The Internet as 80s-Toys in Neosignals „Planet Online“-Video
Youtube Direktneo, danke Mika!
So macht man Viral-Videos: Bisschen Retrooptik, ein paar Memes (Gangnam, Grumpy Cat) reinpacken, dazu bekannte Websites aufzählen (Buzzfeed, Wikileaks), bisschen Netzpolitik (ACTA) und das alles durchrühren und durch einen Retro-Toy-80s-Commercial-Filter wieder ausspucken. Ist natürlich auch ein bisschen sehr Clickbait, aber das sind Virals ja mehr oder weniger immer. Neosignal kommen aus Hamburg, hier ihr Facebookdingsbums, hier auf Twitter, Album Raum und Zeit kommt im Juni auf Beatport. Kann man so machen, well done.
Shot in a style that borrows from early Nineties children’s toy commercials, the video for ‘Planet Online’ uses toys and analogue objects to create a physical reconstruction of the current online landscape, where current internet brands including Buzzfeed, Facebook, Instagram, 4 Chan, YouTube, Twitter, YouPorn) fight for our online attention. Guest appearances come from Wikileaks, Anonymous, ACTA, The Pirate Bay, Megaupload and beyond.
Video created by Dent De Cuir // www.dentdecuir.com
PBS Minidoc about Photoshopping
Nette Kurzdoku von PBS Offbook über Photoshop. Die erste Hälfte über Digital Paintings ist eher meh, die zweite Hälfte über Memes und politisches Photoshopping allerdings recht brauchbar.
Photoshop has completely revolutionized our visual culture. Artists now use Photoshop to create complex imagery that would have been impossible 20 years ago. It has also profoundly changed the art of photo retouching, turning a labor intensive process into an artful and often controversial digital workflow. But possibly the most current and expressive influence can be seen in meme culture online. With the ability to alter any image in the media landscape, everyday people now have the means to critically comment on culture and spread their ideas virally, leveling the playing field between traditional media creators and consumers. Photoshop has changed the way we communicate, the way we express ourselves, and the way we view the world and each other.
Harlem Shake Protests in Egypt and Tunisia
Der Tunesische Bildungsminister findet Harlem Shake beknackt und eine „Beleidigung“, in Ägypten wurden ein paar Schüler wegen des Harlem Shakes festgenommen – und nun formiert sich Widerstand. Harlem Shake als Protestform. Ich hätte jetzt auch nicht damit gerechnet, dass die Meme nochmal irgendwas interessantes hergibt:
Some students and education officials in North Africa are in an uproar over — of all things — the “Harlem Shake.”
The viral dance video that has spawned thousands of copycats and plenty of eyerolls around the world is not so popular with authorities in Tunisia, where education minister Abdeltif Abid called it “an insult to the educational message” and promised an investigation into a version filmed at a local high school. In Egypt on Feb. 23, police arrested four university students for filming a version of the dance outside in their underwear, reports Lebanon’s Daily Star.
Since then, Egypt Daily News reports a student group called “Satiric Revolutionary Struggle” has cropped up in Cairo, with plans to dance the Harlem Shake in front of the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters. Tunisian students have skipped class en masse and vowed to stage their own retaliatory Harlem Shake in front of the Ministry of Education on Friday, according to Tunisia Live.
The ‘Harlem Shake’ becomes a protest in Egypt and Tunisia (via Dailydot)
Memes I’d Like to fuck (3): London Keyes as David After Dentist
„I feel funny.“
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Memes I’d like to fuck: Pornstars reenact Webmemes
The Improbable Normal
Schönes Posting von Kevin Kelly über das exponentielle Bombardement mit Außergewöhnlichem durch das Netz: The Improbable is the New Normal.
That light of super-ness changes us. We no longer want mere presentations, we want the best, greatest, the most extraordinary presenters alive, as in TED. We don’t want to watch people playing games, we want to watch the highlights of the highlights, the most amazing moves, catches, runs, shots, and kicks, each one more remarkable and improbable than the other.
We are also exposed to the greatest range of human experience, the heaviest person, shortest midgets, longest mustache — the entire universe of superlatives! Superlatives were once rare — by definition — but now we see multiple videos of superlatives all day long, and they seem normal. Humans have always treasured drawings and photos of the weird extremes of humanity (early National Geographics), but there is an intimacy about watching these extremities on video on our phones while we wait at the dentist. They are now much realer, and they fill our heads.
Ich hab’ da ‘ne Weile drüber nachgedacht und unter Kellys Posting folgenden Comment abgegeben, auch weil dieses Blog an diesem Bombardement nicht ganz unbeteiligt ist. Zu einem Schluss bin ich nicht gekommen, aber den Gedanken will ich trotzdem hier festhalten, vielleicht ergibt sich daraus nochmal etwas ganz anderes:
Great Post, but I’m not really sure if this is a Thing. You have the same effect since media exists, from the begin of the first Newspapers in the 19th Century, the yelling Paperboys screamed Things in the Streets that were „remarkable“ [and extraordinary]. Also: Freakshows and Circus.
Ofcourse, the Web turns up the Heat and bombards us (the more tech-savy, the über-informed) exponentially with stuff, but I’d not say that this Effect is really new. Like most of the stuff with the Web it’s a question of scale. That’s what transforms and challenges us. It’s the sheer Volume of the Effect, not the Effect itself, I think.
Back to the Future-Day Single Service Sites: Are we in the Future yet?
Nachdem sich das halbe Internet gestern mal wieder mit einem geshoppten Still aus Back to the Future verarschen lies, hatte Kyle McDonald vom F.A.T.-Lab die Schnauze voll und stellte schnell eine Single Service Site („Single-serving sites are web sites comprised of a single page with a dedicated domain name and do only one thing“, KYM) dazu auf die Beine: Are we in the Future yet? YES! Yes we actually are! Etwas unlustiger, dafür korrekter: Is today the Day Marty McFly arrives when he travels to the future? Der echte Tag ist übrigens der 21. Oktober 2015 und ja, der ist schon seit einer Weile in meinem Kalender rot angestrichen. Damit dürfte sich das Thema erledigt haben, so ungefähr für ein Jahr. N00bs.
Troll Culture – A Comprehensive Guide
Stefan Krappitz hat an der Merz Akademie ‘ne Diplomarbeit über Trolle geschrieben. Die behandelt zunächst mal die üblichen Verdächtigen wie 4chan oder Something Awful und deren Code (“Newsfags can’t tricode”), geht dabei aber ziemlich ins Detail. Für einige NC-Leser nicht viel neues, dafür aber fundiert und ich mag die Stelle sehr, an der er Sokrates und Diogenes als die historischen Wurzeln of teh LULZ beschreibt.
Plato described Diogenes as “a Socrates gone mad.”
Diogenes was also known for masturbating in public, eating at the marketplace, which was considered rude at the time, urinating on people who insulted him, pointing at people with his middle finger and defecating at the theatre.
This would qualify him for an excellent troll, if he didn’t do it to teach society about values. It is really hard to say, if his personal amusement played a role in his doings. On the other hand, I believe it to be quite possible, that he had a lot of fun when he was urinating on critics. His goals were inner freedom as the key to happiness. If his doings were to pursue that ideal, that implicates he really did it for teh lulz (for his enjoyment).
This would qualify him as one of the first documented trolls.
Bonsai Kitten Plushy in a Jar
ThinkGeek verkauft Katzenplüschis im Einmachglas. Das nennt sich Bonsai Kitten und war eine der ersten Memes, so um 2000 rum. Das Ding hatte sich sehr schnell als Hoax von MIT-Studenten herausgestellt, aber das Gerücht hält sich bis heute. Ich selbst hatte mal eine Arbeitskollegen, der musste ich 2008 noch erklären, dass das ein Scherz war. Sie hat’s mir nicht geglaubt.
A long time ago in a distant galaxy, no one knew what a meme was. “Meme?” they asked. “What the heck is a meme?” Then the Internet arrived to teach everyone. One of the earliest and most enduring memes was the poor case of the Bonsai Kitten. You may recall that the evil Dr. Chang was doing nefarious experiments to raise tiny kittens in jars. As they grew, the kitten’s supple bones would mold themselves into the shape of the jar and become even more… cute? […]
Important Note: No cats kittens or kittehs were harmed in the creation of this product. For the uninformed, the original Bonsai kitten joke was a hoax (aka NOT real). Dr. Chang is a fictional character and real cats wouldn’t live long in a glass jar. Here at ThinkGeek, we love cats. We want to hug all of them, which is crazy cuz we can’t hug every cat. But we just want to. Okay?
