This has to be the best Know Your Meme episode yet! great rhythm with the editing. informative historical contexualization.  masterful weaving in of popular culture. and freaking WEIRD AL is in it! COME ON! this is tooooo cool. I grew up on Weird Al!

This is American culture at its best - only Weird Al could exist in America - everything about this episode speaks to the unique experience of growing up with pop culture in the US.

Appreciating this episode requires one to understand the technological feats of audio engineering, iphone apps mania, misogynistic off-tune popularity of *some* rap artists, hip-hop’s intimate yet under-appreciate relationship with technological innovations, Weird Al as as cultural commentator long before South Park and John Stewart, internet memes as a cultural phenomenon, kanye’s popular tantrums, and satiric political commentary with popular media.

Essentially, this episode won’t make sense unless you know where to culturally place/appreciate all these aspects - yes there’s even a place for a rapper like T-Pain who can rap/sing (badly) about his love for the strippas and strippas and more strippas.  Oh and T-Pain twittered this Know Your Meme homage to his cultural legacy.

If I EVER forget why I love America - which often happens sometimes when I’ve traveling/living in other countries and fetishizing their health care system or affordable non-organic hormone pumped food or political participation levels or slower non-materialistic lifestyles - REMIND me to watch this episode of Know Your Meme.

it also looks like Sony is releasing a Weird Al compilation album. awesomeness.

elspethjane:

As Jamie Dubs just said, WE BEAT THE INTERNETZ, GUYS!  So, T-Pain just tweeted our KYM episode.  :)

I found this out while in Shanghai! Look Time.com names the Know Your Meme site as one of the top 50 Websites of 2009. When the show first launched early last year I listed my fave episodes. I knew that it was going to become a popular site even back then!

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So kenyatta produces a show called Know Your Meme. The entire show documents popular internet memes.  Memes are like genes, but instead of holding and replicating genetic information, memes are units of cultural information. The show’s style is like Jon Stewart’s Daily Show but instead of reporting on the whole world, they report on the internet.Yes the internet is a CONFUSING WORLD! How do we make sense of all the popular youtube videos and lolcats and emails about YoDawg? That’s why we need a show called Know Your Meme!

The on-screen team consists of Kenyatta, Jamie, and Ellie. And the behind screen magic consists of great internet researchers, editors, and camera people.

Now if you are wondering what what is the significance and wonder of documenting online ideas - then you must do two things right now:

1.) watch some video on Know Your Meme

2.) read Kenyatta’s interview, Life After Memes,  on Pop Tech. He discusses memetic activity as cultural practices. He also challenges Susan Blackmore’s notion that memes are bigger than people and actually control people. Kenyatta’s article essentially makes the point that memes do not control society, memes at the end of the day require people to have a life on the internet.

This would be a great place to become an internetS expert - read my post about my fave episodes from Know Your MEme - great job ellie, Jamie, Chris and Kenyatta!

kenyatta:

knowyourmeme:

Know Your Meme is looking for summer interns for a variety of internships. For more info, check out http://bit.ly/5PPNL

kenyatta and Jamie came up with the idea of Know Your Meme last year - a show that just reports on Memes with a “scientific” approach .

So with ellie, jamie and a great researcher chris J menning - oh and great editors - this show is one of the best video blogs out being produced out there!

What I think makes Know Your Meme stand out is the insightful writing and damn good research.

I love that kenyatta writes the scripts in a way that do not give simple answers for why something becomes a meme. Chris conducts AMAZINGly thorough research - they don’t these kind of research skills in school. Then kenyatta frame it in the larger context of internet culture. The the kenyatta magic is the best at the end of the meme video - where he gives  the macro perspective of the sociologically meaning of the meme.

After a few months past their start up period - I feel that Know Your Meme has finally found its rhythm and knows to work with their resources. 

And of course the writing wouldn’t matter if there wasn’t such a great crew, a great researcher like chris, great editors and a great company to build off of - rocketboom!

Here are some of my personal favorites since they started last year. Check it out and add this to your RSS feed!