The one thing that really stood out to me in "Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker" was the idea of parody in “Leave Britney Alone” and the idea of using key phrases from such videos to create a meme (370). I think TikTok in particular has become the birthplace of a lot of memes. Although very short lived due to the sheer amount of content produced on the app every day, certain phrases or songs do become very popular and saturate the app for a few days. YouTube videos are a big source of inspiration for parody on TikTok. Often times, clips from a YouTube video, usually an apology video, will be uploaded onto the app with a caption that completely alters the meaning. One example is beauty Youtuber Tati’s apology video surrounding the drama between her and James Charles. The viral clip is of Tati pausing dramatically and crying before saying “enough”. Users then overlayed their own unrelated text captions onto the video. Although there were many videos like this, the one I remember the most was one captioned “when the waiter asks how much parmesan cheese I want”. This is a direct example of the mockery that can be present in parody.
The shelf-life of memes has also shortened significantly. I don’t remember seeing any of the memes Shifman mentions on 364 except for the “Numa Numa guy”. I vaguely remember seeing this video a few years after it was initially released and it was still a pretty big meme/viral video. Now, memes last only a few weeks or even days. For example, Bernie Sanders sitting on his chair during the inauguration spawned hundreds of memes, but within the week, it was considered outdated and overdone. In comparison, the troll face meme from the early 2010s was used for years before eventually becoming obsolete. The constant birth and death of memes now may make the evolution of memes that Shifman was trying to track much more complicated.
In “What Does Net Art Mean in the Post-Digital Age?” Lialina is discussing her opinion on the current state of web design. She says that the increased accessibility of web design is “killing the personality of websites”. This is an idea I completely disagree with. Yes, the current design that is in style is simple, clean and modern, with the big titles and images that Lialina doesn’t care for. However, this is a direct reflection on the rise of modernism and minimalism as an aesthetic in recent years, reflected in home design and shows (think Marie Kondo and white marble) as well. Furthermore, the websites of the early web were all in the same style too- pixelated images, dynamic backgrounds, gifs, Times New Roman font. Although perhaps more interesting and diverse to look at initially, it should be recognized that these are all part of the same type of website as well. In my opinion it is not really the accessibility of web design that Lialina has a problem with, it is just that she associates the current trends that she doesn’t like with accessibility.