The Selfish Gene: The Evolution Of Memes

Memes in today 's society are used to mock things and often are satire. For my project I choose the memes of Willy Wonka and ‘I don’t always... but when I do I’. These are used to mock morality and the triviality of the upper class and privileged respectively. These are both issues that we face in society.

We should be a part of our customers' lives and in the communities in which we serve” (Chick-fil-A). Chick-fil-A has used social media as a tool to advertise their brand and their charities. With over 35,000 social media mentions a month, the company is capable of crafting their branding and image in a matter of minutes (digiday). As of last year, a company that’s main product consists of a chicken sandwich topped with a slice of cheese and single pickle, has been able to amass 7.5 million Facebook followers and 335,000 Twitter users listening to their posts! (digiday). Chick-fil-A has a direct media line to their customers and those customers have reciprocated with a loyalty that rose to the level of listening to them at home or on their smart phones. Pretty remarkable for a quick service restaurant establishment started in an Atlanta

We are successfully utilizing social media as a powerful way to gain positive exposure and connect with our internet-savvy customers in a global and local level. We rely heavily in word-of-mouth advocacy”. (John Mackey, 2012)

In 2004 the United States of America held a presidential election as it does every four years. Throughout the process, from primary to convention, from the debates to Election Day, both the candidates and the media relied on rhetoric to influence the thoughts of the electorate. Because of the close results of the 2000 election and the bitter court battle that followed, the rhetoric of the campaigns of both major candidates in 2004 was stronger and more focused than before. To show the uses of this rhetoric and its effects on the public through the media, several topics are discussed within. First, the language used by the candidates, followed by a discussion of the political conventions and a look at the

Memes are so called (VABEs) which is the values, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations that people develop and pass on to others over time. According to Richard Brodie, Memes are the “viruses of the mind” and they are like packets of information like genes passed on from generation to generation. Memes have to have the environment to pass it on or it can die

Social media has been a huge way that companies get people to buy things or donate money. Social media can have huge impacts on people by showing the things that are going wrong; like how the elephants are dying by poachers. If people don't help the elephants they can become extinct and they will not be around any more. The way social media knows me is by knowing what kind of things that can catch my attention, they do this by showing my things that I can buy to donate to this charity. Ivory Ella catches my attention by showing me how the elephants are dying in the wild by poaching. A way that social media catches people's attention is by the way they can catch the reader's attention by the things that are going wrong. Most people know that the charities need help, but social media makes people want to donate to this charity. With social media doing this it will make people know that this organization need help to raise money. For example the social media sites may give you shirts or pictures to show that you have donated money to that charity. Some other social media sites try to get people more involved in

This article looked at the activists of Howard Dean, who campaigned in 2004. Howard Dean had no national political experience. However, his campaign left a strong impact in the political world. His campaign demonstrated that the use of the Internet would be a good tool to use for campaigns. Dean’s activists were typically engaged in politics than an average citizen. They relied on the news network using such tools as the Internet, newspapers, radio and television. They were also involved in other political and social issues other than Dean’s campaign. Sixty-six percent of his voters cited the Iraq War as one of their important issues. However, his activists were racially homogenous. Ninety-two percent of his activists were

Despite these statistics only 31% of SME businesses actively operate a social media engagement strategy, this is an opportunity for the already tech-savvy company (Ravensdale, 2015). Doughnut Time 's social media team regularly posts photos of its gourmet treats on Instagram, where it has more than 80,000 followers, as well as on Facebook, where the Doughnut Time page has received more than 55,000 (Schlesinger, 2016). When analysing these main factors, Doughnut Time appears to be posed for product development, taking advantage of opportunities through the use of menu innovation and promotion deals (Newstex, 2014).

Successful memes facilitate humans to learn, acquire, and transmit new ideas and behaviors. In Susan Blackmore’s essay “Small Creature,” she proposes that memes are the ideas and beliefs that pass on through generation. Moreover, she believes that humans’ behaviors are greatly influenced and solely dominated by memes. But there is an important omission that left untouched in her essay. Blackmore lacks a clear explanation of what exactly contribute to the success of a meme’s transmission. However, when exploring in the Malcolm Gladwell’s “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted,” we could find out that he suggests many valuable illustrations of how successful memes are transmitted and what ingredients contribute to the success. In his interesting piece, he regards successful memes as strong ties, while unsuccessful one as weak ties. In a strong-tie relationship, people keep frequent contact in-person and have shared personal history, whereas a weak-tie is with tenuous relationship. Furthermore, He argues that social media and online communications connect people with weak ties that do not profoundly influence real social change and justice. On the other hand, Gladwell cites Civil Rights Movement as a strong-tie phenomenon that motivates people to devote real sacrifice. To answer the question then of what makes one meme popular and another one not, even though memes can be transmitted discretionarily, personal

Memes have been circulating social media for over centuries now, whether it is defusing tension or raising awareness, they have become an important part of society. Memes come in all different forms including a picture, video, gif and more. Their point is to appeal to different age groups socially and relate to them. They are ideas that spread usually through social media that sometimes have a message behind them, however the message can either be informing or degrading. It all come down to whether that message is effective or not.

There are different ways on which brands can reach their customers and connect with them. Online Screen channels are becoming of main interest for brands to advertise in. From this, Youtube has become one of the main platforms on which brands decide to promote their content, not only because it is cost–effective, but because it can achieve a high impression by reaching a large audience. Different campaigns such as Volvo’s “The Epic Split”and Carrie’s Telekinetic café prank, prove the efficiency of such platform, and how different brands can take advantage of this to achieve viral marketing, such in the case of Bud Light’s Super Bowl “Up for whatever” campaign. The way in which the business approaches the consumer by taking advantage of

Social media has become a very valuable marketing tool. Companies have figured out that paying a celebrity to advertise their product is smart and more affordable advertising tactic. Today's athletes have figured out a way to not only cash in by signing lucrative endorsement deals, but they are also making big money by endorsing products on social media. A company by the name of Opendorse specializes in monetizing social media campaigns for athletes. The company ranked the the top five athletes who are getting paid the most to endorse products on Twitter. Each dollar figure is based on how much the athlete receives for posting one tweet online. In order to put this into perspective, a single television advertisement costs about

After 2004, research studying the effect of celebrity politics increased dramatically. Celebrity endorsement of a candidate can lead to an increase in voter turnout by the uninformed masses (Veer 2010, Frizzell 2011). Because this portion of the public is not aware of the nitty-gritty of politics, chances are that they will believe celebrities on almost anything. Celebrity speakers at the Democratic National Conference in 2004 increased voter turnout due to the media attention they gained (Payne 2007). A similar thing can be seen with celebrity symbolism. Bill Clinton and his saxophone, Barack Obama dancing on Ellen, and Barack Obama’s mic drop at his final State of the Union address are memorable symbols of these presidents (Street 2012). To the uninformed masses, primarily the younger generation with unfiltered access to social media, these events have become memes and internet trends. For a comprehensive modern example, Obama’s passing endorsement of K-Pop group SHINee, various comedic images released over his two terms, and his “dad humor” created a buffer to essentially shield some of his more negative politics from a large generation of young influencers, thus increasing his approval ratings from the new generations and recent social trends surrounding the 2016

From a digital folklorist aspect memes are an ideal piece of folklore as they are spread globally, instantly and have many purposes and unwritten rules. One of my favorite memes, which works best as a reaction, is “Pepe the Frog”. Pepe is one of the most comical way to express your feeling towards something as he has so many different emotions and variations. “Pepe the Frog” is not only a good folklore piece but also has an origin

Memes are also responsible for many technological advancements. The idea of a front-facing camera instead of the standard camera was spread because of the convenience it offered. In terms of memes, the meme with the standard camera evolved into a meme with both the front-facing camera and the standard camera. The well-known debate of Apple versus Android is due to memes because of the similar ideas in how they operate and competitive characteristics. The memes in this situation have benefited both the consumers and the