I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a meme scholar outright; rather, the memes within my research have emerged from studying everyday practices and cultures of social media, within political and topical discussions, as well as popular culture and fandom contexts. This piece is an extension of ideas that have come out of my recent work around […]
In 2014, I was putting the final editing touches on my book on internet trolls. Having never published a book before, I didn’t realize how involved the process would be, not just regarding the text itself but the book cover as well. I’d provided some cover design ideas on one of MIT’s author questionnaire forms, […]
I became involved with meme scholarship in 2010 when I conducted an audience study of LOLcat enthusiasts. As a result, I have been referred to as a “meme scholar,” although I don’t necessarily know if that’s quite the case. It is certainly true that I have studied memes, and I do consider “internet culture” broadly […]
Believe it or not, it’s an exciting time to be an internet meme scholar. Sure, it’s been three years since 4chan’s founder, Christopher ‘moot’ Poole, lamented the death of the “internet culture” that brought the term internet meme and its early exemplars to prominence. Sure, it’s been over a year since The Daily Dot—a sort […]
The collection of essays set to roll out on Culture Digitally over the next month began its life as a pair of panels spanning the last two annual meetings of the International Communication Association. At the 2014 meetings in Seattle, Washington and the 2015 meetings in San Juan, Puerto Rico, various configurations of the contributors in […]