UNRAVEL THE MEME
"Bad Luck Brian"
Research
Origin: In 2012 the original instance of the meme was submitted to Reddit. A long-time friend of "Bad Luck Brian", whose real name is Kyle Craven, used a yearbook photography of Kyle with the caption "Takes driving test…gets first DUI.". This original post did't receive many votes (less than 5 up), but the first meme did (over 3,300 up votes in less than 2 months). The caption of this meme was "Tries to stealthily fart in class… shits".
A few months after the first post, the identity of the boy on the photograph was revealed as Kyle Craven. It came out that he made this face on purpose and that the principal even made him take another photograph. So the original photo was already a joke.[1]
Themes
- famousness through mocking
- empowerment of a meme. Kyle is able to laugh about himself and gained publicity.
- self spreading/ developing ability of memes
1st Assignment
Group: tattas be like, bad luck brian, nailed it in cooperation with Meike Brand, Zina Burgers, Laura Egger-Karlegger, Eunhyang clair Lee, Nora Mabrouki and Lisa Vermeer
At first we came up with the common theme of "stereotypes". We discusses various project ideas and split up in three groups/projects. As we developed our projects further it turned out that the main theme changed to "translation".
Project
cooperation with Meike Brand
The idea was to create a chain of copy's related to the way memes spread. We tried to invent an interactive and automated chain of translations that can be used by the visitor.
An example of a chain: Read a "tattas be like..." sentence out loud to the computer - record it - transliterate it - translate it by google translator - let it read by the computer - write it down per hand - let it read/write again by the computer - print it.
Important points:
- chain of copies and transformations (like memes in general)
- transformation of information by "failures" within the chain
- misunderstandings between digital and analogue language
To generate the automated process we used Auto Mouse Click.
Exhibition at WDWFESTIVAL According to the circumstances, the process shown in the exhibition was shorter.
final sequence: Press 1 to start the automated process. The Google Translate page will be opened. When the recording sign pops up, the user/visitor should start to speak. These spoken words are transliterated and translated in the same time. After the recording stopped, the translated words are copied and then pasted into Google Images. The process ends with the result of Google Images.
title: Spoken words. Transliteration. Translation. Copy. Paste. Visualisation. Transformation. text: Spoken words getting transformed by mistranslation between analogue and digital language, translation, reproduction and visualisation. The automated process relates to the development of memes and the way they transform within these progressions. Humor is generated by misunderstandings.
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