I love the Internet. I work, play, and communicate on this very young communication medium. Every day I come across new information. In the book, Information Anxiety, Richard Wormun estimates that the amount of raw information contained in a weeks worth of New York Times is more than a person living in the 18th century would encounter in their entire lifetime. We are truly living in the information age. For teachers, this means placing an importance on information literacy. That means learning to cull through the wealth of information out there to find what you are looking for AND creating your own content for the world to digest.
One new “thing” that has arisen out of all this information is the Internet Meme. Wikipedia defines an Internet Meme as:
The term Internet meme is a neologism used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads in a fast way from person to person via the Internet.[1] The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although this concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.
Yes, I quoted Wikipedia. If you don’t think it is accurate, I welcome debate.
Humans have always had memes, but they have generally stayed local. The Internet has allowed information to travel around the world as easily as it can to the next room. Memes are no longer local. At least no longer geographically local. Diverse groups of people are sharing information in ways not possible before the Internet. While the Internet Meme is usually something silly, it none the less shows the viral nature information has in today’s society.
I recently came across an Internet Meme timeline at the time line creation website Dipity. It has a lot of the popular memes through out the history of the Internet. Hit the link and see how many you remember. What questions does this bring up in regards to how information travels over the Internet? How do we integrate it into pedagogy?
Here are a few of my three favorite Internet Memes:
3. Hamster Dance. This one is from 1998. Hamsters + Dancing + Music = Water cooler talk and email forward for years to come. There is no arguing this one effected social interactions.
2. All your base are belong to us. This one is a video of a very bad Japanese to English video game translation. Popular in late 2001. The term “all your base are belong to us” entered into the Internet vernacular for something that is screwed up.
The video below shows how pervasive of a meme “all your base are belong to us” became. Silly? Yes. Evidence of information spread, collaboration, creativity? Yes.
1. Diet Coke and Mentos. You probably remember this one. Changed science classrooms around the world. Not only did many people try this experiment on their own, they shared their results with the rest of the world. A search of youtube for “diet coke mentos” reveals 11,000+ videos created and shared by people all over the world. Could it be that science can happen outside the classroom?
Have fun out there.
Posted by harttml 