So bad that it’s good..
Gunda. rick-roll. three wolves moon.
what is common in all these memes?
all went viral and reached millions. true.
all are immensely successful in creating a subculture around themselves. true.
and all were so bad, that they were classic in some respect. and here's an insight that perhaps can be exploited to create brands online.
who can forget mithun's 'do char cheh aath dus, bus'. or numerous people rickrolled online and offline. or the amazingly mediocre t-shit selling like hotcakes. (hmm.. i have never seen hotcakes sales figures really.. or a queue for buying it. where did this expression come from anyways.)
all these examples treaded on a fine balance. an exactitude of badness that necessarily has to go beyond mediocrity. i will not ponder on the measures that need to be undertaken to be exactly bad enough to get viral, but rather lets take a little time to appreciate that it pays to be bad. (hmm.. by that logic i should get an increment in my salary.. ahh.. nevertheless)
why & how they achieve their fandom? their unrivaled positioning in a space as of yet untouched by brands.
i guess the answer lies in the unnerving globalised world we live in, which is highly fragmented. so, culturally speaking, one can be a continuous media consumer who only taps into the fringes of multiple cultures exempting the mainstream or mass cultural memes altogether. this is unnerving because, this kind of culture consumption would rob a person of a cultural anchor. it is here that cultural pastiche burps out blobs of memes that people cling to for a while, before swinging into the marshy lands of another fringe. well this is bound to happen when the conscience towards outside information has to be spread over such large infoscapes. borrowing from Mcluhan's 'media: extension of man' idea, its as if our tentacles growing ever wider, becoming more fragile and numb.
Like a partially deaf ear, which required shouting at to be heard, our addiction to information has got us swinging from extremes such as bad, good, mundane to core, bare and naked, swimming in excesses.. etc.
ok that explains the importance of seeking extremes, but not the particular incidence of memes of bad extremes. well, i guess that has its root in the 'unnerving' sensation that i talked of earlier. the infiniteness of the info that one has to its disposal chops off the benchmarks that a person tries to build. the ensuing uncertainty created thereby, leaves a few routes for one to emerge out of it without looking 'uncool'. its always safe to make fun of something else which is not fantastic, while being sly and appearing 'real'. it also quenches one's need to be deviant, within the narrow sphere of web.
what is common in all these memes?
all went viral and reached millions. true.
all are immensely successful in creating a subculture around themselves. true.
and all were so bad, that they were classic in some respect. and here's an insight that perhaps can be exploited to create brands online.
who can forget mithun's 'do char cheh aath dus, bus'. or numerous people rickrolled online and offline. or the amazingly mediocre t-shit selling like hotcakes. (hmm.. i have never seen hotcakes sales figures really.. or a queue for buying it. where did this expression come from anyways.)
all these examples treaded on a fine balance. an exactitude of badness that necessarily has to go beyond mediocrity. i will not ponder on the measures that need to be undertaken to be exactly bad enough to get viral, but rather lets take a little time to appreciate that it pays to be bad. (hmm.. by that logic i should get an increment in my salary.. ahh.. nevertheless)
why & how they achieve their fandom? their unrivaled positioning in a space as of yet untouched by brands.
i guess the answer lies in the unnerving globalised world we live in, which is highly fragmented. so, culturally speaking, one can be a continuous media consumer who only taps into the fringes of multiple cultures exempting the mainstream or mass cultural memes altogether. this is unnerving because, this kind of culture consumption would rob a person of a cultural anchor. it is here that cultural pastiche burps out blobs of memes that people cling to for a while, before swinging into the marshy lands of another fringe. well this is bound to happen when the conscience towards outside information has to be spread over such large infoscapes. borrowing from Mcluhan's 'media: extension of man' idea, its as if our tentacles growing ever wider, becoming more fragile and numb.
Like a partially deaf ear, which required shouting at to be heard, our addiction to information has got us swinging from extremes such as bad, good, mundane to core, bare and naked, swimming in excesses.. etc.
ok that explains the importance of seeking extremes, but not the particular incidence of memes of bad extremes. well, i guess that has its root in the 'unnerving' sensation that i talked of earlier. the infiniteness of the info that one has to its disposal chops off the benchmarks that a person tries to build. the ensuing uncertainty created thereby, leaves a few routes for one to emerge out of it without looking 'uncool'. its always safe to make fun of something else which is not fantastic, while being sly and appearing 'real'. it also quenches one's need to be deviant, within the narrow sphere of web.
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