User:Arthur Vince/UTC

UNRAVEL THE MEME

For this first project you will take look at particular given memes and analyse them. Formulate your own questions in order to dissect, interpret, assess, the meme. For example: What characterizes your meme? How is it used? How widespread is it? Where did it originate from? What are keywords that you would attach to it? What is it’s effect? What are it’s components? What does it link to? What is your opinion of this meme? How is it transformed? How would you categorize it’s iterations? What story might you want to tell about this meme? And how would you visualize this story? Ultimately your findings will be displayed as a mini-exhibition during the Wereld van Witte de With.

RICKROLLED

In 1987 Rick Astley was released, making it a solo debut single of the album 'Whenever You Need Somebody'. Later at the 4CHAN community, one of the founders m00t, says that the RickRolling started on the VideoGame board circa May 2007. This all started with the predecessor named 'DuckRoll'. The Duckroll all started because a word filter on the 4CHAN boards turned the word "egg" into "duck". When typing eggroll it would turn into duckroll. Later a picture with a duck on wheels became popular "Duckroll" by send it to a friend or someone who is anticipating something and gets this picture to trick them. Basically getting a duckroll when instead they want to see another picture.

Since the game GTA IV was so anticipated int he year 2007 people started to link Rick Astley's video on the 4CHAN platform disguising it as a sneak preview or trailer for the anticipated game. This is how the RickRoll all started. It is a 'Bait and Switch' type of joke.

"To post a misleading link with a subject that promises to be exciting or interesting, e.g. "World of Starcraft in-game footage!" or "Paris Hilton blows Busta Rhymes' dick" but actually turns out to be the video for Rick Astley's debut single, "Never Gonna Give You Up". A variant on the duckroll. Allegedly hilarious." - Urban Dictionary.

This can happen on Youtube itself, with misleadingly titled videos, or with links from other sites to youtube. These videos usually have a misleading image in the middle of the video, so that the thumbnail on youtube looks legit. Sometime they even make names that seem legit.

Timeline

• 2007 (APRIL/MAY): 4CHAN, DuckRoll.
• 2008: Gaming Scene, GTA IV Sneak Peak Release video is Rick Astley’s music video
• 2008: Youtube uses it as April Fools Joke.
• 2008: NYC Mets uses “Never going to give you up” as 8th inning song, because of popular vote of the people
• 2008: Rick Astley gets to preform his classic song on the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade after 14 years.
• 2008: Rick’s song becomes so popular that he even gets voted for “Best Act Ever” in the MTV European Music Awards.
• 2008: Studies show that in 2008 18 million adult Americans were RickRolled.
• 2010: Lyrics are used by Oregon’s house of Representatives during a House Sessions.
• 2010: WikiLeaks uses lyrics in an article about serious attacks on Visa, MasterCard, Amazon and Paypal
• 2011: The Whitehouse tweets a link, which is actually a link to Rick Astley’s music video.

Popularity

The reason why it became so popular was because it was a way to be part of the joke. The Rickrolling slowly expanded from the Gaming-Scene to more of the mainstream where other anticipated audiences were tricked too. It is also fun to see your friends or known people react to it as a form of Peer-Reaction. This type of jokes have been tormenting the internet from a long time, with not only having the RickRolled as a Bait-and-Switch video there are also others in that same category such as:

• Scary Prank Videos
• Two Girls one Cup (Don't google for your own safety)
• "X Amount of girls online in your neighborhood and want to chat" - Ads
• Fake Close Buttons on Ads
• Fake Outs

Targets

• People Looking for Movie / Game Trailers / Footage
• Abridged Series Watchers
• People who try to watch TV on Youtube

MORE RESEARCH

After exploring our meme we were placed in a group with "Doge" and "3 Wolves Moon". Our overall theme is "CONTEXT". With this over all theme we will make something for the Wereld van Witte de With. For that we need to do additional research on the certain techniques we like to use for Thursday, and have it finalized by then.

Which News Sites

After exploring news sites and how to generate the photos from these websites, we decided to go for twitter feeds instead. Looking at twitter and different feeds we searched for a certain type of feed. We need an active and picture related feed. We want to use these pictures, take them from the feed, and then make it reappear in our Processing document with the generated text. After though research we settled for CNN and BBC World.

Generating Content

For the generation of the twitter content we will probably have to use an API to get our content.

"API, an abbreviation of application program interface, is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. The API specifies how software components should interact and APIs are used when programming graphical user interface (GUI) components. A good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing all the building blocks. A programmer then puts the blocks together. - Wikipedia

Types of APIs - Source - There are many different types of APIs for operating systems, applications or for websites. Windows, for example, has many API sets that are used by system hardware and applications — when you copy and paste text from one application to another, it is the API that allows that to work. Most operating environments, such as MS-Windows, provide an API so that programmers can write applications consistent with the operating environment. Today, APIs are also specified by websites. For example, Amazon or eBay APIs allow developers to use the existing retail infrastructure to create specialized web stores. Third-party software developers also use Web APIs to create software solutions for end-users.

Popular API Examples - Source - Programmable Web, a site that tracks more than 13,000 APIs, lists Google Maps, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and Amazon Product Advertising as some of the the most popular APIs. The following list contains several examples of popular APIs:

• Google Maps API: Google Maps APIs lets developers embed Google Maps on webpages using a JavaScript or Flash interface. The Google Maps API is designed to work on mobile devices and desktop browsers.
• YouTube APIs: YouTube API: Google's APIs lets developers integrate YouTube videos and functionality into websites or applications. YouTube APIs include the YouTube Analytics API, YouTube Data API, YouTube Live Streaming API, YouTube Player APIs and others.
• Flickr API: The Flickr API is used by developers to access the Flick photo sharing community data. The Flickr API consists of a set of callable methods, and some API endpoints.
• Twitter APIs: Twitter offers two APIs. The REST API allows developers to access core Twitter data and the Search API provides methods for developers to interact with Twitter Search and trends data.
• Amazon Product Advertising API: Amazon's Product Advertising API gives developers access to Amazon's product selection and discovery functionality to advertise Amazon products to monetize a website.

Useful Links

• Tutorial: Twitter Processing

Popular Memes

These memes below are a few of the most popular memes we will be using as a substitute text to change the context of the images. By using these titles hopefully this was create an interaction or topic of conversation.

GOODGUY GREG • FOREVER ALONE • YOU DON'T SAY... • NOT BAD! • THEREFORE... ALIENS!! • BAD LUCK BRIAN • WAT? • MOON MOON • DRINKING MY OWN PISS • HOMOPHOBIC SEAL • FIRST WORLD PROBLEM • SCUMBAG STEVE • BRONIES • WOW • FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC • BITCH PLEASE • WATCH OUT, WE HAVE A BADASS OVER HERE. • OVERLY ATTACHED GIRLFRIEND • I TOOK AN ARROW TO THE KNEE • RIDICULOUSLY PHOTOGENIC GUY • SEE ME ROLLIN', THEY HATIN' • DERP • ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR • HATERS GONNA HATE • DO YOU EVEN LIFT, BRO? • SOCIALLY AWKWARD PENGUIN • SERIOUSLY? • TRUE STORY • DEAL WITH IT • AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT • I THANK NOT ONLY GOD BUT ALSO JESUS • U MAD? • LOOK AT ALL THE FUCKS I GiVE I DON'T WANT TO LIVE ON THIS PLANET ANYMORE • 2/10 WOULD NOT BANG • I LIED • OH GOD... WHY • HONEY BADGER DON'T CARE • COME AT ME BRO • MY BODY IS READY • WORK-SAFE PORN • THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY • MOTHER OF GOD • SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY • LIKE A BOSS • IT'S A TRAP! • RUINED CHILDHOOD • CLOSE ENOUGH • DEAL WITH IT!

CONCEPT

Since the over all theme is "CONTEXT" we had two types of contexts that we are incorporating. We want to show that by changing the text of an image it can create a new context of the image. The story behind it will change and it might even change the topic conversation because of his certain image. The other part is the context of "RickRolling" it all started with substituting a link with other content.

"Our installation will substitute the context of a most recently uploaded news item (from a specific twitter pages by adding ‘famous’ meme titles."

TECHNICALITIES

By taking news pictures from a twitter feed we get a reliable source of content and data. All the data is gathered by the processing script and from a text file a

DOWNLOADS

Down below are downloadable links, mainly our presentations.

• Pitch Presentation: Out of Context
• PDE Script: Online + Data Pictures
• PDE Script: Offline + Java Library

END RESULTS

On Thursday we had our first presentation at Eendrachtstraat.