Thomas Plotkowiak

What the **** do people do all day on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube ….A stare into the abyss of internet subculture

03.05.2010

What do people do online?

*UMM Wave 5 Studie 2010

Twitter

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Message Types

*pew Internet research 2010

Facebook

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13 11 11 8 4

Why I use facebook

* Pempek et al. 209

Youtube

Mus

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Comed

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Film

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News & P

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Video Categories

*Gill et al 2007

Content: Photos

Content: Videos

Content: News

That’s boring and stuff you already know…

But what makes the social websites different than newspapers, magazines or TV?

Internet Memes

"Meme" ( /ˈmiːm/[1]) is a relatively newly-coined term that identifies ideas, behaviors or styles that spread from person to person within a culture.[2] The concept comes from an analogy: as genes transmit biological information, memes can be said to transmit ideas and belief information.

lolcat

• lolcats are image macros, made of humorous photos of cats with superimposed text written in a form of broken English known as lolspeak. Many of the most popular lolcat-based memes were popularized via 4chan.org, the 4chan tradition of Caturday, and Icanhascheezburger.com.

• Spread: The act of placing text on a humorous photo of a cat has its pop culture roots in the famous “Hang in there, baby” poster from the 1970’s, which spawned a series of imitators itself.

FAIL

• FAIL is turn-of-the-century internet slang that came to popularity through image macros and short videos depicting situations with unfortunate outcomes. Traditionally, the verb “fail” has been a used to signify the opposite of “succeed,” to fall short of achieving a goal

• Spread: The earliest documented usage of the term “FAIL” can be traced to a 1998 Japanese 16-bit scrolling shooter game

• Details: Also known as "Epic FAIL" or "You are doing it wrong"

Rickroll

1. Rickrolling is a bait and switch: a person provides a web link that he or she claims is relevant to the topic at hand, but the link actually takes the user to the 1987 Rick Astley video Never Gonna Give You Up. The URL can be masked or obfuscated so a future victim cannot determine the true source of the link without clicking (like this). If a dumb cluck does click and is led to a web page with the song, he or she is said to have been Rickrolled (also spelled Rickroll’d).

Things with Faces

• Things With Faces are images that consist of objects that look as if they have facial characteristics. This bears a resemblance to OM NOM NOM images which involve drawing facial features on inanimate objects.

• Pareidolia (from the Greek words para- which means “with”, or “alongside” but in this context it means something is faulty or wrong and eidolon which means “image”. So basically “faulty image”.) is an illusion involving a vague or obscure stimulus being interpreted as clear and definite.

Rebecca Black - Friday

• Info: Rebecca Black is an amateur YouTube musician who soared into the public eye for her music video “Friday.”

• Spread: 11.03 200 Hits, 17.03 10 Million Views, Currently 128 Mio Hits on YouTube

• Details: Rebecca Black’s “Friday” officially became the most disliked YouTube video with over 1.27 million downvotes, surpassing Justin Bieber’s “Baby” which has just over 1.1 million downvotes as of March 30th, 2011.

Anonymous

• Anonymous is an ad-hoc “group” of internet users who occasionally act in concert, a demonstration of the mass organizing powers of the Internet. It has no formal structure, and survives by feeding on lulz. Also, “Anon” is often used as the third person singular of Anonymous. 4chan is believed to be the primary Anonymous safe-haven, and Anon’s suspected place of birth. Since user registration is never required on 4chan, all users and demonstrators are known simply as “Anonymous.”

Advice Dog

• Advice Dog is a series of popular image macros that first surfaced on 4chan’s /b/ in 2006. A typical example of Advice Dog depicts a cute puppy’s face against the background of a color wheel, often accompanied by unrelated advices and ridiculous instructions

• Spread: July 5th, 2006 on 4 chan

• Details: Now there are multiple variations: Courage Wolf, Philosoraptor, Socially Awkward Penguin, Pokeparents, Rich Raven, Bachelor Frog

Philosoraptor

• One of the more thoughtful (and successful) Advice Dog variations, Philosoraptor challenges the reader with his deep, existential, Paleolithic questions.

Other advice memes

Three wolf moon

• Three Wolf Moon is the name of a “power animal” t-shirt that was ironically made into one of the top selling apparel items on Amazon.com for 2009 with the review:

• Pros: Fits my girthy frame, has wolves on it, attracts womenCons: Only 3 wolves (could probably use a few more on the ‘guns’), cannot see wolves when sitting with arms crossed, wolves would have been better if they glowed in the dark.

Rage Guy

• Rage Guy (or Rageguy) is a series of four-pane comics that became popular through 4chan’s /b/ board in late 2008. The “fffuuuuu” Rageguy is a type of exploitable image macro in which the main character expresses serious disappointment, exasperation or displeasure in reacting to a given situation--typically caused on accident.

• Spread: Rageguy stayed almost exclusively to 4chan until 2009 when it spreads to other online communities.

• Details: Creating a variation with MSPaint is acceptable, and almost encouraged, due to the crudeness of the character.

Forever Alone Guy

• Forever Alone is an exploitable rage comic character that is used to express loneliness and disappointment with life.

• As of September 16th, 2010, there are over 23,000 results for “Forever Alone” on Funnyjunk.com 3 and over 50,000 on Tumblr.4

Lying Down Game

• Lying Down Game is a mass-participatory meme that involves having one’s photograph taken whilst lying rigidly face down in public space and then sharing the image via internet.

• Spread: Images of the game appeared that month on Buzzfeed, CNET, F-Listed, Metro.co.uk, and Urlesque.

So how does it work?

Forums Blogs Rankings

craigslist

Video Portals

NewsMicroblogsSocial

NetworksEmail

Thank you

ಠ_ ಠ

Questions?

1. Facebook drives 44% social sharing, where Twitter drives 29%. their old rivals Yahoo and mySpace drive only 18% and 9% respectively.Details: http://thetechjournal.com/internet/social-community/people-use-facebook-44-and-twitter-29-for-social-sharing.xhtml#ixzz1LIb0WPAy

2. 48% of 18-34 year olds check facebook when they wake up.