with the project giving me a chance to see first hand how impactful a meme could be as protest art. I was able to see this when I saw political cartoons comparing the treatment of the famous podium guy from the Capitol, compared to how Black Lives Matter protesters were treated.
Media Professor Benjamin Burroughs of the University of Nevada has said that “The ability for the meme to empower and push back can be really powerful. They’re definitely sites of resistance against perceptions of abuse of power. They spread so quickly and evolve and transform, and it’s hard to shut them down in the way other forms of communicative protest can be silenced.” If I were to post any of the three memes I made onto a site like Twitter, for better or for worse, they'd somehow spread to either side of the argument. Art has a way of travelling, and even if memes are differently created compared to paintings or videos, they still find themselves in the same realm. There is a certain sarcasm and dryness that allows viewers to have some form of resistance towards what the meme is about.
When referring to the artworks of William Pope L., the Interventionists book says "His
art installations use unconventional materials such as peanut
butter, mayonnaise, and Pop arts
to provoke a closer examination
of the “stuff” of everyday life and
to raise questions about art as a
commodity and community. " I consider the image vectors of different cartoon characters, animals, and people, to be the peanut butter and mayo of memes -- An unconventional force to relate political events to things we see in everyday life, with various facial expressions or implications that change how we view them for a short time. For example, the giant swordsman, Batman's helmet, and Cheezburger cat which easily mean different things when looked at from their origins.
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