Transcript for Podcast 70: Meme Life (Patreon)

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Jamie: Hi, everybody. Welcome to the psychology of games podcast. My name is Dr. Jamie Madigan and I am your host. On every episode of this podcast, I examined some intersection of psychology and video games, or maybe sometimes neighboring disciplines like communications with the help of a guest expert. This is the episode about names and memetic communication.

Jamie: So have you ever shared a meme, you know, an image with some texts that may be inscrutable to anybody, but your friends or the people in your little community? My Friday night, D&D group uses Discord to play online and we constantly post memes into the text channel as we're playing. And as things happen in the games, did a wizard cast a fireball to ignite the bandit hideout? Disaster Girl meme gets posted. The hasted fighter multi attacks and uses an action surge? That image of Kermit the frog flapping his arms crazily gets shared. Did the rogue fail her stealth check? Now all of China knows we're here. You get the idea. 

Jamie: It seems like these are great. Not just because they're funny, but also because they're dense with layers and layers of information, what the meme says on the face of it, what it means in context, what assumptions and meta knowledge it comes with and what it says about the person who posted it.

Jamie: They're often important to and popular with communities like gamers, for those reasons. In this episode of the psychology of games podcast, I'll talk with an expert on the academic study of memes about how they're used, what they mean and how there's often more to a meme than meets the eye. That's coming up in just a second.

Jamie: All right, everybody. Welcome Dr. Shane Tilton, back to the podcast. As you may remember, he's an associate professor of multimedia journalism at Ohio Northern University. Tilton's also a fellow of the Ohio Northern university Institute for civic and public policy. The lay line geek therapy advisory board, and the center for society and cyber studies.

Jamie: Dr. Tilton's research normally falls in the realms of collegiate game-based pedigree. The psychological issues surrounding ludology multimedia journalism's influence on society, social media engagement. And as we're going to talk about today, memetic communication practices, Shane, that was a mouthful.

Shane: Yeah it's, it's weird. Anytime someone says that loud, because I know I do a lot of different components of research and it doesn't quite always fit into one neat clean. Package either rhetorically or on paper. So, [00:03:00] no, I, I, yeah, it's, it's, it's weird, but no, Jamie, thank you always for having me.

Shane: This is a great pleasure. 

Jamie: Yeah. So specifically we wanted to talk about your freshly minted book. I guess it's been out for about a month now, as we talking about this meme life and it is all about memes, but from kind of. Academic perspective, but also from what I've seen of it, very approachable and very readable for, for most people.

Jamie: So what is meme life about? 

Shane: Well, that's a good question. I mean, it's, it started, it's kind of a long story because this is a book that I've basically been working on for one way or another since 20. 19. And it just so happens last couple of years, I've had more time to write it for some reason. I don't know.

Shane: It just seems like my schedule has opened up quite a bit more

Jamie: Yeah. Who knows why 

Shane: That might be right? I don't know. It's just so weird. But what it was based on was it first was grounded in what I was teaching because I teach a class in what was called mimic communication. [00:04:00] Now it's memes and society, and I.

Shane: I had three really good books that I was using. So as part of my teaching, I use rhyme Milner's world made meme. I use Lemoore. Schiffman's a meme since digital culture. And then the third book that I used was Palm Macleans culture and networks, because I needed something that was a little bit more expansive.

Shane: And the feedback I got from students was. This is too deep of a dive. It was to graduate level because the book was about like 400 pages and it was really intensive. Yeah. It was gradual little thought and it was breaking my students' brains. So I'm like, okay, I need something sort of an in-between that's dealing with some of the cultural aspects, but explaining how people interact on network.

Shane: And talking about Swarth agency of people. And since there wasn't a book out there that was really covering it, I'm always of the impression I'll just go do it myself. So this was based on the lectures that I was giving, consolidating them in a more coherent form and packaging them quite nicely. My publisher con really dug what I was writing and what they suggested was we really need a good resource for therapists and mental health professionals to think about how to use memes in a clinical setting.

Shane: And I, and I always tell people I am not a clinical psychologist. I've never played on a television. That is not my strength. My background is in social psychology. You have to have research on that since my dissertation. So I said, okay, as long as I can just sort of set the groundwork at this is sort of some understandings of memes in a social setting and maybe give you some considerations about how to use it.

Shane: That's fine. So the book sort of became this really nice hybrid between a textbook that I could use in my class. And in fact, I'm teaching class this semester tomorrow we're talking about logic and means some using Milner's research. But I want my textbook at the same time I can offer to, or the, the lay lines who's the publisher can offer it to therapists and say, this is a tool you can use.

Shane: And the third, I have friends from high school that have bought the book that just thought it was really cool because they've used memes on Facebook, on Twitter. And it makes them sound a little bit more intelligent when they're, when they're talking about it. So it kind of hit this perfect sweet spot between those three points.

Shane: So it's for a academic audience is for a clinical audience and it's for a general audience. And as my editors in the past, and even my colleagues know, sometimes I write in a very academic style. I, my, my good friend Kathy flack always said that I would, I have a way of writing in the language of the.

Shane: Which was her affectionate way for talking about academics. So in terms of like the ways that made it approachable, I just had really good editors that said, you know, you should probably provide some examples. Explain what you mean. I wouldn't really definitional early on and I try to avoid using contemporary memes because my biggest fear was having a book.

Shane: That'd be outdated. The moment it was public. Yeah. And means do that. Well, you're 

Jamie: talking about means like, there's, there's a new one every day, every couple of days, that's sort of in the hot consciousness. And I think I have a similar problem with video games too. It's like, that stuff changes pretty frequently, so I get it.

Jamie: Yeah. 

Shane: Right. So, I mean, so to kind of wrap it up, I mean, it's, it's the punchline was, I wanted more about sort of understanding the, the approach to create a meme and why we use them. And the book does a wonderful job. Trying to go through that process. So, yeah, I think, I think it's, it's it's was a really, it sounds weird to say, but it's a really, it was a fun book to write and it's been a fun book to talk about.

Shane: So I've really enjoyed it for basically, since I started this, I started doing this like in earnest last 

Jamie: year, most of us, and especially younger folks who may be like college students in your classes, think of memes as they. Here's an image and it's got the block, the blocky impact font, and it's, you know, there's texts at the top there's texts at the bottom.

Jamie: And like that is a meme for people. So in your work and in the book though, like how do you define a meme and how is that different from how people may think about it? Or how is it the same? 

Shane: Well, I mean, I think that's a good question and I there's two ways that I approach it first is I kind of do a long historical view of.

Shane: Because the concept of a meme as a unit of culture has been around since basically the seventies early eighties, because this is where you talk about Richard Dawkins. And he talks about the difference between biological meme and a cultural being. And there are really good researchers that I build my work off of because they've kind of set the.

Shane: The foundation's pretty well. I've mentioned Ian BOGOs, who is a absolutely brilliant person that deals with game theory and talks about it as a Al gore communication. So. The one example that I use from the book is the star Trek. Darmok where it's, 

Jamie: when the walls fell 

Shane: or Shaka with Chicago walls fell.

Shane: And essentially that became in the book. I call it a proton beam because it is basically a couple of images and it recontextualize, it just basically says the, the who's and what's and we all get what that means. So, if you say Leonardo DiCaprio holding cocktail glass high, right? You get, you get the the great Gatsby image.

Shane: And I take sort of that extension first. So what I came to a realization is one of the things that beams in discussion left out was the role of the content creator, because the content creator gets hidden. You don't think about, there's not. As one of my students said in class really nicely Cole, he said, we don't think they're you can't name one or two meme, content creators.

Shane: It's not like an all-star content creator. It's they are anonymous once it leaves. So yeah, that made sense in terms of the way I approach. Yeah. There's some aspects of the visual that are kind of nice, but I just basically say it's a complex multilayer communication construction. So it's something that we use as a way of exchanging information and interaction.

Shane: And it's influenced by what happens in society. What happens in culture at the same time, it's doing something that allows the person to express what their view of a world is, what they're feeling, what they're seeing. In a way that they're trying to change the meaning of symbols that they see and trying to impact what happens in the community.

Shane: So it's very 

Jamie: dense and very complex way of communicating pictures, worth a thousand words, kind of that sentiment's been around forever. But this even seems to take it a little bit further, because it seems to say something about the person using it, the context that it's being used in. And what it is that they're trying to say.

Jamie: Right, right, 

Shane: right. And I, and I, and that's kind of biased because as a communication scholar, that's normally where I'm grounded. Anyway, I talk about the exchanges before I talk about means we talked to, I was basically focusing on social networks and how we tried to develop communities or how we feel connection in great distances.

Shane: So it made sense that memes. We're an extension. And to extend it, if a picture's worth a thousand words, a meme is worth a thousand pictures.

Jamie: I like that. Yeah. So when you teach this to undergraduates or you go and do a lecture to whomever, do you have to kind of get people to unlearn their idea of what a meme is or to expand it or do people pretty much get it 

Shane: a little bit of both.

Shane: I think that they, for the most part, they. Used memes before, or they they're they're they're composed there. Their understanding of memes is something I share with friends. And a lot of the early conversations we have in classes is, well, who do you share memes with? That is a central focusing question we use.

Shane: And the answers I typically get are friends, families, close numbers, because beams are a way of expressing something that I feel. In a very simple manner. I, instead of going in this detailed description of my emotions, by feeling my, understand the world, I have this wonderful beam that does basically the same thing and does it in a very eloquent manner.

Shane: And it's what they understand. So that part works. But then to kind of, kind of break apart that element, we have to talk about. And one of the underlying themes amount. Those are the definitions of memes is that it's an inside joke of the internet. It's something that if you, if you understand the components or the different layers of the meme, then it's something you can find humorous.

Shane: We talk about cultural capital and cultural capital is an old. Theoretical term, that basically means that you have information about the, the elements of popular culture. So when I see Superman, I recognize that as a representation of American idealism, if I see sponge pop in this case, I can take it apart as a element of a meme because.

Shane: It is a recognized symbol that is childlike and you have a blank canvas and you put a lot of different meanings behind them. That's the reason that SpongeBob is very memorable is because it is something that a lot of people have seen. It has a critical mass of understanding. There's enough people that have watched SpongeBob or at least recognize what the image represents that they can feel like they know it.

Shane: And it has very simple modes of expression placed on top of it, which gives it an impact. So, yeah, 

Jamie: I was going to mention that SpongeBob is an interesting one for me, because I was. Too old when SpongeBob was in his heyday, you know, and I never really watched it, but I know everything, everything you just said makes sense to me, just because of my familiarity with the SpongeBob meme.

Jamie: Yeah. He's childish. She's saying he's making complex ideas simple. So that's interesting, even though I don't have the cultural cachet for that, I've picked up on it. You know, same reason I don't get like power Rangers or Pokemon themes as much as people who. Grew up with those things in their childhood.

Jamie: Right. 

Shane: And, and I, and I think I, someone had said I'm in my mid forties and I find that, yeah, I did not grow up with SpongeBob. There's a lot of the older stuff. Like if we talk about Mr. Rogers neighborhood or Sesame street, or even like 3, 2, 1 contact that has some, some grounding to me more than SpongeBob, but as someone that studies digital cultures.

Shane: That it resonates. It's not something that it's, it's a part of the TA. We talked about texts and that is anything that we use to interpret a cultural. Aspects. So SpongeBob is a tax because people watch it, they get meaning from it. You, you understand your world in understanding the world and quotation marks through watching that show.

Shane: And it's a way of building a language. You can talk to others. If you've asked people to seeing the previous episode or what have you, it's just, that means are an extension of that entire element of. 

Jamie: So you mentioned this a couple of times so far, and you talk about it in the book, like different layers or lenses of means.

Jamie: Can you kind of unpack that and talk about what that is? Like, what are 

Shane: those layers? Well, the way that I start off the concept that are talking about layers is different elements within a meme that gives you a hook to explain why it's significant or why or how someone gets meaning. The first, the most basic is what we call the conceptual layer.

Shane: So conceptual layer is what were all the thoughts, ideas, influences that led me to the creation of a given me and the book. I use an example of that's. And once again, this is where I try to use a very generic example. I, as a point of confession, I love studying memes. I am a normie when it comes to meme creation, I don't do a lot of really great needs.

Shane: We'll give you a pass. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. So I wanted something really as a simple example, so feel the burn. So I wanted something. So my person in the book wanted a meme that basically was a, you know, a way of like making fun of someone else. So he had the character, had the idea of having a picture of someone holding the sun and having the impact text field.

Shane: So the concept was to basically burn someone else through conversation. The second element is texts, Texas, the easiest layer to understand because it's, what's written it's you read it and you make sense of it. And it's, it's always a supply layer. The other reason the textual layers are useful is because you can have a text, a text only meme.

Shane: And what I mean by text only is you can have what we would call copy, pasta, copy pastas. A series of words and sentences that people use over and over again, that has significance. So you can have texts and typically texts like Pearson, top of memes. You have the visual layers and visual layers or elements that are easy to see, recognize that.

Shane: You have cultural layers, which actually gets to the SpongeBob argument, that SpongeBob is a cultural layer because it is a popular culture icon, or he is a pop culture icon that people identify with. You have a compositional layer, how you put the pieces together, and then you basically have a way from sort of the really simple two dimensional memes.

Shane: You can take that into the real world. So we talk about performance layer. So performance layer. And the general example would be the ice bucket challenge is very performance heavy. It's something that you were basically to replicate the same actions in the book. I say, you can take the, feel, the burn, you can take a real world picture of it.

Shane: And that is a performance of the original context. We talk about the rhetorical layer, which rhetorical layer is. How do people use that particular meme on a regular basis? What is it? Actually, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Contextual. When we talk about contextual is how is this used on a regular basis? When we talk about rhetorical, it's basically how do these pieces start to float together?

Shane: So if I am a member of a community, how do I talk about memes? Or how do I talk about this particular meme in my community? And then we talk some of the biggest of all, which is meta analytical, which is if I don't have any impact, how do I see how other people are using it? So the short answer to that really long statement is that.

Shane: Layers to me, or just ways of understanding beams and giving us an opportunity to tool, to talk about them in a really, you know, an intelligent or a, a dispassionate way. 

Jamie: Yeah. That's interesting. And kind of thinking of it, like I'm prone to do from like a psychologist perspective. These sounds, these different layers sound like different aspects of a mental model of what a meme is.

Jamie: So you have like the blatant, textual, you know, components, and then you have the N could be very subtle cultural components and sort of assumptions that people bring to, okay, this is the, the underlying message of when this meme is used, and this is the, the larger context for it. And the more complete your mental model of that meme is, or the use of that mean.

Jamie: You get out of it. And the more you're in, on the joke and the more, I guess, community, the more communication happens. Like the more you get out of it. 

Shane: Right. And then that's what we get to when you analyze a meme. And once you got, I don't, I don't want this to sound always analytical or cold, but in terms of just understanding why it's effective, when we, one of the first exercises we do in classes and artifact analysis, which we just say, okay, Bring it.

Shane: So we just did this on Monday. So I had students show me memes. And you had to give me a 32nd description to explain what I'm looking at. 

Jamie: And people do that because I feel like sometimes if I were asked to explain the joke, it would be incredibly awkward and. 

Shane: Yeah, but that, but that's the beauty of it. I think that there you it's.

Shane: Yes. As I'm the executive producer of SNL, Lauren Michaels would say the moment you explained Kuma, the humor dies. I'm paraphrasing that particular quote, but it's, it's not just the humor. That's important, but it's understanding what we're looking at. So it's basically, do you have a baseline understanding of what this particular meme.

Shane: And if you explain the humor, yeah. You don't have to go. You don't have to do the cold analysis of the knock-knock joke, humor within it, but you at least have to give us all the inside track. If memes are insight joke, the only way to get the joke is to understand the inside knowledge of it. And that's what the description comes into play.

Shane: And then we talk about the layers we talk about. Okay. So which of the layers do you feel is the strongest and why? As a, as sort of the element. I kind of say with disbelief, I can't believe I'm teaching this class. One of the things that we introduced early on is Stuart hall, which he was a great communication theorist.

Shane: He's a great sociological theorist. And we talk about how do you read the meme and in the book in the second chapter, we talk about that. I bring Hollins. So this is, I am cribbing, Stuart Hall's notes completely. And I, and I give him full credit because it's a brilliant way to live. We talked about the three different ways to read media and Hall's definition.

Shane: As you talk about dominant, you talk about oppositional, talk about negotiating. So dominant means that the person that is explaining the mean has explained if I am a big proponent of popular culture and I support everything that you're showing in the meme, how do I read. How do I understand that meme as it's presented in front of me in an oppositional read, we say, okay, that I have, I find this atrocious, I find this horrific, why, what about this?

Shane: Do I not like, and how do you take it apart? The third, which is the negotiated is a way of just saying, okay, what are the good and bad elements of this particular meme? And if I have that sort of middling approach, how do I integrate. And once again, this is an oversimplification of hall, cause it's definitely a worth a read, but that's a way to think about from the audience's perspective, how am I transmitting this message, how this message being understood and that's how we talk about it.

Jamie: So do you, do you have any sense in, in your research and thinking about this, like how and why do some memes spread and why does some become more popular than others? Is there a, a formula or a perfect storm or. You know, and a lot of ways, this is asking you to explain why things go viral, which is kind of an impossible task.

Shane: Right. And that's what I was going to say. The answer is if I knew that information, I would not be working in the academy, I probably would be working somewhere else, making billions and billions of dollars collect your Nobel prize. Right? Yeah, exactly. I think the best answer I can give to that question is.

Shane: It is grounded in understand, in fact, early on in the class I teach, which is sort of outside the book because there was, this was one of those jigsaw puzzles that just didn't fit in talking about the difference between understanding beams as a form of communication and viral content. I, I, we talk about that viral content itself is technically not about.

Shane: And if once again, this is something that I 

Jamie: think, cause I might've assumed that it would be so why, why 

Shane: not? Why not? That's the next question. And this is actually going back to Schiffman. Schiffman actually made this argument clear that I will. The punchline is that a viral piece of content has one author.

Shane: That's the first component for something to go viral. You can identify the original work and you can essentially look at each of those pieces that makes a viral piece of content. And it is static. It's stable. You can list point by point of a viral work and identify all the pieces. The moment someone manipulates it, it's not the original viral work.

Shane: You are mimicking the firework, which itself is a neat, but a viral piece of content will traditionally have one author that will share a message. They are the person that's in control of the message they're delivering the way the content is. Correct. Now you can have peep. Now a meme is a replica and this is I'm trying to avoid the replicator argument because there's some conflict of that, but essentially you are inspired by other people's work and you're taking your own variations on the theme.

Shane: The example I always give for this is Jimmy Hendrix had the classic version of the star Spangled banner from Woodstock, had the guitar rip, and it is an amazing version of that. It's viral because I can buy a copy of that. I can go on iTunes or I can go onto Amazon or, or go to get a record at the record store and buy that song.

Shane: The moment that I try to replicate that that is not the original. I am not Jimmy Hendricks. I will never get close to Jimmy Hendrix, but I'm inspired by it. The original, the original work is viral minus limitation. That's the answer. So actually go back to original question. What makes a, what makes something viral?

Shane: Yeah. There, there is. I can say it generically because there's not a perfect one answer, but for something to go viral, there are a couple of things that you can point it. So this is actually coming to the book about what makes the social network, you know, viable. And the first thing about being viral is that you have a critical mass of people that understand the concept.

Shane: So it has to be something that is accessible to enough people that'd be willing to share. That is accessibility of cultural capital. That's accessibility of a joke that's accessibility, something else. And the second component of virality is that has that you have to have the ability to share it. You will never have a viral hit of a book.

Shane: That's locked in library of Congress, or it's in a safe somewhere, right. There has to be some means to share it effectively. So you have to understand what is pocket. What are ways of mimicking it and what are the easiest, the least points of resistance of sharing it. If you hit those two points, something is more likely to be viral.

Jamie: So what does that mean for memes? Is there, is there a way to make memes more or less likely to spread any? I mean, you look at like biological memes, you can go back to Dawkins and saying like, well, they're, they're successful if they help species survive, for example. Right. Or. You know, but the cultural means, which I think is more what we're talking about here.

Jamie: And to put it maybe another way is like, how would you design a meme that had no chance of spreading right. Or had a, had a poor chance of spreading or not spreading for, 

Shane: I mean, that we can kind of say there are elements that would indicate a meme, but not spread forth. One is you have a niche representation of knowledge.

Shane: So it's something that you have to have a graduate level understanding of the information in order to get. The the Billy. So if memes or insight joke, the second component beyond having that niche of element of knowledge is that the humor has to be so dry or work with such a small community of people that no one outside the community would get the information and therefore would not be shared 

Jamie: saying my meme about P hacking as is destined for a very small group of enthusiasts statistics.

Shane: It would have to, it's not even just that it would be, it's also the other weakness of your P hacking me, which once again, I found hilarious. It was really good. Was that you used a BI little pony clip from the 1980s. Cartoon that had no, my little ponies or had a, has still had no figures that we recognized that was really obscure view to do that.

Shane: And I really don't know why he chose that. That was variable. This is great. I'm taking notes. Good. Exactly. So, so it goes back to the layers argument that if layers are so hard to get, then it's not going to spread. So if the concept is so obscure, no one gets it at a conceptual level. What's going to fail.

Shane: If the tech. Has meaning to us let's view, it's also going to lose if the visual has no relevance to people outside small population, or it just looks like black, then that's fine. Now there is. So there is a sense. So with all this in mind, there is something that kind of is a counterpoint to that. They can go fire.

Shane: Well, this is where we talk about memes as I wanted. So, so young curve. Who is a great who is a researcher from New Zealand, talks about the use of the use of ironic beams and ironic memes are memes that are so dense that they sort of become an anti joke. And because you can have a population that is sick of memes being used by the general population, the anti joke is something that is spread, that people are making fun of people not getting me.

Jamie: This is great. I have an example of this, actually, my daughter, who's a teenager showed me this this picture of Hagrid, the Harry Potter character from a PlayStation one game, standing in the lake and beneath it, it just says water. And she found this absolutely hysterical. And I still have not been able to understand why.

Jamie: And I kind of become convinced that the joke is that it's not a joke. And that look at, look at the old man, look at dad who doesn't get that. Does that, is that kind of on the same? Yep. Same category is what you're talking about. Yeah, 

Shane: because it's something that is where you could have the absurdity reaches a, so the two possibilities.

Shane: So one is an anti joke. The other part is it's so absurd. You can't help, but laugh at. Yeah, which, which, which, so that gets shit. So we're going to get into the weeds a little bit. I'm going to try to not get too far, but beyond ironic. So one, so when we're talking about that, she could be laughing at it because it's so absurd.

Shane: It's funny. This is where the term sincere or the T or new sincerity comes into play. So new sincerity basically says I'm just trying to teach a very simple representation of the meme. And it's funny at a very base level. It could be one or two reasons that we could be laughing because look at all the people that aren't getting the joke, but it could be the same sort of reaction as splashing, like going into a body of water, splashing at it and laughing because it's fun in that particular level.

Shane: Now, I don't know. This goes back to the concept. I'm not sure why she would find it humorous, but there were two possibilities that would make it possible. 

Jamie: Okay. That helps. And she probably will, you know, just say it's just numb. That's 

Shane: why Stoney, which they could, that gets to sort of this sincerity argument more than the anti-media or the inside joke.

Jamie: You know, if we talk about like communities and subcultures, like, like gamers and the people on this discord server or the people who are on these forums or the subreddit. What role do memes play in those subcultures or communities, you know, especially those found amongst gamers or, or others. If you have something to say about.

Shane: Well, I, I, once again, because beams have a wide, because they're complex creations, they can do a lot of things. But I, I think one of the easiest hooks that get into this discussion is that beams have the capability of being guidepost. And what I mean by that is that essentially you can have enough symbols that are meaningful to gamers that if I'm sharing this meme, I am recognizing that someone else is a game.

Shane: And I know that I'm a gamer because I recognize those elements of those symbols as well. We had an example about apex legends and. I will admit I've never played apex lemons, legends. So I'm going way outside my pay grade. 

Jamie: We should play a great game. I, I, 

Shane: I, it's one of those games. I like Overwatch. That's typically more of mine and I watched valoran, I'm a huge fan of those.

Shane: I, it is something that's on my, on my, to do playlist. But they were talking about, I think it was the father. It was not the dog father. It was. There was, it was one of the characters in apex legends that was always, would have worship for the power of the gun. And there's one particular gun that is worse than all others apparently.

Shane: And if you get that in a drop, it guarantees you're gonna die in two seconds. And basically it was a Ford, it was a two by two. So it was a four panel meme that basically the character was praying for the gun. A drop came down and opened up a show the week guns. He knew he was in trouble and it had the stat bar that indicated diabetes.

Shane: And all of that symbol wisdom is lost on me because I don't play the game. I don't understand. I know some bits and pieces of it, but those in play apex legends will get the whole context. So, because I know the whole context, I know I'm a gainer. I know what game it is. And I know that if someone else is sharing it, I found my community of people that play apex legends.

Shane: So therefore it's a guidepost. It's something that identifies, it's really easy to create very simple beams to show the aspects of the games we like. And be able to share with others so we can find our communities. 

Jamie: Do you, do you have a favorite meme? Do you have one that sorta makes you giggle or that you appreciate every time when you see it or see variations 

Shane: on it?

Shane: See, this is where I get to confess about me being. So normally I, anything that has a cat in it is always going to get my attention. I, I think that was my first hook was law cat. Was basically just the old school. Right. And I, and I still find anything that has a cat in, is always gonna track my attention in terms of newer beams.

Shane: I think that, and we talked about this before the show beams changed so quickly that I feel like I get washed over with them. So I don't, it's hard for me to hold on to a particular meme for too long, because. I, I find that it is the moment that I take enjoyment of it. It's almost, it becomes overuse. So it, I, I get through the points of like the memes burn me out quicker than others.

Shane: So as a, as a general component, I would say that anything that has a cat or anything of that nature, just because I think it in folks, a lot of. Like pure emotion. Like I get the enjoyment of it and it speaks to me, but otherwise I guess just generally speaking, I like a very good dense meat. I think the one examples that I've, I've, I've kind of gravitated to has been the Peter Griffin and Robert Downey Jr.

Shane: Explainer means where they will basically what you'll have basically. A really complex meme of. And then, so I think the one example I saw early on was the, the meme of the two people looking at a bus. So one had a negative look on the left side and had positive look on the right side. Cause the one on the negative was more, was a bad view of the world.

Shane: And then the one on the right was a positive view of the world. And then Peter Griffin took an oversimplified explanation of what the mean. And Robert Downey Jr. Also does variations on that. I think Robert Downey Jr. The difference between Robert Downey Jr. And Peter Griffin is rubbed engineer takes it from a, like a upper-class cultural approach.

Shane: And then Peter Griffin is more of a typical peer Griffin from family guy explanation, which I, which I know. And I think the reason I like it, because that actually builds into that idea of complexity that you're telling him more common. Narrative by adding that layer on top of it. So that's, I think that's the sort of the, what do I find really cool right now is that particular area that's 

a 

Jamie: lot more sophisticated than my answer.

Jamie: My favorite meme, which is just that, that Irma, GERD, goosebumps Berks are my favorite, the 

Shane: goose bottle. 

Jamie: That always makes me crack. 

Shane: That's why he went low cats. Cause law cats, I let me see a cat. It is automatically to have that emotional connection too. So no, I respect that. That's that's a reasonable answer.

Shane: Yeah. Also 

Jamie: kind of an old school. And I think that one's been around forever as well. I always love it. Like looking up those those stories about where are they now? Like from like kids or people in memes and like kids that are grown up and what they're about. Well, 

Shane: and that's actually one of our assignments, so they have to talk about a personality that's been named and talk about the history.

Shane: So ring the pain. Harold is a really interesting story of that guy, right? The stock photo guy and he, yeah, that's basically he was stock photo and he didn't even realize that think he's from Poland if I remember correctly, but he's, he didn't even realize that it was popular until he started seeing it from his friends, sharing it.

Shane: And yeah, there's a lot of real disaster girls. Another really interesting one overly attached girlfriend is another one that is a very 

Jamie: interesting what a weird day that would make for right to like, just find out that you're, you're internet famous for some photo that you post for 10 years ago. 

Shane: Exactly.

Shane: And that, and that gets the heart of the complexity because we, one thing that is part of memes as part of the visual is that you have a person, then you can have a persons as Amy. And what does that person represent in the meme is not functionally who they are as a real person. 

Jamie: Right. So kind of along those lines, what do you think means are going to look like especially ones that are shared online?

Jamie: What do you think they'll look like a generation from now, you know, in, in 40 50 years, or 

Shane: I struggled with this one because I know one of the things that are gonna determine how beams are. You know, shared is the technology that supports it. So I I'm always of the hunch that the future looks a lot like now, except it has some cooler toys in some areas.

Shane: So if, if Facebook or a variation of that theme is around and it works in a very similar manner as today, for the most part, the names are going to be very similar. They're going to depend on cultural information. That is relevant of the moment. It's going to hit some sort of critical mass of enjoyment.

Shane: Talking about starter dough. Starters would be something that would not be understood five years ago, but still is functionally a meme in terms of the way that it is shared. So I I'm come very boring, answer this that I think. Not going to change a whole lot because the ways that we communicate are starting to get to a point where there's not a lot of additional elements, but it's one of those great things about future projection that most likely I'm going to be damn Raul.

Shane: And I'm just going to kind of accept that. So this is on the record and I, and my record on the record answer. I don't think memes are going to change a whole lot because essentially the means of communication or the means of distribution are going to change. Something's going to happen 10 years from now.

Shane: Prove me wrong. That's fine. I'm okay. 

Jamie: Well, we'll meet back here in 40 years and 

Shane: we'll say, oh, that'd be great. That'd be great. Not, and you can make fun of me for giving the wrong answer. I'm okay with that. 

Jamie: When our heads are just in floating in jars and 

Shane: we've got the, we've got the future, Rob aheads. Yeah.

Shane: That's why I'm, I'm already, I've got my scheduled appointment for that 40 years down the road. I'm good. Yeah. Me and Richard Nixon. It'd be great. 

Jamie: So is there anything about the book that we didn't talk about that you wanted to share? 

Shane: No, just, I, I encourage you to read it. I think it's, it's a, it's a, a wonderful overview.

Shane: I don't think it's too dense. It's something that I want to be accessible because I think the one thing that was a point of concern coming into this a few years ago, when I mentioned the idea to France, You're writing a book about means yeah. You're using physical paper to explain a digital concept. Yep.

Shane: Why? Because, because books are a tool to explore from number what we were doing. So this is a snapshot of the reality is we understood memes in 2022. So I'm hoping it will stay true for 10 years, 15 years. Cause I want it to be. Evergreen is like a possibly make it at the same time. If it's outdated, you can at least look at why it's outdated.

Shane: So get a copy of the book, look at it. And if you comments, I'm going to happy to hear it. Cool. 

Jamie: So if people did want to get a copy of the book, where would they go to find it? That the title is meme life, the social cultural, and psychological aspects of memetic communication is the full title and subtitle.

Jamie: What's the best place for people to go get it. 

Shane: I encourage everyone to go to the friendly local bookstore. I have a great one up the road called gathering volumes to some Parisburg. I love the owner and love the work they do. If you don't have these, typically, if you have a friendly local bookstore, they can order it through the PO are various warehouses.

Shane: The publisher has, if there's not one near you Amazon has the copy as a printed edition, there was an ebook version and there is an audible version. Yeah. That's the moment I knew things got weird, right? Because I wrote the book, I put it on my screen, it got published. Someone else had to read the words I wrote.

Shane: I hearing someone else's voice use my own words is still a point. It is so weird. So. 

Jamie: Yeah. I had that experience with, with one of my books as well. And I was like, this doesn't seem right. 

Shane: This doesn't seem right. 

Jamie: It didn't want to hire me because I'm not a professional. 

Shane: I do voice of work from time to time and I would not want to do it.

Shane: It's it is way too. God bless the person that did, he did a great job, but that is way too much work for me. But that's the answer. I mean, you can go lots of places, but also if you check out on Twitter, there is meme Lifebook that has been updating the book as it has some success on Amazon, or you can just check my online publishing and they have some some of the books as well.

Shane: And there's website 

Jamie: where on the internet should people go if they want to find out more about you in particular and your other research and other things. 

Well, 

Shane: typically my research and sort of the academic side you go to Twitter and it's Shane Tilden, all one word, S H E T I L T O N. And that is anytime I do a paper, a publication or anything, another P word.

Shane: I can't remember what it is. I typically say the three three-piece maybe it was performance. I, I have that there. But most of my personal and weird understandings of the world are on my personal Twitter, which is Silicon S I L a. And it's an overview. I've been doing a lot of Wordle, which I guess that is a meme now at this point because everyone shares it and there have been variations on those themes.

Shane: But yeah, my Wordle and pictures of my cat. Well, thanks 

Jamie: so much for coming on. This was fascinating. I love hearing about this kind of, this kind of stuff and this kind of research and thinking about things that you might not think needs so much thinking about, but once you do you realize how much there is under the surface.

Jamie: So thanks. 

Shane: And Jimmy, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. You definitely picked my brain away, that I think is really useful and really employable. So thank you. Okay. So I'll 

Jamie: just remind everybody that they can go to psychology of games.com to find out more about psychology and games, where I've got hundreds of articles that I've written over the years and dozens and dozens of episodes of podcasts that are similar to this.

Jamie: You can check out, you can support me on Patrion at patrion.com/pog. That's for a psychology of gains, and you can follow me on social media. I'm at Jamie Madigan on Twitter and there's Facebook and other social media that you can. I find that if you don't want to fumble around with the keyboard is just to go to psychology of game and there's links to all that there.

Jamie: So, Shane, thanks again. Appreciate it. And thanks to everyone for tuning in and listening. I'll talk to you next time.