meme logic

sept 6

None of what I write here is new or original. It’s most likely been written by someone else, or a computer, or combination of both. I am regurgitating a few ideas snatched from various philosophers, Wikipedia, and Instagram threads in an effort to bring clarity to the mess I see folding and unfolding in social media and in my psyche.

I write this mainly in response to the post on Christine Tien Wang’s Instagram account yesterday, which has since been deleted. Christine used the meme of @sadpeaks and there were many comments on her action. It was a series of comments that had to do with the act of appropriation, giving credit, and how to make amends. I admired every earnest comment on that thread. I did not appreciate the patronizing comments made by the educated elite. This is a problem in the arts in general. I am also a friend of Christine’s.

Appropriation within the arts is a tool used for very specific reasons. Shifting the context of the work highlights how meaning is produced around the work. The dissemination of the image leads to questions of how value is constructed, circulated, shared, maintained, and/or protected. The way an image is reproduced promotes a kind of public. To reproduce an image used in a meme, into a painting, is to not only point to the way in which a shift from accessible and ephemeral to unique increases monetary value, it also points to a change in value due to the kind of viewership.

The unique object holds more monetary value for collectors than a meme, simply due to the fact one can purchase the right to own it, pointing to the singularity of its possibility. The meme is not an object – but the dematerialization of the object. It’s many versions of itself announces a new public – with a different fetish object as goal, to objectify the masses through persuasion and humor.

While the unique object finds it’s end in a vault, or above a couch, the meme continues to circulate on social media, gaining value through likes and followers, pointing to an increase in social capital for the meme maker, and continuing the reproducibility of the image – the definition of a meme.

The word meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene as an attempt to explain how ideas replicate, mutate and evolve (memetics). Dawkins explained that Internet memes are thus a "hijacking of the original idea", the very idea of a meme having mutated and evolved in this new direction. The term meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme, which comes from Ancient Greek mīmēma meaning 'imitated thing'.

Memetics describes how an idea can propagate successfully, but doesn't necessarily imply a concept is factual or original. Propagating successfully is integral to the meme. According to this logic the ability to own a single meme is the death of that meme. It is no longer a meme. In this way the form of a painting, that holds the end of an image in its singularity, is the logical end point for an image that wants to, or perhaps even should, die.

There is more to consider here, such as how value finds its materiality. Christine and her gallery will profit monetarily. @sadpeaks has had their meme continue to another form of venue outside of social media. In terms of considering the dissemination of an artwork the work of @sadpeaks moves in accordance to the terms they have claimed, that of the meme. Is being the creator of a successful meme enough? Potentially. I read Christine’s post yesterday as an honest effort to reach out and show care for a community. I don’t know what resulted from the interactions online.

There is a long history to use without care, and comments without care, I hope we as artists and cultural producers can find more ways to show support for one another.