« Never gonna give you up ». Historiciser la viralité numérique

in Revue d'histoire culturelle du XVIIIe-XXIe siècles (2022), 5

Les « phénomènes Internet » (mèmes, challenges, etc.), qu’ils s’incarnent dans des figures célèbres, des animaux, des manifestations de peoplelisation rapides, ou encore des anonymes sont difficiles à ... [more ▼]

Les « phénomènes Internet » (mèmes, challenges, etc.), qu’ils s’incarnent dans des figures célèbres, des animaux, des manifestations de peoplelisation rapides, ou encore des anonymes sont difficiles à saisir dans le temps, même court, de l’histoire du Web, qu’ils traversent pourtant dès l’origine. Sous l’effet des évolutions rapides du Web, des pratiques numériques (de production comme de consommation des contenus), ces phénomènes comptent des déclinaisons multiples et deviennent des artefacts culturels reconnus, faisant l’objet d’une patrimonialisation. Des plateformes dédiées entreprennent un travail d’inventaire, de contextualisation, de conservation, d’éditorialisation et de publication (une des plus célèbres est Know Your Meme), tandis qu’en parallèle les acteurs institutionnels de l’archivage du Web se trouvent aussi confrontés à la difficulté de préserver ces traces. Étudier les phénomènes de viralité offre l’occasion d’observer l’évolution des plateformes et les circulations trans-plateformes et transmédiatiques, tout autant que les continuités de pratiques telles que le trolling, la participation et le remix. Cela permet aussi de penser l’interdisciplinarité nécessaire à son étude, ainsi que les sources, méthodologies, outils et périmètres à convoquer, et ce afin de rendre compte d’un phénomène total, à la fois technique, médiatique, culturel, économique et politique. [less ▲]

“Small is impactful”. Memes and Politics

Scientific Conference (2022, October 20)

From the Hampster Dance and the Dancing Baby in the second half of the 1990s to the hijacking meme of Bernie and his mittens at the US presidential inauguration or the images of the Evergreen blocked in ... [more ▼]

From the Hampster Dance and the Dancing Baby in the second half of the 1990s to the hijacking meme of Bernie and his mittens at the US presidential inauguration or the images of the Evergreen blocked in the Suez Canal, memes have become in the last twenty years an important part of our digital cultures (Shifman, 2014), whose often absurd, playful, corrosive and viral character cannot hide also multiple political dimensions. To the question "Do Memes have politics", to paraphrase Langdon Winner (1980), the answer is undoubtedly yes and this presentation aims to analyse the many levels of politics and agencies at stake when studying memes and their impact, in terms of digital cultures, governance, curation, sharing (John, 2017), appropriation by several communities, but also writing of their history. The first part of the presentation unfolded several levels of politics, starting with the most obvious (memes address political aspects, see for example Denisova, 2019 or Askanius and Keller, 2021) to the more hidden levels (politics of meme generators, of heritagization platform like Know your Meme (Pettis, 2021), of curation …). Relying on a diachronic approach, from the Godwin Law to Distracted Boyfriend, through Leave Britney Alone, this part aimed to address both complementary sides of these Internet phenomena: memes as political forms and politics of memes, while underlying some economic, gendered, affective dimensions which are part of their impact. We then examined the consequences of the notion of “impact” and “politics” for the shaping of an history of memes, which is at stake in the Hivi (A history of online virality) project, we are currently conducting, may it be in terms of sources, methods (“scalable” and “medium” reading), or topics (notably claiming for a study of circulation and flow (Jenkins, 2009), of processes, of participation (Milner, 2018) and appropriation, beyond a sole semiotic approach of memes). References Tina Askanius, Nadine Keller, “Murder fantasies in memes: fascist aesthetics of death threats and the banalization of white supremacist violence”, Information, Communication & Society, 2021, vol. 0, n° 0, p. 1 18. Anastasia Denisova, Internet memes and society: social, cultural, and political contexts, New York, Routledge, 2019. Nicholas A. John, The age of sharing, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2017. Henry Jenkins, If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead (Part One): Media Viruses and Memes, 2009 (http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2009/02/if_it_doesnt_spread_its_dead_p.html). Ryan Milner, The world made meme: Public conversations and participatory media, Cambridge MA, The MIT Press, 2018. Ben Tadayoshi Pettis, “Know your Meme and the Homogeneization of Web History”, Internet Histories, 2021 (to be soon published). Limor Shifman, Memes in digital culture, Cambridge MA, The MIT Press, 2014. Langdon Winner, “Do artifacts have politics ?”, Daedalus, vol. 109, n°1, 1980, p. 121-136. [less ▲]

Keep calm and stay focused. Historicising and intertwining scales and temporalities of online virality

Presentation (2022, June 22)

This presentation takes online virality as its starting point, specifically that of memes and the question of their historicisation , in order to question how they may be resituated in a context of ... [more ▼]

This presentation takes online virality as its starting point, specifically that of memes and the question of their historicisation , in order to question how they may be resituated in a context of production and circulation, taking social, spatial and temporal logics into account. After a discussion of the scalable reading as applied to virality, with specific emphasis on the importance of the spatial and temporal aspects, we propose a case study based on the Harlem Shake. [less ▲]

Masse des archives du web et circulation des contenus

Presentation (2022, May 13)

Keep calm and carry on. Historicizing online virality

Presentation (2022, May 04)

The purpose of our Hivi research project (https://hivi.uni.lu) is to historicise and to contextualise online virality through the different ages of the Web. This allows to grasp the evolution of digital ... [more ▼]

The purpose of our Hivi research project (https://hivi.uni.lu) is to historicise and to contextualise online virality through the different ages of the Web. This allows to grasp the evolution of digital cultures, as well as the changes of platforms, audience, formats, and the cross-platform, transnational and transmedia circulations of Internet phenomena (memes, online challenges, etc.). There are also continuities of practices to be retrieved, such as trolling, participation and remix. Even in the short time of the history of the Web, viral phenomena have undergone rapid and constant changes, due to the evolution of the Web (appearance or disappearance of platforms and web sites, changes of interfaces, etc.), of digital practices (may it be related to content production or consumption), and of the phenomena themselves, which are flexible, adaptable and versatile. To reflect on the temporalities and spatialities of these ephemeral and changing phenomena, this talk will present the sources and tools we are currently using, the methodological challenges we are also facing while exploring a large amount of data and sources (may it be on the living or archived web). [less ▲]

“Spread or die”. Online Virality as a Transmedia Phenomenon

Scientific Conference (2022, February 03)

Memes (Kaplan and Nova, 2016; McGrath, 2019), gifs (Eppink, 2014), buzz on the Web and social networks are inherent to digital cultures since the very first steps of the Web (i.e., Dancing babies, Hamster ... [more ▼]

Memes (Kaplan and Nova, 2016; McGrath, 2019), gifs (Eppink, 2014), buzz on the Web and social networks are inherent to digital cultures since the very first steps of the Web (i.e., Dancing babies, Hamster Dance). Virality has developed and changed over time through several platforms (YouTube, 4Chan, Twitter, TikTok, etc.), while relying on some patterns identified by Shifman (2014), Milner (2018), Jenkins (2009) and others. Historicizing virality through times, spaces and platforms is at the heart of the Hivi project1 (https://hivi.uni.lu). While starting to historicize these phenomena, may it be Numa Numa Guy, Leave Britney Alone, Grumpy Cat, the Harlem Shake, online challenges (Ice Bucket Challenge, Fire challenge, etc.) and many others, the transmedia circulations and the role played by “traditional media” in the life cycles and virality of such practices have become more and more obvious. This proposal aims therefore to demonstrate and analyze how Internet phenomena are transmedia. Building upon several case studies, this presentation will first remind us how virality occurred before the digital (Pinker, 2020) and how previous historical forms were also reused in the digital. We will then analyse the circulation between online viral phenomena and other media, may it be Internet phenomena that are echoed in other media (press, cinema, video games...) or on the contrary the use of media phenomena by digital cultures (see for example memes related to Chuck Norris or Sad Keanu). Finally, the last part will specifically focus on the relationship between online virality and the general press, relying on a vast corpus gathered through Europresse, on which we conducted a diachronic distant reading. This intertwinement of Media cultures and Digital Cultures aim at highlightening several topics of the call and notably Temporalities of media through digital technologies; Persistence and discontinuities in communication; and finally Digital sources, new practices, tools and narratives in media history. References Eppink, J., “A brief history of the GIF”, Journal of Visual Culture, 2014, 13(3), p. 298- 306. Jenkins, H., « If it doesn’t spread, it’s dead (Part One) : Media Viruses and Memes”, Confessions of an Aca-Fan, 2009. http://henryjenkins.org/blog/2009/02/if_it_doesnt_spread_its_dead_p.html Kaplan, D., Nova, N., La culture Internet des Mèmes, Lausanne, PPUR, 2016. MacGrath, J., “Memes”, in Brügger, N., Milligan, I. (ed.), The Sage handbook of Web History, Los Angeles, London, Sage, 2019. Milner, R., The Word Mad Meme. Public Conversations and Participatory Media, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 2018. Shifman, L., Memes in Digital Culture, Cambridge MA, Mit Press, 2014. Pinker, R., Fake News & Viralité avant Internet. Les lapins du Père-Lachaise et autres légendes médiatiques, Paris, CNRS Éditions, 2020. [less ▲]