If this isn't your first day on the internet, then you are probably familiar with the phenomenon. The question is how do they get started? Why would one picture of a guy spreading his butt cheeks to disgusting proportions ever get popular? Who would imagine a simple picture of a walrus and his bucket would turn into a dramatic story of love lost?
I truly believe forums have greatly contributed to the acceleration of today's internet memes within web culture.
Some memes seem to pop up fast, and disappear, just as quickly. A certain emo telling everyone to 'leave Britney alone' comes to mind. Others, however, have stood the test of time, such as 'All your base are belong to us!'
What factors involved dictate which ones will last for ages and which ones will simply dissolve? I believe it has to do with usefulness. Some such as Chris Crocker just touched the moment due to what was going on with Britney Spears at the time. It struck while the iron was hot, but there was not much room for it to grow on and so the internet moved on and passed it by.
Others such as dramatic chipmunk (which by the way was actually a prairie dog), are easily mutatable into other ideas. The first video itself was funny enough to take the internet by storm, yet people were easily able to adapt it to other scenarios and new environments. When a meme is so adaptable it tends to live on for a much greater time. Goatse , for instance, shows up in many different forms and never fails to get a few cringing laughs.
I cannot answer how something becomes an meme though. It is almost impossible to throw something out into the internet knowing it's going to be the next big thing. If we were able to have that ability, we certainly would be making a lot more money!
To quote Andy Warhol's famous saying 'In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes', i don't know if he ever invisiged a world where people got their kicks from a computer (maybe he did?), but it does seem he was right after all !
One thing is for certain, the internet will always be providing more and more every year, and I for one cannot wait to see them !
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